Why 2010 Was More Important Than You Remember
It brought back right to work.
Source: National Right to Work Foundation. “Forced Unionism” is of course a ridiculous way to describe states where union non-members are required to pay their fair share of collective bargaining costs from which they benefit.
People tend not to think of 2010 as a major turning point in American politics, but it was. It was the year of President Barack Obama’s two greatest achievements: passage of the Affordable Care Act and passage of Dodd-Frank. The former, known familiarly as Obamacare, was the most important piece of domestic legislation since the Great Society, and the latter was the first significant financial reform bill since the New Deal. In that year’s midterms a backlash to Obamacare handed control of the House to Republicans, who netted 63 seats—the largest House shift in 62 years. But that isn’t the most lasting change brought about in 2010. The most lasting change was what happened in the boring old state legislatures.
A Republican strategist named Chris Jankowski, recognizing that the state legislatures elected in 2010 would reapportion congressional and state legislative districts, raised $30 million to flip as many state houses as he could. As David Daley points out in his 2016 book Ratf**ked (the coy asterisks are his, not mine), $30 million was “the cost of one U.S. Senate seat … or the amount some casino or energy magnate’s Super PAC pours into a hopeless presidential campaign.” But it went a long way in state politics. Republicans ended up picking up 20 legislative chambers, an historic shift. Before 2010, Democrats nearly always controlled more legislative chambers than Republicans. Often the number of Republican-controlled chambers was in the single digits. After 2010, it was Republicans who gained the upper hand. Today Republicans have majorities in 57 legislative chambers to the Democrats’ 40.
Daley’s book discusses at length the reverberations from this election in national politics through gerrymandering. But another consequence was a revival of the right-to-work movement at the state level, which had been largely dormant since the 1950s. The possibility that right to work may finally now be in retreat is the subject of my latest New Republic piece. You can read it here.
I worked at GM / Delphi for 3+ decades and was fine with being a UAW member. You may find what I say next strange. The *supposed* concept of Right to Work would be just fine with me: anyone who gets a job in a unionized shop and doesn't want to be a union member shouldn't be forced to be one.
But you touched on the problem (and union-busting tactic) buried in Right to Work without mentioning the underlying mechanism that makes it possible. The problem is that unions *must* represent all the employees equally in 'bargaining units' in shops they represent, be they members or non-members. Any negotiated wage or benefit improvements go to all, regardless of membership status. The non-member has all the same rights to union representation and contract-specified remedies in disciplinary matters as members. They truly are free riders on the benefits of union membership. Doesn't really sound reasonable or fair, does it? And of course, it's not. So, how is it this came to pass?
Because it's the *law*. Federal labor law, to be exact. If a union is certified as the exclusive representative of a bargaining unit (a group of similar employees), it must represent *all* employees in that unit equally, and distribute services and benefits equally, regardless of membership status. This is the dirty little secret in Right to Work.
I have no problem with the concept of "choice" when it comes to union membership. But that choice should have appropriate downstream consequences. You make Right to Work into an actual Right to Choose and let the makers of that choice benefit or not from it, and I'd say Hell yeah! All day, every day, and twice on Sunday.
Right to Work is a sham, and always will be as long as federal law perpetuates this inequity. It's something for nothing for the selfish in pursuit of more for the greedy, all sold in the name of freedom and choice. It's all bullshit. Period.
BTW...If I were ever given the "choice" of union membership along with the benefits I've seen it bring and the choice of going it truly on my own in a union shop, considering how many non-union shops I've worked in over 5 decades as a skilled tradesman (12), color me union, all day, every day, and twice on Sunday.