Edit: I’m mixing up a at will employment with right to work. Sorry for the confusion. See updated comment below:
Right to work: Joining a union and paying union dues can no longer be a requirement of employment. This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers
Right to work At will employment is: A right to be fired at any point for any reason or no reason at all
The goal is to get around any union protections that require things like a legitimate reason to be fired from a job.
It also has the added bonus of drastically reducing the benefits of unions and making them much easier to prevent.
This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers
I’m not sure I buy into that - but that said I live in a country where unions are popular, but unions are not allowed to force people to join (but unions do have a right of access to workplaces to ask people to join / hold meetings).
Firstly, it doesn’t take that big a percentage of an employer’s workforce to strike before a strike is effective… companies don’t have a lot of surplus staff capacity just sitting around doing nothing. And they can’t fire striking union workers for striking.
Secondly, if all employees have to belong to one particular union, that also means the employees have no choice of which union, and hence no leverage over the union. Bad unions who just agree to whatever the employer asks and don’t look after their members then become entrenched and the employees can’t do much. If there are several unions representing employees, they can still unite and work together if they agree on an issue - but there is much more incentive for unions to act in the interests of their members, instead of just their leadership.
A lack of guaranteed employee protections, on the other hand, is inexcusable - it’s just wealthy politicians looking out for the interests of their donors in big business.
It seems like maybe you are missing the point… The idea is to directly affect the amount of funding that a union receives, and thus, how well they are able to operate. The idea is: if you allow people who are ostensibly part of the collective bargaining bloc to simply opt out of paying fees despite receiving all of the benefits that the union provides for them, and then push anti-union propaganda, this will starve the union of funding and it will eventually break.
And it seems to have worked for several decades at least.
In the US, we’re lucky if a job is unionized at all. The thought of there being more than one option of unions to choose from is literally unheard of in this country. I mean literally. I have never heard of that ever happening in the history of the US. Maybe I’m wrong.
Look into the SCOTUS decision of Janus v. AFSCME (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME) for some more info on Right to Work, and in this case, public sector unions. The important thing to note is that it is framed as “giving the employee the freedom to choose to be in the union or not,” when in reality, they will receive all of the benefits of being in the union (they must, as they are part of the same collective bargaining bloc and covered under the same contract) for free. The entire point is to weaken unions.
Then you are in a “right to work” state (or a government employee since Janus). And FYI, you still benefit from that union as you are still ostensibly part of the same collective bargaining bloc, and under the same contract, as your union coworkers.
So basically you’re getting the benefits of being in a union without having to pay dues. Sounds great, right?
Great way to get people to leave unions en masse, and starve them of funding. This kills the union.
Edit: I’m mixing up a at will employment with right to work. Sorry for the confusion. See updated comment below:
Right to work: Joining a union and paying union dues can no longer be a requirement of employment. This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers
Right to workAt will employment is: A right to be fired at any point for any reason or no reason at allThe goal is to get around any union protections that require things like a legitimate reason to be fired from a job.
It also has the added bonus of drastically reducing the benefits of unions and making them much easier to prevent.
I love how we name laws that really mean the exact opposite of what their name implies. Very american.
Land of the free
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They could have used any of the million other nouns. It’s worse than cheap satire.
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Very human. Democratic Republic of Korea…Congo…lol.
Being fired for any or no reason is at will employment.
Right to work has nothing to do with that. It’s about allowing people to not pay union dues. Those people are still protected by the union contract.
You’re right. I updated the comment
The way I try to remember it is that it comes from the employers perspective:
You’re conflating “at will employment” with “right to work” laws.
You’re right. I updated the comment
I’m not sure I buy into that - but that said I live in a country where unions are popular, but unions are not allowed to force people to join (but unions do have a right of access to workplaces to ask people to join / hold meetings).
Firstly, it doesn’t take that big a percentage of an employer’s workforce to strike before a strike is effective… companies don’t have a lot of surplus staff capacity just sitting around doing nothing. And they can’t fire striking union workers for striking.
Secondly, if all employees have to belong to one particular union, that also means the employees have no choice of which union, and hence no leverage over the union. Bad unions who just agree to whatever the employer asks and don’t look after their members then become entrenched and the employees can’t do much. If there are several unions representing employees, they can still unite and work together if they agree on an issue - but there is much more incentive for unions to act in the interests of their members, instead of just their leadership.
A lack of guaranteed employee protections, on the other hand, is inexcusable - it’s just wealthy politicians looking out for the interests of their donors in big business.
It seems like maybe you are missing the point… The idea is to directly affect the amount of funding that a union receives, and thus, how well they are able to operate. The idea is: if you allow people who are ostensibly part of the collective bargaining bloc to simply opt out of paying fees despite receiving all of the benefits that the union provides for them, and then push anti-union propaganda, this will starve the union of funding and it will eventually break.
And it seems to have worked for several decades at least.
In the US, we’re lucky if a job is unionized at all. The thought of there being more than one option of unions to choose from is literally unheard of in this country. I mean literally. I have never heard of that ever happening in the history of the US. Maybe I’m wrong.
Look into the SCOTUS decision of Janus v. AFSCME (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME) for some more info on Right to Work, and in this case, public sector unions. The important thing to note is that it is framed as “giving the employee the freedom to choose to be in the union or not,” when in reality, they will receive all of the benefits of being in the union (they must, as they are part of the same collective bargaining bloc and covered under the same contract) for free. The entire point is to weaken unions.
I mix these two up as well - thanks for the clarification.
No union I’ve ever been part of required me being in it in order to work at a place. It was always optional. So strange.
Are you in a right to work state? That might be why, at least in Oregon when I got a job as a cashier it automatically made me a part of the union.
Then you are in a “right to work” state (or a government employee since Janus). And FYI, you still benefit from that union as you are still ostensibly part of the same collective bargaining bloc, and under the same contract, as your union coworkers.
So basically you’re getting the benefits of being in a union without having to pay dues. Sounds great, right?
Great way to get people to leave unions en masse, and starve them of funding. This kills the union.