The stats are clear – fewer Americans are members of labor unions.

The number of wage and salary workers who were union members dropped to 12 percent of the work force last year, the lowest percentage since the government started tracking that number over two decades ago.

The number of workers in a union was 20.1 percent in 1983, when Bureau of Labor Statistics first provided such comparable numbers, and that number has been declining steadily. More than a third of American workers, about 35 percent, were union members in the mid-1950s.

The question, of course, is what this means. Is it a question of the growth of the workforce in areas of the country with right to work laws? Is it related to the increase in professional, white collar jobs over the more commonly unionized blue collar fields? Or is it a question of unions having ceased to meet the needs of workers as perceived by workers?

Unions, of course, are using this statistic to bolster the case for legislation that they claim would make it easier to for workers to unionize.

The continuing decline in union membership, documented in the BLS report released Thursday, comes as organized labor is pushing for legislation in the Democratic-controlled Congress making it easier for workers to form unions.

That proposal, called the Employee Free Choice Act, would let workers form unions more readily by simply signing a card or petition, impose stronger penalties on employers who violate labor laws, and allow for arbitration to settle first contract disputes.

Advocates of the legislation say they doubt that it will get signed into law by President Bush, but that they think passage in Congress would make eventual signing of the law more likely.

Supporters say the law is more fair to workers because employers can't mount a campaign to prevent formation of a union. Opponents say it deprives workers of the right to vote privately on their union preferences, and can lead to union intimidation of workers.

The union membership rate for government workers, 36.2 percent, was substantially higher than for private industry workers, 7.4 percent.

The problem with this legislation should be obvious. Given the history of thuggish union tactics to coerce membership, the “card check” method opens workers up to harassment and coercion that a secret ballot does not. And as recent Supreme Court arguments show, unions are all about coercing workers – even those who act affirmatively to opt out of membership – into supporting political activity and paying for services that they do not want to be involved in.

Quite bluntly, this country does, in fact, need an Employee Free Choice Act. But rather than the current legislation that seeks to deny workers choices, such legislation should start with the presumption that workers do not want to be members of a union, and which abolishes both the compulsory union shop and the agency fee for non-members. Let workers have a truly free choice on whether or not they join a union – and recognize that over 90% of private sector workers have chosen not to join. I suspect that the membership figure would be far lower in the public sector were it not for the compulsory union membership required by many school districts and other government entities. Indeed, the free choice most needed is for workers to be permitted to say "no" to having their paychecks pilfered by corrupt union bosses.

UPDATE: Want a good reason for ending the constitutional abomination of forced unionism, especially in the public sector? Look at this case from Ohio, involving the Ohio Education Association.

Told by a union official to pay forced dues or "change religions," a teacher in southern Ohio is challenging a state law that allows only those public employees who belong to certain denominations the right to claim religious objection to paying union dues.

Carol Katter, a mathematics and language arts instructor in the St. Marys district, filed a federal complaint in the U.S. District Court in Columbus this week over an Ohio law that prevents the lifelong Catholic from diverting her dues from a union she refuses to fund because it supports abortion on demand.

Katter filed the complaint against top officials of the State Employment Relations Board (SERB) for religious discrimination in enforcing Ohio Revised Code section 4117.09(C), which states:

"Any public employee who is a member of and adheres to established and traditional tenets or teachings of a bona fide religion or religious body which has historically held conscientious objections to joining or financially supporting an employee organization and which is exempt from taxation under the provisions of the Internal Revenue Code shall not be required to join or financially support any employee organization as a condition of employment." (emphasis added)

In other words, the law in Ohio is that a public employee is required to fund religiously repugnant speech unless their church also opposes union membership in all instances. I guess they haven't heard of the First Amendment up there, or Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. They also are ignoring a federal court ruling from last year in a nearly identical case which held that public employees with religious objections to union affiliation could not be forced to pay union dues.

But as far as I am concerned, there is an even more basic issue -- upon what legitimate grounds can government require payments to a private organization as a requirement for holding a public-sector, taxpayer funded job? What next -- a return to the days when government employees were expected to make contributions to the "correct" political candidates as a condition of keeping their jobs? That practice is no more repugnant to the First Amendment than the situation found in Ms. Katter's case.

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Posted by: Greg at 11:11 AM | Comments (10) | Add Comment
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