No rights, no work
Union busting is the Right to Work way
They call themselves the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. The name couldn’t be further from the truth.
This union-busting outfit pushes down everything a worker is entitled to. Right to Work has never gone to the aid of a worker illegally fired by an employer during a union organizing drive. Nor has it ever complained about workplace safety, discrimination or fair wages.
That’s because the NRTWLDF and its co-conspirator, the National Right to Work Committee, are solely interested in your right not to join a union. These separately incorporated groups share staff and facilities in Springfield, Va. They split their efforts between pursuing legislation to curtail union growth (NRTWC) and backing anti-union workers in organizing drives (NRTWLDF), with a combined annual budget of $15 million.
You’ve heard of right-to-work states. These are states where legislation has made union shops illegal. RTW has been behind such legislation in several states. However, a look at wages in those states lends substance to the phrase “right to work for less.” Workers in states with free collective bargaining on average earn more than in right-to-work states.
In right-to-work states workers can choose not to join a union at an organized workplace, yet they are entitled to provisions of a union-negotiated contract and even union representation in grievances with management.
“I don’t care for the fact that I’m paying for the benefits that they get for free,” said Verna Freeman, a UAW Local 1921 member who works at Lockheed-Martin in New Orleans, La., a right-to-work state.
In the past few years, RTW has challenged UAW neutrality agreements with employers. It’s also challenged union card-check certification by giving legal and financial help to anti-union workers. It’s even backed making card checks illegal through the national Secret Ballot Protection Act sponsored by Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga.
Neutrality and card-check certification is when an employer agrees to recognize the union if 50 percent plus one of the workers sign union cards. Organizing this way generally avoids the rancor and fighting of National Labor Relations Board elections when workers are often subjected to threats, forced meetings and even firings.
At the Dana facility in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, a RTW-backed employee distributed anti-union fliers, bought newspaper ads, hosted meetings and filed for a decertification election after workers chose UAW representation in a card check. The decertification petition is still pending with the NLRB.
“Since the majority had decided, I was upset that they felt they had a right to take my vote away from me,” said Sue Greilich, a 12-year Dana worker who is on the bargaining committee. I felt it was backed by big business to try to keep us from being able to have recognition.”
Greilich was right. RTW was founded in 1954 by a group of businessmen and today receives a very substantial portion of its funding from big business and conservative foundations.
But they won’t tell workers who funds them. In response to a lawsuit filed by the UAW and other unions, RTW spent 11 years in court fighting to keep its donor list secret. At one point, the group refused to obey a court order to provide this information.
We do know where some of the funding came from for an Oklahoma right-to-work law passed in 2001. The statewide committee behind this effort to restrict workers’ rights was required to disclose its donors. It received 65 percent of its money from big business sources: the Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce, Daily Oklahoman publisher Edward Gaylord and Wal-Mart, which viciously fights union organizing among its own employees.
Support from other parts of the Wal-Mart empire also bolstered RTW. The Walton Family Foundation gave RTW $15,000 a year from 2000 to 2002.
Conservative foundations have been generous to RTW. The group garnered $3.64 million in grants from 1991 to 2003 from a variety of sources — primarily the John M. Olin Foundation Inc., which gave $1,985,000, according to mediatransparency.org. But that is a pittance compared to the $15 million a year budget made possible by secret corporate backers.
The corporations get plenty in return. In right-to-work states not only do workers get lower pay, they also get lower unemployment benefits, less health insurance coverage and weaker enforcement of health and safety laws. On-the-job fatalities are 17 percent higher.
It’s knowing those facts that in 2002 helped union members and their supporters defeat a proposed right-to-work law in New Hampshire.
“The Right to Work Foundation has been attacking our card-check elections all over the country,” said UAW President Ron Gettelfinger. “They’re really just a front group for the worst kind of employers, who oppose workers’ democratic right to form unions at every pportunity.”
Better benefits
Why does Right to Work fight so hard against unions? It has to because when workers are given a free choice, they overwhelmingly choose unions. And when you look at the benefits union workers have that others don’t, you see one reason it’s such an easy choice for workers. Unions have been able to preserve important benefits for their members while nonunion workers have suffered employers’ push to cut coverage and shift costs to their employees.
| Union | Nonunion | |
| Employer-provided health care | 89% | 67% |
| Family coverage fully paid by employer | 33% | 7% |
| Dental care coverage | 73% | 43% |
| Monthly co-pay for family coverage | $195 | $273 |
| Defined-benefit pension plans | 70% | 16% |
| Paid vacation days after 20 years’ service | 22.3 | 18.1 |
| Wage increases in fiscal 2004 | 3% | 2.5% |
| Increased value in wage and benefits packages in 2004 |
5.8% | 3.4% |
| Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics | ||
