Thursday, December 13, 2012

Right-to-Work Doesn't Create Rights

Much has been written over the last couple days about Michigan implementing a "Right to Work" law. Believe it or not, push comes to shove, I'd prefer working in a non-union job than a union job and prefer choice--for the employee, the employer and the union itself rule the day.

In my mind, unions today do not do what unions repeatedly say they deserve credit for what most workers take for granted today:  a 40 hour work week, paid vacation and holidays, some form of health insurance coverage and dramatically improved working conditions.  We can argue they don't deserve credit for the 40 hour week or working conditions because the law codifies that--but in reality, those laws were created and passed because of unions working to have them passed.  So they deserve credit for setting the standards today.  And, in unionized workforces, those employees do have, on balance, higher average wages and better benefits.  The presence of those unions also do tend to create a support for "good" wages in the same industry.  Auto assembly workers in non-unionized plants of foreign manufacturers are still paid reasonably good wages and provided good benefits.  In fact, after GM and Chrysler's bankruptcies, their newly negotiated union contracts (and in turn, Ford's contract as well) created a 2-tier wage system where newly hired union workers are paid a lower, graduated wage; those wages are on par, more or less with what non-union assembly workers are paid.

So ultimately, that's an argument for unions to be unnecessary.  Given the standards most workers are accustomed to in most industries, unions going away wouldn't do anything really to paid vacation or holidays, paid sick time, 401(k)'s or other benefits.

My biggest opposition to unions is that they are territorial, bureaucratic, insular and in fact, exclusionary, not inclusive.  Using again the auto assembly plant as an example, every worker is given a defined role and that is ALL THEY CAN DO.  Someone else, in a different assignment, cannot fix something they see is broken and cannot help another person who needs a hand.  For me, specifically, the part I most dislike is that there is no incentive in a union to work hard, to be better than someone else, to be smarter.  In my job, at the end of the year, we are all assigned a rating and that rating influences our merit increase and our bonus.  The distribution is a bell curve with a heavy right skew.  Meaning, the vast majority of employees are "meets expectations".  It's actually difficult to achieve "exceeds expectations" and only a small number get a top rating.  But meeting expectations still gives you a very fair raise and an on-target bonus.  Yes, imagine that, a bonus!  Last year, my raise was approximately 2% and my bonus was 5% of my annual salary (which turns out to be a pretty nice number).  I get a 401(k) match up to 5% of contributions, contributions to a cash-balance pension plan that is fully funded by my employer, VERY reasonable health insurance cost, a salary that is actually top-of-the-range in our peer group (there are a lot of call centers in Green Bay), 28 paid days off (which includes holidays that are usually 6 days a year) and 4 days of paid sick time off per year.  There's nothing a union can do for me.  I drive a desk, so I don't need a union to protect me from black lung, a block of steel from crushing me or 120 degree heat.

I think everyone deserves to be paid individually on what they contribute.  You work harder, you come up with better ideas, you get more done, you get paid more and you get promoted more easily.  That's it.  Unions do NOTHING to make people do the best they can.

At this point, I'm sure you're thinking "Woah, woah, WOAH.  You just went on a massive Twitter rant on Wednesday afternoon about the RTW law in Michigan and here you are, eviscerating unions.  Plus, don't you complain about Scott Walker?"  So here's my opposition to these laws and to the politicians behind them.  In Michigan, my biggest complaint is with the Governor, Rick Snyder.  He promoted this law as good for workers--as improving workers' rights, creating more jobs and moving companies to Michigan.  None of this is true.  Union opponents say unions are bad because it takes away workers' choice.  Well, just wait a second:  Don't workers have the choice to simply not accept a job that requires union membership?  Can't workers find the job that meets their needs?  And wouldn't, theoretically, the exercise of that choice mean non-union shops would gain ground?  And isn't that actually true, considering union membership is at or near an all-time low?  So why was the law needed anyway, then?  It's not, really.  What it does do is force unions to earn their keep.  But the problem is, if a union is elected in a workplace, the contracts it negotiates apply to everyone.  Prior to "right-to-work", unions were able to implement agreements in their contracts requiring everyone pay dues--to ostensibly cover the costs of running the union itself, etc because even if a worker wasn't a union member per se, they still benefited from the negotiated wage scale and benefits.  Right-to-work bars those agreements (in a basic sense).  So why would ANYONE "join the union"?  They can get a free ride--higher than market wages, better benefits and not have to pay dues.  Ultimately, if the union doesn't market their efforts well, enough people drop out of the union and it breaks.  If THAT happens, the employer benefits.  Period.

This law does NOT give any rights to workers.  It frees employers from the costs of dealing with a unionized workforce.  So my problem isn't "unions are going away and that sucks" (because as I noted, I'm generally opposed to them anyway), but rather the disingenuous, false and manipulative nature of Snyder's approach on this.  Right-to-work states have on balance, lower average wages, more uninsured people (to be largely corrected with PPACA), more people on Medicaid and more people on food stamps.  Right-to-work reduces union influence--there are fewer union members in right-to-work states and those employer put labor cost savings to profit, NOT to randomly hire more people.  Companies employ the number of people they need for the size of business they have.  Period.  If I ran a business that needed 20 people and my labor costs suddenly went down 20%, why in world would I EVER just hire 4 more people??  It's nonsensical.  And the argument of "Well, no.  See, the business would then expand because their labor costs are lower and that expansion would require hiring more employees."  Again, nope.  Because a business will only expand if they CAN--can they take market share from a competitor?  Staffing or not, do they have the capacity to meet the new demand?  If not, can they spend to expand or afford to borrow to expand?  If yes to all those questions, then a business will expand regardless--the increased revenue from the additional sales resulting from the expansion funds the additional labor costs.  Or, the business expands and through productivity improvements, greater efficiency or greater demands of their current staff, they produce more with the same staffing.  Why hire more people unless you have to?  Right-to-work does NOT CREATE JOBS.

Unions don't do what they say they do for members today.  They're outdated and largely unnecessary.  But even if required to join a union if they accept a particular job, that person still has free will and choice.  They can find another job.  As @simplekindoffan on Twitter always likes to tell me, he believes in worker choice and if they don't like something their employer does, they can get another job.  So if one job requires union membership, they have the choice to go elsewhere.  If I was a roofer, but I don't like heat, shouldn't there be a law requiring an employer can't make me work if it's over 95F?  I mean after all, how can I be forced to do something that could hurt me?  Obviously, that's a pretty dumb statement.  I have the choice to not work for a roofer and find a different job that's less physically demanding and safer.    Politicians should truly represent their constituents and let democracy work.  Passing a bill into law in a week to avoid debate that proponents of the law KNEW would delay its passage and then lying about what it will do is just not good for anyone.  Hopefully, those who voted for this law in Michigan will find that out the best possible way--by having the choice of a new line of work.