George Leef’s latest Forbes column explores two ballot measures supported by labor unions.
On the ballot Tuesday in two states (Washington and South Dakota) voters will find deceptive initiatives to vote on. Both were concocted by the forces of Big Labor for the purpose of getting and keeping more money from workers who don’t want to pay them.
Businesses that operate in a competitive market under the rule of law need to persuade consumers to buy whatever goods and services they offer. That’s good: consumers get to decide what’s worth parting with their money and what isn’t. Also, buyers are free to stop buying any time they become dissatisfied or discover better uses for their limited money.
Labor unions, however, don’t operate under the rules of voluntary agreement that apply to all other private organizations, for-profit and non-profit. Starting in the 1930s, they were given the unique power to coerce people into accepting their representation and paying for it. Yes, the unionization process is democratic (as if majority rule is always appropriate), but millions of workers are in unions that were last voted on more than 50 years ago. If you doubt that, read Akash Chougule’s article “A Union Card Shouldn’t be an Heirloom.”
Not content just to collect dues from employees of business firms, unions often flex their political muscles to get friendly politicians to dragoon workers who aren’t employees at all into union ranks. That tactic has been employed especially against individuals who receive government money to help provide home health care for relatives. …
… Union officials and their political friends never stop trying to plug these “revenue leaks” and this year have devised a couple of deceptive ballot initiatives to do so.
One is in South Dakota, which is a RTW state. In their October 23 Washington Examiner article, “Beware the squeegee men, South Dakota,” F. Vincent Vernuccio and Jeremy Lott discuss the cryptic wording of Measure 23. Its purpose, they explain is to give unions legal ground to argue that because they purport to provide services to employees who decline to pay dues, they are entitled to compensation.
Vernuccio and Lott liken that to the way “squeegee men” used to pounce on cars stopped in traffic to give drivers the service of cleaning their windshields and then demanding money in return. Mayor Giuliani put an end to such street harassment. But, write Vernuccio and Lott, “imagine a world in which the squeegee men were able to legally demand payment and there wasn’t one thing you could do about it.”
That’s what the unions want in South Dakota.
