U.S. "Right to Work" laws and Anarcho-syndicalists

The IWW forbids dues checkoff, so the sting of RTW isn't really relevant to us.

This is something I'm writing a bit right now, so I hope people weigh in on it. I'd like to see some debate.

Juan, my understanding is that RTW laws don't deal with dues check-off (where the dues are collected from the paycheck and given to the union by the boss), rather, they forbid contracts which would require workers to join the union after being hired and/or passing a probationary period. If they don't, then the employer would have to fire them. (These are often called "union-shop" clauses, as opposed to "closed-shop" clauses, which mean that the employer can hire only from existing union members - or perhaps it's the reverse.) The idea behind the "right-to-work" laws is that you have a "right" to work at a company, even if you don't want to join a union.

The IWW forbids dues check-off. We don't per se forbid union-shop clauses, and in fact there's at least three that I know of that are currently in effect (all in the Bay Area). It seems clear to me that this is against the spirit of revolutionary syndicalism, if not the letter of our constitution. The end effect (and this is at least a major part of the reason why these types of contracts were invented) is an almost-complete separation of the union-as-institution from the workers on the shop flooor.

There was this that appeared in the Industrial Worker:

http://libcom.org/library/employee-free-choice-act-class-conditions-class-power

Right, for some reason I just assumed it would be very difficult to not have dues checkoff but have the union shop, because the union would have to collect dues on the shopfloor though delegates while turning a list over to management on whoever is not in the union.

Anyway, I agree though. RTW hits at bad union practices anyway, so ideally shouldn't be an issue with a revolutionary union.

Actually, the former U.E. union at the now closed huge Allen-Bradly plant in Milwaukee (organized in the 1940s - 200-something) had no dues check off. This was a plant, at its height, with several thousand members.

I recall some meatpacking comrades saying that their agreements (in RTW) had no dues check-offs, but near 100% membership. "Peer pressure" kept the slackers paying their dues and kept up shopfloor organization.

In the last shop I worked in, we had dues check-off, but we had a shopfloor tradition of direct dues paymnt at the headq's instead. And we would enforce it by getting near 100% turn-out to off premise union meetings at union headq's. Monthly union meeting, dues payment time.

I suspect comrades would argue that any attacks against unionism is an attack on the working class. But we would put forward that strong shopfloor organization is the counter to weak unionism and the need for dues check-off.

RTW forbids a "union security clause." This means any clause that requires fee payment to or membership in the union as a condition of employment. This also forbids what are called agency shop contracts where a person pays a representation fee. Some unions with a union shop clause do not have dues checkoff, particularly in the building trades. In that case the person may go into the union hall periodically to pay their dues.

The shop at Allen Bradley that syndicalist refers to used to have about 5,000 members, was organized originally in 1937, and was down to about 500 when it was shut down a year or so ago. They boasted that they had 97 percent of the workers in the union despite an "open shop" contract. This required constant organizing. I interviewed a union president of that union back around 1980, and he told me about their need for constant shop floor presence and constant training of new stewards.

People in unions always use the "free rider" argument to defend the union security clause. The idea is that workers gain from the presence of the union in many ways, such as better wages & benefits & defense against the bosses (if it's a halfway decent union anyway). If they can get those benefits without paying, they are encouraged to "ride for free." On the other hand, i've heard some union people say that the only people it forces to pay up are anti-union people who'd scab on them in a strike anyway, so what real good does it do? The reason the unions get apoplectic about it is because it undermines their revenue that sustains their staff, and all their electioneering for Democrats.

On the other hand, i suppose it could be argued that requiring fee payments from non-members does help sustain whatever programs & organizing the union does do, and so lack of funds can also undermine a more democratic & militant union.

Historically the union security clause was made almost universal during World War 2 by edict of the government in exchange for a deal where the unions agreed to no-strike clauses. As of now more than 90 percent of contracts have no strike clauses. These are really a bad idea since they bind your hand behind your back, forbid direct action during the contract. Only legal time for direct action is at end of contract so the employer can plan for it.

the Repubs in the USA have been pushing RTW lately due to 1. influence of ALEC a right wing think tank that provides model bills, and 2. their desire to undermine financing & vote getting for the Dems by unions.

When it comes to Public Sector workers, RTW and public sector collective bargaining and unionism become more complicated. The situation in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, etc demonstrate this (legislation requiring a union be re-certified by the members every month, forbidding dues-check off, etc have all been attempted or passed)- then you have states like West Virginia which are largely socially conservative, with a large Organized Labor presence (UMWA, AFT, NEA, IBEW, CWA, etc), and vote liberal for local/state elections (Democratic majorities in state legislature, Democratic Governor, yet they routuinely vote Republican during the Presidential elections). West Virginia is, I believe, one of the only non-Right To Work states that do not allow Public Sector workers from collective bargaining (a bill to rectify this and give PS workers the same rights as private sector workers has gone before the legislature every year since something like 1974, and failed to pass every time). Despite this, there are 3 unions of PS workers: the largest, American Federation of Teachers, the second largest, UE West Virginia Public Workers Union, the smallest (I believe) AFSCME-WV.

UE Local 170 mimics its brother and sister unions in RTW states, North Carolina and Virginia, by organizing without collective bargaining, as a democratic and militant union. They've done some good work in WV, and are growing particularly among county/municipal/state workers in the capital, Charleston.

As far as the IWW goes, the new pamphlet "Solidarity Unionism At Starbucks" really lays out why it doesn't matter if a member/militant is working and living in a RTW state or a Big Labor stronghold. The Direct Unionism paper and ensuing discussions around it also play into this.

In the case of the UE, I like what they are doing; raiding AFL-CIO/CtW shops and introducing their brand of democratic trade unionism. Some UE people I've corresponded with are former Wobblies. But they are self-limiting; yes, their union President only makes the highest average wage of the highest paid worker they represent ($51,000/year), yes, locals and branches have a great deal of autonomy; but they still only represent the most militant wing of Big Labor, despite being unaffiliated with either of the two big union federations in the US. In cases like WV, fighting to get the WV state branch of OSHA refunded, raise public sector wages, etc are great immediate term goals and would improve the lives of people working in that state. Collective Bargaining rights for public sector employees would raise the standard of living for thousands of workers, particularly in RTW states they are active in like NC and VA, and would seal the last hole in trade union rights in WV.

Thinking beyond contractualism, as laid out in the two aforementioned IWW documents, and sticking to the horizontalism, direct action, worker-to-worker contact and such is the way forward. Letting RTW or lack of collective bargaining bring doubts about how to organize for immediate gains and class consciousness is thinking too small. Look at the battering the IAM took after their supposed 'victory' over Boeing and North Carolina's RTW laws and solidly anti-worker Governor and Labor Chief- the plant stays in the Northwest, but they are locked in a 10 year contract- despite strikes, threats of strikes, actions, and a 'big time' NLRB ruling in favor of the IAM.

This is an interesting discussion, from the point of view of someone in the UK at least.

I just thought it might be worth pointing out that in terms of "right to work" laws, basically the whole of the UK is "right to work" as the union shop (which we refer to as the "closed shop" - I'm not aware of the UK ever having the American type of closed shop) has been illegal for a long time.

This is also the case in most of the rest of Europe (perhaps all of it, I don't know).

I think this is interesting in a way because I think there is often an assumption that laws are more worker-friendly in the UK/Europe. (Not that I would support the reintroduction of the union shop here mind. This article is a good critique of it: http://libcom.org/library/origins-union-shop)

Sorry to stray a bit.

Steven, doesn't phrase "right to work" in the UK mean the right to full employment or the stuggle for full employment or something like that. I have a vauge recollection of something
along those lines in my mind.

while i take everything that posters said above, i still have a visceral reaction against the RTW campaign. it's part of the well-funded, triumphalist rightwing attack on anything that seems to give workers a measure of material security or leverage against the employing class.

and don't forget this:

i don't mean to reduce devoration's post to that one bit

(i certainly agree with the next bit:

)

but the items devoration lists are good things in and of themselves and one should not ignore them for ideological anti-union reasons.

There's an SWP front both in the UK and in Ireland (funny how that always happens) called "Right To Work". It's your basic anti-austerity "jobs and growth" wibble. They turn it on and off depending on what their other fronts are up to. They're also always included in the list of sponsoring orgs whenever they set up a new front as well.

Steven, it's good to have a non-American weigh in on this.

The big difference though, is that in the US, the vast majority of workers have no access to any kind of social contract unless they have a union. Job security is almost completely unknown except for union workers, and health insurance is pretty rare as well.

Whereas in Europe, as far as I've seen, that kind of thing is taken for granted, so perhaps its not such a big deal which places have union contracts or not?

I've actually been researching RTW laws kind of recently, so this discussion is coincidental for me.

While acknowledging that the practical impact of these laws in terms of IWW organizing campaigns is probably nil, I tend to agree with the posters about how this is indicative of anti-union, anti-worker political climate. The data shows that overall wages and benefits are lower in states with RTW laws, and especially industries more unionized in the 27 non-RTW states. It's all part of the race-to-the-bottom logic that totally inverts the wage gains that were made through unionization in previous decades (granted there's a lot wrong with that history in terms of race, class and the industries covered, etc).

I agree with OliverTwister from my impression of US vs Europe union levels, except a small correction on the health insurance. According to federal law all employers with 100+ employees, anyone in "full-time" status there is required to be offered some minimum health insurance plan. Now sure, companies get around this through things like misclassification of "part-time." But I don't know that I'd say it's "pretty rare," either. I guess it depends on what industry you work in, but having held a variety of jobs over the last ten years, anytime I was full time I was offered a health plan.

Health plans vary from employer to employer. For example, last year Wal-Mart raised premiums for full time employees and cut benefits too, and Wal-Mart is alleged to be the biggest single employer in the US. Then all those workers who work in small to medium businesses are left to fend for themselves. The health care safety net in the US has some big holes in it.

I've never heard about that law before - is that from Obama? Or is it older? The only full-time job I've had in the US was a unionized one. Albeit, thanks to the pro-labor laws of the state where I worked, no one from the union ever had to come to my workplace to talk to me and my co-workers - the only time I saw them was when I went to their office.

Even if health-insurance isn't altogether as rare as i'd said, there are a lot of barriers to people having or keeping it.

More and more I'm becoming convinced that what the Europeans call 'precarity', doesn't have a translation in America because everyone is already there.

I'm just going off of memory here, I used to be licensed in Life, Accident & Health insurance sales, but all of this was prior to the healthcare reform act. Employers used to have to require health plans if having more than 100, then there was all this attendant stuff around that, like open enrollment periods where for at least 30 days every year that employer had to offer the plan again to those not on it, and "COBRA" which allows employees to retain their coverage for an increased premium after they leave or are terminated. All my google searching only turns up post-"Obamacare" requirements, so I can't verify this - but it looks like this minimum threshold is being lowered to 50 employees as part of the reform act.

And don't get me wrong, these health plans are total bullshit. Usually dental coverage is more, if offered at all, vision is very often not offered or extremely limitedly. The deductibles are usually so high that even relatively minor procedures can put a working class person in debt for years, let alone having any kind of serious or chronic health issues. Hell, just a glance at the wikipedia entry on healthcare in the united states has got some pretty startling statistics.

What's even more fucked is that the healthcare reform bill which was stated to make coverage "affordable" has totally done the opposite for most people. At my workplace, having family coverage now amounts to nearly a third (!) of most people's paychecks, after almost doubling since 2009. This is quite obviously feeding into right-wing, populist rhetoric about "big govt" screwing with the "market." There's some pretty obvious political shit behind all that, having the biggest healthcare corps. at the bargaining table and taking on what was initially a Republican initiative, anyway, but there you go.

Alright, done on that tangent.

Also,

Yeah, for sure, agree with this in large part. I think some difference to our own US austerity is that the extremely meager, gaping-canyon-sized-holes of a safety net is being further gutted under the rhetoric of "balanced budgets" (which is obviously a joke, given the size of corporate tax breaks). That, and the fact that this is coinciding with unemployment, food assistance, etc. levels reaching previously less affected parts of the population, like say, the white working class (as opposed to the large number of poor whites, and blacks and Latinos who have suffered these conditions for generations).

Getting back to RTW laws, they are perhaps more indicative of the general economic/political culture in the places they are on the books than a direct causal relationship between wages and benefits being lower. What I find interesting is that the idea behind them seems to be both weakening union power, but also robbing the Democratic Party of one of its main funding sources, the big business unions. This then sets liberals and centrist party boosters into a tizzy, which they will turn around and claim that RTW laws lower wages/benefits (which again, they almost certainly do in otherwise unionized industries), but across the board this may be putting the causal over a corollary relationship.

I'm not sure about the exact state of labour laws in the UK. But in Ireland, the right not to be in a union is also the flipside of the right to be in a union (which is a constitutional right here). My understanding of the closed shop structure of US union deals is that no-one is allowed any industrial rights (i.e. right to strike) unless in a recognised union and you can only get a recognised union in a shop by winning a majority of the workforce in a recognition ballot. In Ireland a minority of the workforce can choose to join a union. The management may choose not to recognise the union, but the members still have the right to ballot for industrial action (even if the Industrial Relations Act massively limits the effectiveness of picketing). Such a thing would be impossible in the US, if I understood it right. In other words the "closed shop" is used as a barrier to unionisation and the exercise of industrial action.

Actually this is one area where US labor law is pretty interesting. Most industrial rights, like the right to strike, are "natural", that is, you're born with them. (I believe this stems from the constitutional amendment prohibiting slavery.) Of course this is amended in all sorts of ways, but in principle, every worker has a right to strike. This, however, is written off in nearly every union contract.

For the right to "concerted activity", the law doesn't mention unions at all but speaks only of groups of workers acting to improve their job conditions. (This has been pretty much ignored by everyone until a few years ago when the IWW began using it without petitioning for union elections.)

The end result, is that basically the only workers without a right to strike in the US are the ones who have unions!

really?

I have no idea what 'natural' rights mean in this context, but most workers have the right to strike because of the concerted activity clause in one of the major labor law bills of the 1930s. This right is often waived in contracts. Public sector workers, temporary employees, employees under 18, farm workers, 'independent contractors' may have different rights in this regard though.

This harmonizes well with my experience. I know few people with "actual" jobs.

the right to strike derives from the post-civil war "free labor" doctrine but in practice strikes were always illegalized via court injunctions against picketing, tho this was curtailed to some extent by the 1932 Norris-LaGuardia act. "Concerted activity" as protected against firing was in the Wagner Act of 1935.

However, the Wagner Act was later modified to impose on all unions an obligation of "fair representation" of anyone in a bargaining unit for which a union is the recognized union. in the era when union contracts were usually union shop contracts and a number of unions were mobbed up or where union bureaucrats would refuse to defend their opponents against management, you can see how reasonable arguments could be made about this. but the problem is it puts such a legal requirement even on a union in an open shop setting. so people who pay not a dime to the union the union is obligated to defend.

so laws like RTW which ban agency shop or union shop are aimed at the ability of the union to finance itself...lawyers, paid staff, and so on, and especially against its ability to act politically by doing efforts to elect Democrats. That is why the Republicans like such laws right now.

in a number of recent cases where collective bargaining rights were also taken away from public sector unions, there was a huge drop in membership because of the belief of many workers that the union could no longer do anything for them or defend them.

This is all what makes organizing in states without collective bargaining rights for public sector workers and RTW states so interesting. I really am in awe of the recent Starbucks Union pamphlet- been having family and co-workers read it. Using the 'Concerted Activity' clause to do any kind of direct action, and using the NLRB (and its rail/air equivalent) as a shield against the punishments of such actions is the spirit of militant activity on the job. How can there be a wildcat strike if there is no collective bargaining agent and contract? How can union supporters/organizers be fired for minor infractions in retaliation if the NLRB is going to generally likely to force back-pay and reinstatement?

Plus, I wonder what Taft-Hartley and all of its restrictions could do to the IWW- secondary strikes, pickets, etc seem irrelevant to prosecute if it is a single union acting in defense of one of its constituent parts (or a non-union group like Occupy or a similar worker-community organization) engaging in such conduct?

hey, got a link for this?

http://zinelibrary.info/files/Starbucksfinalinterior%20copy.pdf

PM Press has it for sale too.

Thanks for that! Excited to read it!

That shit needs to be in the library, btw!

I'm not sure if my legalese is any good but i think they use 'natual' rights to mean the ones you have just for being alive, and which are not given by the state. Like in the US any human being has a 'right' to free speech or against being detained without cause (very theoretically), but only certain human beings have a 'right' to vote, to serve on a jury, etc.

The legal theory is BS (mostly), but it does have effects at the level of action. In the US the right to strike comes (theoretically) from the workers and is negotiated away by the unions. In Spain, and I suppose many other countries, its something of the opposite. A strike is only legal, and strikers are only 'protected', if its called by a union and fulfills certain conditions. At the same time there's no need for union-security clauses because all regular workers are covered by the unions. Membership is completely voluntary and is seen as an act of militancy and a political choice, to a degree. But the unions' finances are secure because the government gives them millions of euros and the companies are constitutionally obligated to fund union staff ('liberados'). I don't see a big difference between taxes to pay for union subsidies, vs union dues that come out of the paycheck just under taxes. At the end of the day the UAW and CCOO get their operating budgets from Ford and from the Spanish government...

This is getting off-topic, and my thoughts aren't totally firm on this yet, but it seems to me that this is part of why Spain and other countries have nation-wide general strikes called by the unions, and the US doesn't. The relationship of unions to the state, to society, to the working class is completely different.