Right to Work in line with foundations of free society – Letter to the Editor
Freedom of association is one of the foundations of a free society. The Founders clearly understood this, which is why they sought to protect this God-given right in the First Amendment. While the Dubois County Freedom Makers support the right of every American to join a private sector union if they wish, we believe, that forcing workers to pay union dues just to get or keep a job is wrong. We support the Right to Work bill as currently written at the State House, and we encourage our legislators to vote YES. We encourage the residents of Indiana call your legislator and urge them to show up and vote YES.
Sincerely,
The Freedom Makers of Dubois County Charmian Klem Adrian Engelberth Larry Jones
This decision was not made by one or three people. This decision was voted on by our group after a long discussion among leadership before we presented this to the group, and a long discussion this past Tuesday. The was unanimous, and many people from our group contributed to this. As your local liberty and freedom TEA Party group, this is our position. Liberty of the individual trumps the power of a union. People should want to join, not be forced to join.
I have to agree with Ima. I think workers should be allowed the freedom to choose whether or not they wish to join a union. If it means the employer has to pay me differently or gives me different benefits, if I agree to their terms, I should be allowed to be hired as a non-union employee. I should not be forced to do something I don't want to do.
As has been mentioned, this issue is first and foremost about the freedom. In this debate, all other arguments are secondary no matter the statistics quoted.
Why is it assumed that a non-union worker should/would earn less than a union worker? If that's the case 100% of the time, that tells me that union wages are artificially inflated. There should be nothing stopping a non-union worker and a company from agreeing to a higher wage than what the union workers get. It's just a matter of a person taking responsibility for himself and negotiating for himself instead of having a third party do the work. Shouldn't we all have the right to negotiate our own terms of employment, instead of being required to settle for what some third party wants for us?
The rhetoric (or whatever you want to call it) that no one is forcing workers to join unions is hogwash. If I agree to work for Company A, and Company A agrees to hire me, when a third party FORCES itself in the middle of our employment agreement and FORCES me to pay them money, then, yes, I have been FORCED to join a union.
Unions offer a service. If their 'customer' (an employee) desires the services of a union, the customer should pay for the service they get. If an employee doesn't want to pay for the service of a union, they shouldn't be forced to do so. Everyone should have the freedom to choose if they want to buy the product that a union offers.
"A" is so right. Despite Michael's "claim" that no one is forced to join, that is the case today. If I want to work for Company S and Company S employees are unionized, there is no way I could get hired without joining. And if I could, don't think for a moment that either the Union or it's members, my fellow co-workers, would treat me the same as if I had joined.
Unions create dependency, not independence. Why would anyone choose to be dependent?
Thanks to everyone for their comments on this very important piece of legislation. I support the passage of this bill, and have had many discussions with our various Representatives who represent me in Indianapolis – both whom are for and against it. The common thread I hear from each is that they feel they want Indiana to be a good place to do business – from both the worker and employer perspective.
It is my understanding that Senate Bill 5 passed the General Assembly in 1995 making the teachers' union Right to Work. As a parent of three, I could not be happier with the quality of our local teachers and have no idea which ones are have opted to join or not and doubt greatly whether that makes them a better or worse teacher. I have serious reservations, with today's safety, training and hiring practices, we would find this to be the case in other professions as well – construction industry included.
From a contracting perspective, I can say first hand that our area is blessed to have hundreds of local craftsman who have helped build our community – both union and non union.
One issue that troubles me greatly is the union's approach is the fact that they have, through filed litigation, stopped the reconstruction of the Jasper gym project. This project was bid by many contractors (local and otherwise), with the lowest bid submitted by local contract employing our neighbors and friends with stipulated wages ranging from $20.90-$32.40/hour. The union, who seems to want to define the local prevailing wage to be $34.88-$47.13/hour was not happy with the outcome, despite the fact that local representatives of a wage determination committee found otherwise (see 12-1-11 letter to the editor titled "Group's wage vote correct".
Have a great week and keep up the open dialogue!
Brian you hit the nail on the head. In this case the tax payers will lose if the union wins. One thing that has not changed is the worker has the right to got to work for whom he pleases. However I would imagine that he would have a lot of difficulty getting on a union job. In a lot of cases it is who you know.