Indiana Lets It All Slip Away

[marmar]

Published on Friday, February 3, 2012 by Common Dreams
Indiana Lets It All Slip Away

by David Macaray


Unless a miracle occurs, Indiana (with approximately 11-percent of its workforce unionized) is going to become the 23rd “right-to-work” state in the U.S. (and the first one to take that dreadful plunge since Oklahoma did it, in 2001), making it illegal to require union membership as a condition of employment.

Since 1935, unions have been pretty much mainstream. When a person hired into a “union shop,” he or she was required to join up, and begin paying regular monthly membership dues, and that’s how it worked. Given that union jobs generally offered 15-20 percent better wages and benefits (not to mention safer and superior working conditions), and are highly coveted, that requirement was viewed not only as a fair trade-off, but as a privilege.

Then, despite a flourishing middle-class and an economy chugging along at a record pace—and national union membership rolls hovering at close to 35-percent—the anti-union forces (alas, both Republicans and Democrats) rose up, mobilized, and came up with the bumper-sticker concept of “right-to-work,” an arrangement that allows you to work in a union facility without having to join the union. The states that embraced RTW were mainly in the Deep South and Southwest, which makes Indiana’s decision noteworthy.

But give these anti-union zealots some credit. Their sappy, albeit close-to-meaningless phrase smacks of the same general good feeling conveyed by that “life, liberty and pursuit of happiness” reference in the Declaration of Independence. Right to work. Right to vote. Right to choose. Right to speak your mind. It’s all good. Hell, who’s going oppose something as basic the “right to work”? After all, this is America, isn’t it? ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/02/03-3

[RC]

1. "Right to Work" is a misnomer.

The real term is "Our Right to Let You Work".