WashPo (opinion): The right-to-work dilemma

[alexey]

A surprisingly balanced article by Charles Krauthammer, who is usually much more of a sauerkraut.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-right-to-work-dilemma/2012/12/13/28e2ce2c-4567-11e2-8061-253bccfc7532_story.html?tid=pm_pop

For all the fury and fistfights outside the Lansing Capitol, what happened in Michigan this week was a simple accommodation to reality. The most famously unionized state, birthplace of the United Auto Workers, royalty of the American working class, became right-to-work.

It’s shocking, except that it was inevitable. Indiana went that way earlier this year. The entire Rust Belt will eventually follow because the heyday of the sovereign private-sector union is gone. Globalization has made splendid isolation impossible.

The nostalgics look back to the immediate postwar years when the UAW was all-powerful, the auto companies were highly profitable and the world was flooded with American cars. In that Golden Age, the UAW won wages, benefits and protections that were the envy of the world.

Today’s angry protesters demand a return to that norm. Except that it was not a norm but a historical anomaly. America, alone among the great industrial powers, emerged unscathed from World War II. Japan was a cinder, Germany rubble and the allies — beginning with Britain and France — an exhausted shell of their former imperial selves.

For a generation, America had the run of the world. Then the others recovered. Soon global competition — from Volkswagen to Samsung — began to overtake American industry that was saddled with protected, inflated, relatively uncompetitive wages, benefits and work rules.

There’s a reason Detroit went bankrupt while the southern auto transplants did not. This is not to exonerate incompetent overpaid management that contributed to the fall. But clearly the wage, benefit and work-rule gap between the unionized North and the right-to-work South was a major factor.

President Obama railed against the Michigan legislation, calling right-to-work “giving you the right to work for less money.” Well, there is a principle at stake here: A free country should allow its workers to choose whether to join a union. Moreover, it is more than slightly ironic that Democrats, the fiercely pro-choice party, reserve free choice for aborting a fetus while denying it for such matters as choosing your child’s school or joining a union.

Principle and hypocrisy aside, however, the president’s statement has some validity. Let’s be honest: Right-to-work laws do weaken unions. And de-unionization can lead to lower wages.

But there is another factor at play: having a job in the first place. In right-to-work states, the average wage is about 10 percent lower. But in right-to-work states, unemployment also is about 10 percent lower.

Higher wages or lower unemployment? It is a wrenching choice. Although, you would think that liberals would be more inclined to spread the wealth — i.e., the jobs — around, preferring somewhat lower pay in order to leave fewer fellow workers mired in unemployment.

Think of the moral calculus. Lower wages cause an incremental decline in one’s well-being. No doubt. But for the unemployed, the decline is categorical, sometimes catastrophic — a loss not just of income but of independence and dignity.

Nor does protectionism offer escape from this dilemma. Shutting out China and the others deprives less well-off Americans of access to the kinds of goods once reserved for the upper classes: quality clothing, furnishings, electronics, durable goods — from the Taiwanese-manufactured smartphone to the affordable, highly functional Kia.

Globalization taketh away. But it giveth more. The net benefit of free trade has been known since, oh, 1817. (See David Ricardo and the Law of Comparative Advantage.) There is no easy parachute from reality.

Obama calls this a race to the bottom. No, it’s a race to a new equilibrium that tries to maintain employment levels, albeit at the price of some modest wage decline. It is a choice not to be despised.

I have great admiration for the dignity and protections trade unionism has brought to American workers. I have no great desire to see the private-sector unions defenestrated. (Like FDR, Fiorello La Guardia and George Meany, however, I don’t extend that sympathy to public-sector unions.)

But rigidity and nostalgia have a price. The industrial Midwest is littered with the resulting wreckage. Michigan most notably, where its formerly great metropolis of Detroit is reduced to boarded-up bankruptcy by its inability and unwillingness to adapt to global change.

It’s easy to understand why a state such as Michigan would seek to recover its competitiveness by emulating the success of Indiana. One can sympathize with those who pine for the union glory days, while at the same time welcoming the new realism that promises not an impossible restoration but desperately needed — and doable — recalibration and recovery.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Right-to-Work = Right to get fired for joining a union. It is legalized union busting. Sure you have the choice as a worker to join a union, but when you do the company has the right to dismiss you without cause.

Do unions need to recognize that globalization has changed the game? Yes, is the elimination of unions the proper corrective? No.

[LadySkinsFan]

Thank you ASF for your post. Right-to-work laws or at-will employment only benefits the companies, not employees, union or not. It's hard to get a legitimate discrimination case through the process because employers can just fire at will without any reason, and there is no recourse.

[HOF44]

They should call it "Right to Fire" not "Right to Work" laws.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Thank you ASF for your post. Right-to-work laws or at-will employment only benefits the companies, not employees, union or not. It's hard to get a legitimate discrimination case through the process because employers can just fire at will without any reason, and there is no recourse.

And hen after you've been fired and you file suit, the company just looks at the jury and says that you are just a disgruntled worker who was terminated, but they can't tell you why because those reasons are confidential.

[twa]

Choice is a wonderful thing

[AsburySkinsFan]

Choice is a wonderful thing

Wow, that thinking in this context is disgusting because it can be used to excuse any level of abuse by an employer.

[Thiebear]

Fire for any reason? It takes months and multiple offenses to fire anyone and I drive by the "right to work" building in Virginia all the time.

[alexey]

Right-to-Work = Right to get fired for joining a union. It is legalized union busting. Sure you have the choice as a worker to join a union, but when you do the company has the right to dismiss you without cause.

Do unions need to recognize that globalization has changed the game? Yes, is the elimination of unions the proper corrective? No.

I suppose the million dollar question is, what is the proper corrective?

With cheap shipping costs, cheap overseas labor costs, and global competition, can unions still do things that they can do before?

[AsiaticSkinsFan]

its a shame that these corporations have created an environment where people support them over their own interests as workers.

[AsburySkinsFan]

I suppose the million dollar question is, what is the proper corrective?

With cheap shipping costs, cheap overseas labor costs, and global competition, can unions still do things that they can do before?

Yes, obviously with moderated expectstions for compensation etc. But what we are seeing now by employers is a race to the bottom, and the first one to get US employees to work for 3rd World wages wins!

---------- Post added December-14th-2012 at 11:05 AM ----------

its a shame that these corporations have created an environment where people support them over their own interests as workers.

Create a sense of desperation and dependency and when people hear, "Let them eat cake" it is followed with applause becuase of the generosity of their benefactors.

[twa]

its a shame that these corporations have created an environment where people support them over their own interests as workers.

Would that be the unemployed worker or the union ones self interests?

keeping a fellow American out of work so you can get more goodies seems the path unions have chosen far too many times

[AsburySkinsFan]

Would that be the unemployed worker or the union ones self interests?

keeping a fellow American out of work so you can get more goodies seems the path unions have chosen far too many times

And the Right would employ the whole world for 25 cents an hour and then proclaim their greatness through the number of people they employ.

It isn't either or.....

[alexey]

Yes, obviously with moderated expectstions for compensation etc. But what we are seeing now by employers is a race to the bottom, and the first one to get US employees to work for 3rd World wages wins!

Unions lost some of their power to shape economic realities and we seem pretty far from having a government that can do so effectively.

I am concerned about what happens when this global reshuffling of jobs simply leaves USA with fewer jobs we need.

[AsburySkinsFan]

Unions lost some of their power to shape economic realities and we seem pretty far from having a government that can do so effectively.

I am concerned about what happens when this global reshuffling of jobs simply leaves USA with fewer jobs we need.

Here's the really scary part...who will be left to buy stuff when all of the jobs are shipped off?

[twa]

And the Right would employ the whole world for 25 cents an hour and then proclaim their greatness through the number of people they employ.

It isn't either or.....

plenty of jobs here and good pay....and even union workers

limiting the ability for extortion by unions/= working for peanuts

[alexey]

Here's the really scary part...who will be left to buy stuff when all of the jobs are shipped off?

Developing countries, I guess... looks like:

globalization + free market = global quality of life equalization

[rictus58]

Here's the really scary part...who will be left to buy stuff when all of the jobs are shipped off?

THAT isn't a union v non-union issue. That's an issue of people demanding the lowest possible price on crap at the expense of their "neighbors".

[AsburySkinsFan]

Developing countries, I guess... looks like:

globalization + free market = global quality of life equalization

You really think developing countries are going to be in the market for $3,000 washer and dryer combos?

---------- Post added December-14th-2012 at 11:23 AM ----------

THAT isn't a union v non-union issue. That's an issue of people demanding the lowest possible price on crap at the expense of their "neighbors".

But it is certainly connected, because the unions are the one's who are setting the standard for work-place compensation. Which is why when Toyota started opening plants in the US they made them non-union but offered union compensation packages.

[rictus58]

But it is certainly connected, because the unions are the one's who are setting the standard for work-place compensation. Which is why when Toyota started opening plants in the US they made them non-union but offered union compensation packages.

so then, using your line of thinking, wouldn't THE UNION be responsible for jobs being shipped overseas? They are setting the high working wage for their union members. In order to provide the goods people are "willing" to pay (and many times conditioned to pay), a company is going to need to find the savings elsewhere to provide the products. It's pie in the sky to think that savings will come from the board-members.

I wish people would remember this when they go to Wal-mart to buy their cart full of Made in China stuff.

I think "for the most part" unions are not needed for most workers. This isn't the turn of the century when the government had very little regulations when it came to employment.

You mentioned earlier employers taking advantage of the employees in right to work states. The inverse could also be true. Employees taking advantage of their employer who cannot fire them so easily. They know they can get away with XYZ. Maryland is a right to work state. Even if you are a state employee. Yet their HR dept makes is downright impossible for people to be fired. So the workers respond accordingly.

[Tulane Skins Fan]

The term "Right to Work" is a prime example of what is wrong with this country. That would be like calling incarceration "Right to sit in a jailed cell" or calling the Voter ID laws the "Right to not have to go to the voting both."

And no, that wasn't a balanced article. It was written from a very conservative perspective that doesn't understand that some of us think unions are a good thing.

[JMS]

Would that be the unemployed worker or the union ones self interests?

keeping a fellow American out of work so you can get more goodies seems the path unions have chosen far too many times

Somehow in our country unions have gotten a dirty name as anti competitive, but it's a line of reasoning that frankly doesn't hold up.

The folks winning the export war namely Japan and Germany are both heavily unionized with "goodies" for workers out the whazoo.

All human activity (history and present day) is cyclical... The reasons why unions were created was to get rights for workers... Rights for workers in Andrew Carnegie steel mills for example, 1 out of every 11 of whom could expect to be killed on the job in 1900 in any given year. Back then the work week for an industrial worker was 60 hours a week. 6 , 10 hour shifts... and the wage was barely above subsistence as 90% of the US workforce lived bellow the poverty line.

So today we are a prosperous country and we have workplace safety laws and relatively reasonable wages. So unions which helped us get all these things and emerge from an adolescent economy into a mature economy are no longer as important to the folks who work in any given industry. Tomorrow when we no longer have these safeguards, unions will again become important and they will again emerge as the mechanism for workers to create rights in the workplace..

The major issue as I see it, in order to get the right to unionize in this country we nearly toar the country apart. Battle of Blair Mountain, The Homestead steel mill battle.... It was a bloody bloody war fought by labor in this country to get the rights we have today. that we take for granted today... The same rights which we are going to loose when the American Unions and Labor movement are degraded. Let's hope we survive the next iteration of the battles between labor and corporations... odds are the country won't.... based on global events... What made this country work and allowed us to get to the golden era of the US WWII through the 1970's was the partnership between labor and corporations which fell out of the original bloody struggle.

[Thiebear]

then this one should be better: http://www.balancedpolitics.org/unions.htm

Its not 6 and 6 but the one commentor at the end helps the yes side.

explanation from the AFL-CIO

A “right to work” law is a state law that stops employers and employees from negotiating an agreement – also known as a union security clause – that requires all workers who receive the benefits of a collective bargaining agreement to pay their share of the costs of representing them. Right to Work laws say that unions must represent every eligible employee, whether he or she pays dues or not. In other words, “Right to Work” laws allow workers to pay nothing and still get all the benefits of union membership.

“Right to Work” laws aren’t fair to dues-paying members. If a worker who is represented by a union and doesn’t pay dues is fired illegally, the union must use its time and money to defend him or her, even if that requires going through a costly, time-consuming legal process. Since the union represents everyone, everyone benefits, so everyone should share in the costs of providing these services. Amazingly, nonmembers who are represented by a union can even sue the union is they think it has not represented them well enough!

In SEIU/OPEU the dues rate for this local is 1.7% of your gross pay

[twa]

In other words, “Right to Work” laws allow workers to pay nothing and still get all the benefits of union membership.

seems like that would get full progressive support

it also allows workers at shops that go union freedom of choice

[JMS]

In other words, “Right to Work” laws allow workers to pay nothing and still get all the benefits of union membership.

seems like that would get full progressive support

it also allows workers at shops that go union freedom of choice

It is an attempt to weaken unions by limiting membership while giving incentive for shop owners to fire unioin workers and hire non union workers.... All legally...

Problem is historically when labor rises up and asks for a fair shake in the face of these legislative road blocks to organizing; violence occurs. typically by shop owners, but eventually and almost always labor follows suit.

The largest uprising since the civil war the Blair Mountain Revolt was one such attempted crackdown on labor's attempt to unionize, Andrew Carnegie's Homestead steel foundry revolt was another.