Employers, Unions and the 'Right to Work'
DICICCO, ERNEST M.
Is it better to be dominated by the company or by fellow workers? EMPLOYERS, UNIONS AND THE RIGHT TO WORK' By Ernest M. DeCicco Economics Department, Loyola University (Chicago) To date, 18...
...but they could become quite important with a change in business conditions...
...A second survival problem is related lo the actual or potential hostility of the American employer...
...The workers may even refuse to pay fines...
...No other well-advanced industrial nation has experienced the same degree of dislike for labor organizations or the same degree of violence in industrial disputes...
...it would lead to chaos in a complex society...
...I1',very contract has worker-oriented provisions: usually wages, hours and working conditions...
...What is a "right," anyway...
...A suit may also be filed by the employer if a strike occurs in violation of the contract, even if it is a wildcat strike...
...Companies typically maintain industrial-relation departments for dealing with the Union, and personnel departments for dealing with the workers as individuals...
...The U. S. labor movement developed first along craft lines and then, in the '30s, along industrial lines...
...But American workers have not developed an overall national labor consciousness as in Europe...
...The owner of a flour firm who is convinced that he is impartial may find that a bakery he supplies is struck by its union...
...however, cannot discipline union members under the Taft-Hartley Act by discharging them from the union and therefore forcing the company to fire them in the case of a union shop...
...Selig Perlman and Philip Taft have pointed out that the American labor movement always had the problem of staying organized...
...EMPLOYERS, UNIONS AND THE RIGHT TO WORK' By Ernest M. DeCicco Economics Department, Loyola University (Chicago) To date, 18 states have enacted "right-to-work" laws...
...Perhaps it would be best to put the whole argument on a different plane...
...Therefore, whenever an employer or employers' association defends the worker's right to work without the necessity of joining a union, it should recognize that the right to work is a claim which does not produce jobs or conditions of just and decent employment...
...If the bakery succeeds in hiring strikebreakers and the supplier continues to ship him flour, then it can be said that the flour manufacturer actively undermines the union and aids the bakery...
...Union officials...
...Are they aimed at destroying union security under the guise of promoting individual rights...
...The assignment to do this is a responsible, complex and cooperative one...
...In this context, it is recognized that numerous rights exist which the community is unable to fulfil completely...
...It is a moral claim by a person on the community in general for the satisfaction of needs which are indispensable to his own fulfilment...
...Apathetic stockholders, on the contrary, are a blessing to management...
...Mobs will lake actions that no individual would seriously consider taking by himself...
...A belief persists, however, little justified in fact, that a worker dominated by the employer is free to quit if he does not like the conditions...
...The only discipline available to the union is social pressure and ostracism...
...When one accepts a job, he accepts the conditions, even union-imposed conditions...
...and conditions of work, which have no dimension at all...
...This hostility is sometimes reflected in the threat of repressive labor legislation such as the Taft-Hartley Act and the right-lo-work laws...
...It should be an enforceable claim on the community for productive employment under decent conditions...
...It is sustained by a vociferous press and a substantial portion of the voters...
...Business organizations in the United States are so large and powerful that a buffer group is needed...
...For example, the right to do business free from union restriction has received the protection of the law in past court decisions...
...Business has always been the dominant institution in the United Stales, and labor organizations have not well been fully accepted...
...Those people who favor right-to-work laws will not go so far as to say that a job should be guaranteed to anyone who seeks work and that no person should be dismissed from a job he wishes to retain...
...Partly because when any organization feels the need for justifying its actions it will relate them to the formal purpose and assert that every decision contributed to it—at least in the long run...
...For example...
...All freedoms may be properly qualified lo an extent necessary for the welfare of the largest number...
...Under the American Federation of Labor's no-dualism philosophy, each national union jealously guards its own jurisdictional borders...
...It is no accident that in industrial relations there are three parties to a contract...
...If the supplier's union refuses to handle flour going to the bakery in question, then the Taft-Hartley Act calls it a secondary boycott and it is illegal...
...When an employer points out that a worker has the right to a job free from union interference, he is defining a moral right for the worker, and when this occurs a legal right exists and should be written into law with appropriate sanctions and institutional responsibilities...
...For example, a survival problem may be due to the apathy of the typical American working man, who is not a firm unionist by nature...
...the sociologists tell us, is not the same thing as the sum of individuals that compose it...
...Actually, there is no genuine issue over whether a worker has freedom or is dominated by a union if he is forced to join...
...Like any institution, it has a formal purpose, i.e., to secure the benefits that it promises to the membership...
...There are facets of the Taft-Uartlev Act which do not seem important now...
...An individual has a whole congeries of rights, and the limitation of one, such as having to accept unwanted union membership, may lead to the acquiring of others, such as increased control over affairs formerly within the employer's discretion...
...For example, countries like India, China and other Asian nations are not always able to fulfil effectively their people's legitimate claim for food...
...A frequent complaint against unions is that a person who pays dues and other forms of financial assessments may find that the union spends the funds for things which the person fundamentally opposes, such as supporting Democrats for office when the individual concerned is a Republican...
...A successful union is one that has a history of stability and responsibility in reconciling the various pressures from members, Government, other unions, the employer and the public in a satisfactory modus vivendi...
...It is even possible to argue that a union is more likely to protect the right to work than to deny it and that this is evident through seniority regulations, layoff clauses, discharges from work, terminal-leave pay, etc...
...The third survival problem is related to encroachment by rival unions...
...The union-oriented provisions involve a basic power settlement and are worth more to each group than a wage settlement of a few cents per hour in either direction...
...As an institution expands in strength and status, it gradually begins to outgrow its stated intention...
...It is a conditional, social and qualified right...
...An inalienable right is one that cannot be taken away...
...Certainly there arc circumstances in which the right lo work may he properly qualified by a social group known in a democracy as the majority...
...Our society is so complex and interdependent that an employer who was truly concerned with protecting individual rights would find himself frustrated by actions taken elsewhere that he could not control...
...The "right-to-work" phrase, which has been adopted as a slogan by supporters of restrictive labor legislation, is actually a perversion of the real issue involved in union security...
...In a complex society, however, one must recognize that unlimited rights for oneself can be achieved only at the expense of limiting the rights of someone else...
...In certain circumstances, it is impossible to be neutral...
...Numerous other examples from daily life could be cited...
...This is also true of unions, and it becomes truer as a union develops and matures...
...Do such laws ignore certain basic social and economic principles...
...This development of unions has been labeled "countervailing power" and seems to be necessary for a positive organization of economic life...
...Most people forget that their daily lives are affected in a similar fashion in various ways...
...This is one of the most frequent criticisms of unions even on the part of members...
...Employers impose many restrictions on the right to work and so does the Government...
...This is especially so in llie situation where the union is responsible in its financial dealings with members, is democratic in its practices, and the minority can express its views in attempting to influence the majority...
...For it implies that the union, in forcing a worker to join its ranks, takes away his right to work if he chooses not to become a union member while it does not add to his rights in other compensatory ways...
...Yet, the businessman possesses property rights backed up by the sanction of law, even when the property right is an intangible one...
...In our modern industrial society, workers have relatively little freedom in the sense of eligible alternatives...
...The only cause for dismissal under the Act is non-payment of dues...
...Thus, the formal purpose will always be interpreted in a manner that is conducive to survival and growth...
...Employers have never been willing to concede that a legal right to work should exist in a similar fashion to property rights...
...and union-oriented provisions: usually union security such as a closed or union shop, preferential security for union officers as to seniority, company checkoff of union dues from workers' pay envelopes, use of bulletin boards, and managerial prerogatives which are considered outside the bargaining range...
...The moral claim itself does not produce the food...
...A mob...
...Once a national union receives its charter, no other union is permitted to organize the workers concerned...
...but unions cannot sue management...
...Nobody seems to get too excited over these restraints...
...It is a mistake to consider the right to work an absolute and purely personal one...
...The right to work should, mean exactly what it says...
...But the claim and the responsibility are two sides of the same coin, and many conditions of agricultural and industrial life must be established to produce the food...
...On the other hand, many American non-union workers find it difficult to understand why a union man will stay out on a long strike even if he does not stand to gain personally in the form of an increased wage but the union hopes to augment its security by winning a closed or union shop...
...people without children and even corporations pay taxes to help support a school system...
...Workers in the United States do not have the legal right to a job...
...A worker must report at a certain time, work certain hours and under certain regulations...
...hours of work, which are a time dimension...
...Union security protects the right to work because it is designed to do so without employer discrimination...
...The general moral claim is a mandate for the community and its government to create at least the social conditions in which the basic rights of a person may be successfully fulfilled...
...It should be noted, finally, that the individual whose rights are being infringed rarely complains...
...Many pressures arise from various sources, and in attempting to reconcile them the institution finds that survival and growth supplant the formal purpose as more vital forces...
...Yet, a union's decisions do not necessarily represent the sum preferences of its individual members...
...a 19th plans to place this controversial issue before its voters in a forthcoming referendum...
...the faculty member is induced by social compulsion to support an unwanted and perhaps unused faculty club...
...These restrictions are not generally called un-American...
...So far, there have been no such -nil-: but in the event of a depression, when union power is weak, this situation would probably change...
...it just adds one more liberty to the already large total possessed by the employer...
...On the one hand, clashes arise like the one between the longshoremen and the teamsters in their attempts to organize the warehousemen...
...The non-dancer in a fraternity pays dues which will be used for a dance...
...It is only the liberty to work for lower wages under the employer's conditions...
...There is much scope for interpreting the formal purpose, since it involves wages, which are a dollar dimension...
...This formal purpose may be a stated intention or an official rationale, and the members must feel satisfied that the formal purpose is accomplished by the union at least as an incident to its activities or it is not likely to survive...
...If the supplier himself refuses to ship the flour, the overall result is the same but it is not illegal...
...These may be, and usually are, quite different from those of the membership...
...A union is a political institution operating in an economic environment...
...management may sue unions lor damages if contract lerms are violated...
...The union counters this charge with the contention that a minority of anti-union workers should not have the right to enjoy benefits provided by the majority without paying for them...
...This is possible because interpretation is required and attitudes can be manipulated...
...Jack the bricklayer has no right to work as a plumber...
...Once a legal right is established, a corresponding legal satisfaction enforceable in the courts is also established...
...The only freedom they have is the freedom to choose between being dominated by the employer or by fellow workers in the form of a union...
...If joining a union involves the loss of one's freedom and liberty, it is not a serious loss...
...He is a tremendous respecter of property rights, and in the past, due to the country's rapid growth, he was able to move up into the propertied class...
...Even unselfish individualism would not achieve the common good...
...If flour is not shipped, the situation is reversed...
...The question of the "right to work" seems to be constantly raised by the most vicious of the anti-union employers and those living in rural areas who arc unacquainted with modern industrial life...
...Therefore, the union as an institution must have some form of security if it is to be responsible and accomplish its promises to the members...
...it slowly begins to acquire its own problems and develop its own ambitions and needs...
...undergraduates who do not like football pay for tickets in their tuition charges...
...After all, for the average person work is a brutal necessity...
Vol. 40 • April 1957 • No. 15
