Honest question (am from Europe). Why are not unions (labor) part of the right to free association in the US? Or is it that they must comprise the whole labor force?
EDIT: Wow: thanks a lot. Unbelievably complicated to me…
EDIT: Wow: thanks a lot. Unbelievably complicated to me…
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Besides the U.S. Supreme Court, other proponents of right-to-work laws also point to the Constitution and the right to freedom of association. They argue that workers should both be free to join unions or to refrain, and thus, sometimes refer to states without right-to-work laws as forced unionism states. These proponents argue that by being forced into a collective bargain, what the majoritarian unions call a fair share of collective bargaining costs, is actually financial coercion and a violation of freedom of choice. An opponent to the union bargain is forced to financially support an organization for which they did not vote in order to receive monopoly representation for which they have no choice.
>In Canadian labour law, the Rand formula (also referred to as automatic check-off and compulsory checkoff)[1] is a workplace compromise arising from jurisprudence struck between organized labour (trade unions) and employers that guarantees employers industrial stability by requiring all workers affected by a collective agreement to pay dues to the union by mandatory deduction in exchange for the union agreement to "work now, grieve later." Historically, in some workplaces, some workers refused to pay dues to the union even after benefiting from wage and benefit improvements negotiated by the union representatives, resulting in friction and violence as they were seen as 'free-loaders;' at the same time, absence of a peaceful grievance settlement mechanism created industrial instability as union members often walked off the job. The compromise was designed to ensure that no employee will opt out of the union simply to avoid dues yet reap the benefits of collective bargaining, such as higher wages or health insurance.
This appears to be completely separate logic? A balance of interests, in the Canadian case, and an inaliable right, in the U.S. one.
The situations are similar, but the logic used and conclusions reached are quite separate. Understanding the different paths taken exposes it as far from euphemism.
Regardless, "right to work" is more about banning certain union contracts than about providing some "right" to have a job or anything like that.
Edited for precision in response to whimsicalism's reply:
The extent of right to work laws is that union contracts (or I guess any contract) cannot require all employees to pay union fees as part of the union contract. That's it. There's no further restrictions on employers, only this particular restriction on employer-union contracts.
No, they are not.
Employers are prohibited from altering employment contracts ex post facto. But employers are free to make offers conditional on joining a union. Given most employers have wide latitude to alter terms of employment under threat of termination, practically any employer who wants to unionize can trivially do so.
But that is a straw man. In practice, a fraction of employees want to unionize and the employer (with some employees) does not. The argument against unionization is that the first group can't force the second groups into a union contract. The argument for is that they can, provided they represent a majority of the employees.
Here's Alabama's Right to Work amendment, which is broadly representative: https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_Right_to_Work,_Amendment_8_(...
Key passages are
> (c) No person shall be required by an employer to become or remain a member of any labor union or labor organization as a condition of employment or continuation of employment.
> (e) An employer may not require a person, as a condition of employment or continuation of employment, to pay dues, fees, or other charges of any kind to any labor union or labor organization.
The employer is not allowed to make union membership or dues a condition of employment, whether due to a union contract or out of their own volition.
Interestingly, if you want to look at my other post where I discuss noncompetes vs. Right to Work, you'll find that a number of states, when dealing with noncompetes, consider continued employment "sufficient consideration" for the noncompete. This means that in practice, they're allowed to change your employment contract (w.r.t. a noncompete, and presumably other things), and continuing to employ you is enough to make the contract valid, they don't need to offer you anything additional.
Georgia and Florida are two (but there are more) "right to work" states, where the employer is fully within their rights to change your employment contract ex-post-facto, except in regards to union membership.
Right to work laws do not prevent union members from entering a contract with the union to pay it dues because they think it will benefit them. That's how contracts should work. I think you're just trying to play leftist word games to confuse the issue.
In my view, the word games are around the phrase "right to work." Freedom of contract and association is quite unambiguous.
Here's the right to work laws by state: https://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-to-...
Here's a (pdf warning) list of noncompete laws by state: https://faircompetitionlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/No...
Note that only 3 states (California, Oklahoma, and North Dakota) ban non-competes (and I'd quibble with this, California and ND afaik ban noncompetes about poaching customers/clients, while Oklahoma allows you ban employees from poaching client, so CA and ND have the strongest noncompete protection, and one is right to work and one isn't). Of these, North and South Dakota are Right-to-Work, and California is not. It's also hard to draw particular conclusions about trends among (I think the only real one I see is that non-right to work states have salary minimums before you can be subject to a noncompete, but so much of the specifics comes down to how courts have interpreted things). What is pretty clear is that there isn't a strong correlation between right to work laws and noncompete laws.
And further, if you look at the right to work statues (for example Alabama's constitutional amendment: https://ballotpedia.org/Alabama_Right_to_Work,_Amendment_8_(..., or Oklahoma's : https://www.findlaw.com/state/oklahoma-law/oklahoma-right-to... as examples), you'll find that they're tailored specifically to prohibit requirements about union dues. They have nothing to do with noncompetes.
So the text of the statutes are unrelated, and its not even clear that there's a general trend of states with right to work laws having more noncompete protection.
I sort of expect you or your lawyer is extrapolating from one state (probably North Dakota, if I had to guess).
Reasonableness is key to enforcement, meaning a reasonable radius, time and field. Any agreement that prevents you from working in your field is defacto-unenforceable specifically because it’s unreasonable.
Both of these attorneys had been practicing in the state for 20 years at the time of the conversation. One graduated from Georgetown and the other from University of South Carolina’s law school.
My understanding from them was that right to work was interpreted as ensuring you actually have “the right to work” via case law with noncompete agreements.
IANAL
I'm downvoted, but that is literally what right-to-work is.
That take seems very myopic and lacks nuance. There were entire jobsites (which had multiple crews from different companies) that we couldn't work on unless we were members. That's illegal in right-to-work states. It doesn't limit the freedom of association - I suggest it prevents discrimination by association.
So it absolutely limits freedom of association by preventing organizations from choosing whom they associate with. Requiring you to employ someone can hardly be seen as a "freedom". Whether such a restriction is ethical or not, and whether such a restriction is constitutional or not are two different questions (and those two questions, and the question of whether it is a restriction on freedom of association may have different answers!).
I don't think I said they did.
> Everyone is still free to associate, or not associate, with whomever they want.
But are limited in the ways they can associate: certain contract terms are prohibited. Again, whether or not this is good is a distinct question. Minimum wage laws prohibit certain contract terms that I consider predatory (but in a sense the government is simply collectively bargaining on behalf of all workers in setting a minimum wage). Conversely, a government setting a maximum wage would probably be considered problematic. But all three, a minimum wage, a maximum wage, and "right to work" laws, limit how you can associate.
Freedom of association is the right to join or to leave groups voluntarily. You still need to respect peoples other rights, and follow other applicable laws while associated. There are some laws like child labor laws which do restrict people from being able to voluntarily join or leave a group, but right to work and minimum wage laws are not such cases.
You can sign an agreement to use only a particular supplier for a product, unless that product is labor and the supplier is a union.
I guess I'll cite Alabama's right to work amendment for the 4th time today:
> No person shall be required by an employer to become or remain a member of any labor union or labor organization as a condition of employment or continuation of employment.
The screen actor's guild often works as a labor supplier, but they cannot negotiate a contract in Alabama to be the only supplier of labor for a film. I mean I guess you can split hairs and claim that it's the combination of Taft-Hartly and right to work laws that create the situation, but since such a contract is valid in other states, it's really only the right to work law that's relevant.
> As I said previously, freedom of association means you can enter a contract with whomever you want, it does not mean you can enter a contract to do whatever you want.
I think you'll have a hard time describing how the law banning some of these would violate freedom of association, but for others it wouldn't:
- A contract that requires the employee to be black
- A contract requiring the employee to hold some certification
- A contract requiring the employee to hold membership in a professional organization
- A contract requiring the employee to hold membership in a union
- A contract requiring a salary of $2.00 an hour (minimum wage laws are also often considered a violation of freedom of association)I suspect there may be some confusion due to how we use language, but it should be noted that the freedom of association is a right that people have to join or to leave groups. Organizations, including companies, are not people and thus don't have this same right, at least not to the same extent, even though the individuals within the organization do.
> A contract that requires the employee to be black
Technically races aren't groups that can be freely associated or disassociated with, so not a freedom of association violation, but obviously still discrimination and thus an invalid contract to enter into. If you broadened it to be a contract that required employees to be members of some traditionally black group, then it would be a violation of freedom of association.
> A contract requiring the employee to hold some certification
So long as anyone is free to get the certification without being compelled to associate or disassociate with anyone, this is fine as it does not restrict who can join and leave groups. If your association is a condition of getting the certificate, it's an obvious violation.
> A contract requiring the employee to hold membership in a professional organization
Restricts a person's right to voluntarily join or to leave a group, obvious violation.
> A contract requiring the employee to hold membership in a union
The same situation as the professional group.
> A contract requiring a salary of $2.00 an hour
So long as you can't pay anyone a salary of $2.00 an hour, has no affect on who people can or can't associate with, there is obviously no violation of freedom of association, regardless of whether people falsely claim it is. If, on the other hand, people from one group can be paid $2.00 an hour but people from another group are restricted from being able to enter that same agreement, then it's an obvious violation.
Now here's an example for you:
Should an employer be permitted to require an employee to register as a member of the employer's chosen political party and contribute some financial minimum to that political party as a condition of employment? How about political group technically unaffiliated with any political party but nevertheless with a distinct ideology? How about a religious group instead of a political one? If your reaction is "employers should not be allowed to compel me to become a member of and pay money to these organizations as a condition of employment" then we're on the same page.
We can argue about morality (and whether or not I'd work for such an employer) but yes they are, afaik, all legal things for an employee to mandate.
> > A contract requiring the employee to hold membership in a union
> The same situation as the professional group [a violation]
Then you agree that right to work laws like Alabama's violate freedom of association?
Less facetiously, bank robbing is merely one extreme example of something you're not allowed to enter into an agreement to do. You also can't enter an agreement to provide sexual favors for financial compensation, or employ people full time for less than minimum wage, or require someone to donate an organ to you in exchange for financial compensation. None of these are violations of the freedom of association - there's no restriction on the groups you can freely join or leave, there are just certain things that you can't do regardless of the groups you are or aren't in. In right to work jurisdictions, requiring non-union members to pay union agency fees is just one of those things you are not permitted to do, and thus can't enter an agreement to do.
Nobody is being forced - everybody is voluntarily accepting or refusing contracts.
I am curious how this works with agency fees though - it shouldn't be legal to require union membership, but it might be legal to require agency fees paid to a union.
As an employee, I prefer to have the right to choose whether to join a union or not, but many folks don't want me to have that choice.
As an example, if this warehouse votes to unionize, will I still be able to work there without joining the union if I don't want to? No, I will be forced to join or leave.
There are no laws forcing employees to join a union.
Some businesses might enter into contracts with their employees. Right-to-work states attempt to put restrictions on that freedom of contract by making certain contracts illegal for businesses to accept.
There is no right to employment, businesses can fire you for reason outside of any explicitly encoded wrongful termination reason.
Right-to-work proposes to ban private businesses from proposing or entering into such a contract. But there is no law requiring employees to join a union.
Having a unionized workplace is a bit like having a democratic government – in the U.S., we're born and become citizens of the U.S. government and all that comes with that. We can't "opt out" unless we move out of the country and renounce our citizenship. We still have to pay taxes and we get all the benefits of our government (safety, education, roads, etc.) even if we don't want to – you can't just not pay taxes, right?
If you don't want to join a union workplace, just find a non-union workplace. If you don't want to join a new union, vote against it and find another job if they accept the union? That's more choice than you get with being a citizen of a country where you pay taxes! (And usually, union dues are less than the negotiated benefit/wage increases anyway.)
They are saying that non-union workers are bound by the union's decision and have to pay into it.
You are saying that this is a good thing.
Almost always as a rule they are. You are not going to get people to vote for a union security clause that decreases net pay.
There absolutely are states where certain trades must be performed by union employees. My company almost got into an expensive legal battle because the locale we were working in required union contractors for electrical work. The union claimed our payroll staff (IT) violated local union laws because the union saw them running ethernet cables which constituted "low voltage" work, something the union was supposed to do. This shutdown the jobsite for our staff while the union and our company sorted things out.
There are actually lots of legally binding agreements that do just this, so the fact that the law is used to enforce an agreement vs. the law directly stating it doesn't really have much material difference.
Second - employment is at-will, if you no longer agree with the contract you are free to quit at any time.
The law is not forcing employees to join a union, the private business entered into a contract with a security clause. "Right-to-work" is around banning businesses from entering into certain voluntary agreements. It has nothing to do with laws requiring employees to join a union, as no such law exists.
This law is called basic contract law. A company can agree to only hire via a union just like a university can agree to only sell Pepsi products.
> I prefer to have the right to choose whether to join a union or not
I prefer to have the right to choose whether I am under my management structure or not. I suppose someone could say one can go somewhere else, but that would apply to a company with an exclusive union contract as well.
> The Taft–Hartley Act outlawed the closed shop in the United States in 1947. The union shop was ruled illegal by the Supreme Court.
From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_shop#United_States
As a supermarket cashier I was told in no uncertain terms that I had to join the union as a condition of employment. No union, no job.
It's illegal in the US to fire an employee chiefly for attempting to unionize their workplace. That can be difficult to prove, but it's one of the explicit protections provided by the NLRA and, when proven, is usually sufficient grounds for unconditional reinstatement[1].
So, to be clear: labor rights in the US are more than just "free association" rights. You have an exceptional right, under federal labor law, to expend time and space within your workplace with the goal of unionizing. It is illegal for your employer to retaliate against your organization under the guise of either "free association" on their behalf or at-will employment.
[1]: https://www.dol.gov/sites/dolgov/files/olms/regs/compliance/...
That said, this is what unions originally started out as and they were still successful. If anything, the post-legal enshrinement of unions has coincided with their weakening.
I am curious if this period of tight labor markets will bring a new chapter in union history.
The NLR{A,B} is very precise about what it considers to be a legitimate form of organized labor, the fact of which does not detract from it being illegal for an employer to fire you for attempting to organize in a form recognized under the NLRA.
It is only illegal to fire an employ for attempting to form a union of the NLRB sanctioned structure. An organization of workers that undertakes a wildcat strike can be legally fired.
Union votes like the one described here are about triggering protections of US law that will require Amazon to negotiate with the union.
That environment has been great for pro-business interests to push laws that weaken union power in many states.
You can bet companies (especially Amazon) are aware of this fact.
I find the only thing keeping groups from organizing is some schlub running an out-of-band comm network, and a fear of being heard mentioning the U-word in the workplace, and a general ignorance of just how much anti-union FUD is spread, and how amazingly cheap it is to produce balanced against how effective it is at disincenting organization.
Don't get me wrong, not everywhere needs a union. The places that do though, there really is no other option.
Source: Lived it.
What the real comment there is, is that there is a tendency for places where you have a pronounced homogenous workforce that culturally identify or share some other commonality with one another are considered unionization risks. Solidarity amongst the ranks breeds contempt of leadership, especially at a distance. It's harder to divide, and they're more likely to forge an outgroup of corporate. This is why you fill in "I'd rather not answer" on those forms, or leave it blank. There is no data point you are asked to give that some data analyst doesn't intend to mine for value in one way or another, and if you think "no one would ever do that!", I would advise you to eschew offers of bridge sales at questionable locations.
Also, it's damn easy to get even diverse groups to organize once everyone understands how the game is played. The thing is, most people don't talk about that sort of thing or haven't seen it with their own eyes/done it enough to understand just how much gets done in an "under the radar", "I never said that", fashion. If ya don't believe me, start asking for things in writing. Ask HR what they think Market Rate is. Whole different side of people comes out.
Workplaces in particular rely on the fact that workers are by and large, just out to make a living, self-interested, and conflict averse. When unions seem to be starting to form, it's easier to paint them as a threatening outgroup, threatening other worker's jobs because "paying more would impact margins/break the bank", or that the union isn't ultimately out to help anyone but the union; or is out to hold the high performers back. This predates on that self-interest motive, and tries to project an in-group association between the employer and the non-union employee. Psychology works, sadly.
Workplaces fear labor organization more than anything else. It's why the Taft-Hartley Act would never have gone anywhere without illegalizing secondary striking (whereby unions would shut down an entire industrial sector to show solidarity for one another). Capital allocators absolutely could not tolerate that kind of threat from the labor force. It's said that's balanced by illegalizing the practice of blacklisting by the Capital class; but you'll find that as capital gets more and more centralized in the hands of fewer and fewer investors, it's much easier to practice that type of collusion without paper trail, or make it so obfuscated as to not be worth looking for. See the Silicon Valley no-poaching agreement.
It's more palatable to back-rationalize things as being the way they are for some exceptional reason.
This is certainly terrible. Man, what a mess.
Thanks.
"Make America Great Again" doesn't reference anything in particular. It is just a catch-all phrase that captures the emotions of nostalgia, a remembrance of a better place that never was.
But - as you aptly demonstrate - it lends itself perfectly to project onto anything anyone could imagine and it is ambiguous enough to be applicable for pretty much everything.
That's why it's a actually a pretty good slogan.
That is just patently wrong. It was a reaction to the previous administration's foreign policy strategy, which was to position America as less of a world leader and more of a partner.
Conservatives frequently criticized one of President Obama's early trips as an "apology tour", and were incensed when he appeared to bow to the Saudi king.
Also, they disliked the domestic policies which had a socialized feel.
It literally had nothing to do with the civil rights movement.
Happen to know of any direct discussion of this being the intent behind that slogan from the Trump administration? Especially from Trump himself?
If you don't trust me, a quick google search yields tons of results:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-donald-trump-cam...
Quote:
“I felt that jobs were hurting,” he said. “I looked at the many types of illness our country had, and whether it’s at the border, whether it’s security, whether it’s law and order or lack of law and order. Then, of course, you get to trade, and I said to myself, ‘What would be good?’ I was sitting at my desk, where I am right now, and I said, ‘Make America Great Again.’ ”
Security and trade would be the foreign policy bits that he felt we were far too weak on.
This begins to make much more sense.
In the U.S. this is an exclusive right—a "unit" of workers can only have one certified bargaining agent, and that union must represent all workers in the bargaining unit. It's also illegal for the employer to negotiate with any party other than the recognized union.
To my understanding, this is different from Europe and can seem strange to Europeans. Understanding how this framework came about historically can be useful. Before the National Labor Relations Act, workers would strike in order to gain recognition and the right for the union to negotiate on their behalf. The NLRA election framework was an attempt to bring about "labor peace" by introducing orderly elections instead.
This was generally supported by a certain segment of capital who could afford it and saw the cost-benefit as worth it, especially finance capital who were much more favorable to New Deal politics, and opposed by others. On the workers' side, this has undoubtedly made it easier to win recognition from the employer, but some see it as having sapped workers' militancy over the long run by trading away pitched battles that revealed sharp class antagonisms for a more orderly bureaucratic process.
They are - you can already form a union whenever you want with whoever you want (some exceptions like armed forces.)
This vote is about forcing the employer to talk to your union.
How do you ensure that your unionizing vote (which includes details of how the union will operate, since they each have their own charter), is fair? You have to get the parent company involved, otherwise you might be disenfranchising eligible voters/members and/or involving outside parties.
This is where it gets ugly because the company (usually) has a vested interest in observing that the vote fails.
So the company, being a private entity, can say that you can't talk about the union while at work. It can show you "training videos" and other anti-union materials without repercussion.
And it's mostly the union that wants it to be all or nothing, because that's the only way it really works. If 5 guys are in the union, but the other 95 are not, then the company doesn't really have to negotiate with the union.
Collective bargaining only has power when it represents the entire collective. Or at least most. But if it is in such a position that it can start negotiating, I'm sure one of the things it will negotiate is that anyone working at the company must be a union member. Which is there, yes, to protect the union, but also the workers in the union. Because if the company can hire non-union members, it can slowly replace the entire workforce with non-union labor and eventually soft-terminate the union.
The entire situation is complicated and there are lots of places where people can be taken advantage of from every angle.
Not American but interestingly there is no freedom of association defined in the First Amendment but rather recognized by the courts as a fundamental right. Part of the challenge when it comes to unions is that it goes both ways, including the freedom to join AND the freedom to leave. This makes something like labour organization tougher to define without coming down to heavy on one side or the other. There are a bunch of aspects and this is only one; it's incredibly complex in any jurisdiction, but especially in one that prioritizes the individual.
It's an implicit right (whether fundamental or not), and the courts recognized freedom of association as being implicitly necessary to fully exercise the rights explicitly recognized in the first amendment.
It's not freedom to join vs freedom to leave, but whether a contractual agreement can limit this right; can a contractual agreement exclude a party from associating with other parties.
Exclusive labor contracts are one example (presuming the company's agreement to exclusivity was truly voluntarily, which is debatable), but what about other contracts?
Given that every purchase is a contractual agreement, could Sony put a clause in the sales agreement that says the buyer can never buy another brand of TV? What if it was only while you owned and used the Sony TV? What if your Sony TV discovers another brand TV on your home network and bricks itself until you get rid of other TV?
The right to a secret vote is equally implicit in the constitution, but we wouldn't hold a contract that forfeits that right to be valid, just as a contract requiring someone to vote a certain way would be illegal.
In the US version there is a single union for a particular employer, and the employee is forced to join that particular one. (Barring certain laws that complicate this picture a bit.)
This is also why unions work in Europe: There is competition among them, and the employee chooses. In contrast in the US because there is a single one for an employer the unions are frequently corrupt and don't actually do anything helpful for the employee.
In my experience in the UK and Norway I was treated just the same by both my employers and the unions even though I have never been a union member.
The US history was separated and a little different. The New Deal compromise was from 1933 to the 1970s, and has been somewhat rolled back since then. The average inflation-adjusted hourly wage has fallen in the US since the early 70s, so the average US worker is worse off in that respect than they were a half century ago.