Mr. Muir,
Your argumentative fallacy is failure to establish your expertise. In some forums, the validity of an opinion does not depend on the ratings and flying experience of the speaker. It does here. :)

National Right to Work legislation would ban an employer and a union from agreeing to a union security clause.

So what happens? People don't pay union dues even though the law requires the union to represent them. Why pay for something if you can get t for free?

This causes a downward spiral as more and more people stop paying union dues and those that do see that it takes longer for grievances, union office hours are cut etc and then they stop paying dues as well because they don't see the value and because they can just free load like everyone else until eventually the union can no longer represent employees and is decertified due to lack of funds.

End result? The entire loser wins because there's no longer a union.

This is the GOAL of right to work legislation. They don't give a ******* about your "freedom".

If unionism is such a good idea, then why does it need to be mandatory?

It's not. Hasn't been since 1947 (Taft-Hartley Act). Not sure why people keep saying it is. No American worker is required to join a union. They have the freedom to work wherever they want.

They also do not have to contribute financially to any union's political activities if they do not want to.

However, the union does provide a service through its collective bargaining power (on average: higher wages, better health coverage, better retirement benefits, better work rules, legal representation. You don't have to take my word for it. Lots of data out there from reputable non-partisan sources). Taft-Hartley also states that the union will provide that for EVERY SINGLE worker at the company, regardless of union membership. It does however state that even if you don't want to join the union or support its political activities (which again, has been EVERY SINGLE American's right since 1947) you do have to pay a fee for those services being provided to you, called an agency fee.

"Right-to-work" laws simply eliminate the agency fee. That's it. They don't have a thing to do with someone's right to work, which already exists. If these laws were completely about rugged, conservative individualism, and they stated that "you don't want to join a union or pay fees, no problem. You don't have to. You can be free to fend for yourself, and the union and its members can be free to do what they want for themselves," I'd be all about it. Knock yourselves out. But they aren't like that. That's not really the goal of these laws. It is to systematically erode the union's ability to function by making them provide all of the services/benefits to even those who do not contribute, which over time will be more and more people, reducing the union's ability to operate and achieve gains through a united, collective bargaining labor force (great for management and quarterly profits, by the way).

Every "right-to-work" law includes that one key, vital component, in that they come through on the first part (you don't have to join or pay fees), but they still force the union to provide you with all the benefits anyway. That is the crucial, insidious aspect of them, in that they allow people to receive something for nothing.

Well said.

and another good post

Of course it is, it is forced unionism. And the federal laws supporting it are unconstitutional. The state level is a different thing entirely.




You should look up the word "fungible" [/QUOTE]

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1. It's not forced unionism. When you choose to go to work at a place where a majority of workers voted to unionize and where management and the union agreed on a union security clause you made the choice to support a union financially for the service it provides.

2. When you buy a home you know if there's a HOA and you know what the fee is. It's your choice to either buy the house or not. If you buy the house you're required to pay HOA dues or they'll take your home.

Well, I don't know what to tell you. The Supreme Court disagrees with you (Abood v. Detroit Bd. of Ed. 1977), and they're still the ones who determine what is constitutional in this country.