A Look at Right to Work Through the Eyes of the Mackinac Center

DETROIT, MI, December 01, 2012 (Press-News.org) When I was requested to participate in a program involving Right to Work I understood that the Mackinac Center would also be participating. It was in contemplation of their participation that I prepared this paper. It is now my understanding that I am to be joined by Paul Kersey, formerly of the Center and now with the Illinois Policy Institute, ideologically a kissing cousin of the Center. My observations about the Center hold true for the Institute and the Institute's spokesperson today.

I intend to show that Right to Work is not a concept that exists in a vacuum. Its proponents have a certain view of society. People who want to choose up sides on the issue have to know what they choose.

The center holds itself out as "dedicated to improving the quality of life" for all Michigan citizens and it claims to do this by "providing objective analysis of Michigan issues."2

The facts concerning the causes the Center advocates belie its stated purpose. For the Center, improving the quality of life of Michigan citizens means decreasing their standards of living while improving the profitability of employers. The Center uses a very class conscious concept of "citizen." It pits the standard of living of "citizens" against the profits of employers. And its lack of objectivity is demonstrated by referring to elected leaders of labor unions as "union bosses". The President of the Centers is not referred to by this pejorative term. Thus is demagoguery imported into the definition of objectivity.

The Center has created, or even invented, an ideological construct as its method of analysis. It is a libertarian counter to Marx's class analysis of society. It is called the "Overton Window." This "window" describes the current relationship between what politicians desire to do but cannot because of the public's current unenlightened attitudes. Progress is achieved by moving that window or to put it another way to change the public's point of view so that politicians can act.3

According to Center President Joseph G. Lehman, "winning the battle for people's hearts and minds through economic analysis alone is like bringing a knife to a gun fight." He says it "takes more than fact and logic" to bring about the Overton changes4. A remarkable admission from an organization that claims objectivity to be its raison d'etre.

Mr. Lehman appeared on the Glenn Beck show to discuss their mutual interest in the Overton Window. Mr. Beck had been with Fox News until they separated for, of all things, being too conservative. Mr. Beck published a book entitled The Overton Window all about a conspiracy to subjugate "the people". The identity of the Center with the likes of Beck speaks volumes about its politics.

Those politics are illuminated not only by who are the Center's fellow travelers, but also by the issues the Center undertakes.

The Center is committed to breaking up "the conventional public school monopoly."5 There are a number of instruments being used for the destruction of this monopoly. Demonization of teachers whose students do not do well on tests that themselves undermine education, the attack on the living standards of teachers and undermining their collective bargaining power, and the movement to break up school districts and replace them with charter schools and home schooling, are but examples. The Center is in the lead on all these issues.

Part of the tactic, also used by them in the Right to Work Argument, is to create an interest group and vest it with "rights" that give a moral gloss to a basic position: Undermine an existing institution that provides either through the state or through state authorization a modicum of stability and a countervailing force against entrenched private power. In schools it is the right of parents to select their schools of choice. (In labor unions it is the minority of workers who want to be free riders). These parents unwittingly serve the interests of entrepreneurs who have nothing in common with them at all.

The Center proposes to eliminate the underfunded liability for teacher pensions by closing the pension system to new hires and substituting a 401(k). And, if that isn't enough, cut retiree health insurance.6 These two ideas, no longer just theoretical, would reduce teacher standards of living, make the attracting of teachers more difficult and drive teachers from the profession. The idea of enhancing revenues to solve the problem is just simply beyond the Center's ken.

Public school education is a $500 billion dollar industry7 and the business community is licking its chops over an opportunity to get its hands on this money. A conference of these types at the University Club in New York drew 100 people wanting to know how to invest in public education. Thus the convergence of the free market ideology of the Center with business interests. Diane Ravitch, who was once a part of the Charter School movement and has since had an epiphany resulting in a 180 degree turnabout has written authoritatively about the business connection to school reform in "The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education." (Basic Books, 2010).

The take-over of the public school system, or a large portion of it, can substitute the monopoly of for profit school system for the public school monopoly. When profit becomes the driving force it is inevitable that education will suffer. And, those who initially were convinced they would gain will, like all the rest, suffer from the erosion of educational standards that are preserved to a large degree by the existence of effective unions of teachers who fight to maintain standards.

The Center opposes regulation by the Food and Drug Administration of drugs that have been approved abroad in "developed countries." Drug safety will be established by the free market.8 Those who are not killed by dangerous medications that have avoided FDA approval won't buy them. The Center also opposes state regulation of beer, wine and liquor because that control "artificially raise prices and reduce the availability of alcohol to Michigan consumers."9 Getting the state snockered may be a way to improve the perception of the quality of life by anesthetizing the public to the effects of Center proposals.

The Center, signaling its view of civil rights, picked its hero for Black History month. That hero is Booker T. Washington.10 Washington believed in accommodation with Jim Crow. Picking Washington over Martin Luther King, W. E. Dubois, a critic of Washington, or Congressman John Lewis says volumes about how the Center views the progress of minorities in our country.

The Center has staked out a position against the "Protect our Jobs" Ballot proposal.11 They are in the company of the Chamber of Commerce and every conservative anti-collective bargaining force in the state. Their President appeared at a conference sponsored by the Detroit Regional Chamber of Commerce. At that meeting a poll of attendees was taken. According to the Center 77 per cent were opposed to the proposal while only 23 per cent supported it. Twenty three per cent of an audience like that was for collective bargaining! Truly astonishing and a hopeful sign.

Why does the Center oppose the initiative? "The middle class will be sheared like sheep, as long as they stick around." "New companies won't want to move here either if the amendment keeps us from becoming a right to work state. It is "a radical constitutional amendment that makes union more powerful than the Legislature. Unions will set public policy in secret negotiations with their employer and lawmakers won't be able to override anything they decided." There is not a single word in the Center's presentation on this subject that describes the facts which gave rise to the Ballot proposal. As the Center admits: it "takes more than facts and logic" to move the Overton window.

Since the Republican take-over of the legislature, the Executive and the Supreme Court there has been an onslaught against collective bargaining. Laws have been enacted that prohibit employers from increasing wages and benefits from those in effect at the expiration of a collective bargaining agreement; eliminating negotiated benefit provisions that provide for step increases; disallowing collective bargaining agreements that provide for retroactive pay to cover the period during negotiations, (MCL 423.215b); redefining the term "public employee" to deny people the right to organize under the protection of The Public Employee Relations Act (PERA), (MCL 423.201(1)(e); prohibiting an employer agreement through collective bargaining to deduct union dues from wages without any corresponding law to prohibit united foundation and other deductions (MCL423.210(1)(b); enlarging the subjects which prohibit bargaining even though these new prohibitions effect wages, hours and working conditions, (MCL 423.215(3) and imposing caps on the amount an employer can agree to pay for health insurance for its unionized employees, (MCL15.561-15.569) "Protect our Jobs" is a defensive action on behalf of working people to preserve hard won rights.

So, it is not surprising that the Center would support the creation of "free riders" in bargaining units. It would be against the soul of the organization to stand for the integrity of a collective bargaining unit controlled by majority rule. And, if it abandoned its corporate donors it might be out of business.

What exactly is "Right to Work"? It certainly does not guarantee anyone a right to work. Right to work was a part of the Taft-Hartley Amendments to the National Labor Relations Act adopted over the veto of President Harry S. Truman, in 1947. The amendment to the Act were designed to limit the organizational power of labor unions. Section 14(b) gave states the right to opt out of provisions of the Act that allowed unions and employers to agree to a union security clause in collective bargaining. A union security clause provides that employees, after thirty days of employment, may be required as a condition of employment to pay to the union regular dues or a service fee. The union security clause arises out of the legal obligation of a union to represent all employees within a bargaining unit equally, whether they are members or not.

Right to Work eliminates the obligation to pay dues or a fee. It does not eliminate the duty of the union to represent non-members equally with members. Thus, a non-member, sanctified by a Right to Work law, gets union representation any time the employer violates the contract rights of the non-member. In other words, the law gives the non-member a free ride to union representation which is paid by fellow workers who do not opt out.

The Center admits that "at least 75 percent of workers who are covered by a union contract voluntarily join and pay dues." Much like the tactic employed to destabilize the public school system, The Right to Workers have created a class of people to use as a wedge against the labor union as an institution. Congress found that "[t]he inequality of bargaining power between employees who do not possess full freedom of association or actual liberty of contract and employers who are organized in corporate of other forms of ownership association substantially burden and affect the flow of commerce, and tends to aggravate recurrent business depressions, by depressing wage rates and purchasing power of wage earners in industry and by preventing the stabilization of competitive wage rates and working conditions within and between industries."12 Right to Work undermines established federal policy and encourages an immoral "something for nothing" philosophy. It also undermines the rights of majorities to make effective decisions for their welfare, without trampling the legitimate rights of minorities. Nothing in labor law permits any restriction on the free right of employees to oppose unions.

Generally speaking conservatives oppose this "something for nothing" philosophy. That point of view illuminates their misguided opposition to federal programs that provide welfare to the needy, compensation for the temporarily unemployed and health insurance coverage. But this philosophy is abandoned when it is applied to free riders. It is abandoned because it is an unprincipled position, a tactic to achieve a social goal. There is a principle involved. That principle is lowering the standard of living of working America to the advantage of employers and the maximizing of profits.

The Center misleads potential RTWs by telling them that RTW would not change the workplace and that collective bargaining agreements would remain in effect unchanged. But these statements are untrue.13

When up to twenty five per cent of the workplace get the benefits of the contract without paying their fair share, it impacts the 75% and ultimately the 25% also. The reduction in income weakens the ability of the union to mount campaigns in defense of the rights of their membership and nonmembers. Unions divert resources from representation to conducting continuous organizing campaigns to convince non-payers to join up. The 75%, or some of them, become frustrated at the prospect of subsidizing free loaders and many of them then opt out. If membership falls below 50% the employer may raises a question of representation and seek to decertify the union. Instead of the stability that federal labor law was designed to create, there is created instead instability and a constant struggle without end between the employer and the union with the employer abetted in that struggle by this new class of right to workers. Ultimately, if the union fails, the collective bargaining rights are lost and the benefits of all the workers, including the RTWs, are diminished.

The effect of RTW in the states that have it is lower wages, less health care, higher poverty and infant mortality rates, lower workers compensation benefits and more work place injuries and deaths. Advocates of RTW counter by noting that the cost of living in RTW states is substantially lower and that this offsets the reduction in wages. There is some truth to this argument but the argument misses the point. The lower cost of labor is a benefit to the employer. The lower cost of living is not paid for by the employer. It is the benefit to the employer that drives RTW. The reduced cost of living is a function of the general backwardness of RTW states.

Infant mortality and life expectancy are indexes that are customarily viewed as a measurement of the level of development of countries and states. In RTW states infant mortality is 16 percent higher.14 Comparing life expectancy in the top 12 states with the bottom 12 states, there is an advantage of almost two years. Nine of those bottom 12 states have RTW. Three of the top 12 states are RTW.15

The specific of the disparities according to a study by the AFL-CIO sourced from data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Current Population Survey, and workers compensation data accumulated by the AFL-CIO Department of Safety and Health follows:
- Wages: approximately $5,333 less per year.
- Health Care: 21 percent more people without health insurance.
- Poverty: rate is 12.5 percent higher.
- Infant Mortality: 16 percent higher.
- Workers' Compensation Benefits: $30 per week less.
- Workplace deaths: 51 percent higher.

There is empirical evidence that employers prefer to locate in RTW states. It is not accidental that virtually all foreign automobile companies are located in RTW states. These companies are all non-union. It may be that RTW can serve as an aid to increased economic activity although that is itself subject to question. But assuming for the sake of argument that is true, it poses a question. Is the race to the bottom for the middle class the type of society to advocate? The answer to that question is really one of values.

If you follow the libertarian values of the Center you opt for a reduction in the standard of living of the middle class in exchange for an alleged expansion of industry. If you do not believe that the middle class should be sacrificed for corporate advantage you oppose RTW. But, whatever choice is made, it should be made after both the context and the facts are well known.

http://www.millercohen.com/

1 President Miller Cohen, P. L. C. A law firm that exclusively represents unions and working people.
2 Mackinac Center, Purpose
3 Mackinac Center, Overton Window.
4 Op. cit. page 2.
5 Mackinac Center, The Difference with Charter Schools.
6 Mackinac Center, James M. Holman, March 12, 2012.
8 Mackinac Center, John R. Graham, June 14, 2012.
9 Mackinac Center, LaFaive and Davis, May 14, 2012
10 Mackinac Center, Dr. Burton W. Folsom, February 7, 2005.
11 Mackinac Center, Joseph G. Lexman, June 6, 2012.
12 29 U. S. C. A. sec. 151
13 Mackinac Center, Washburne and Kersey, June 28, 2007.
14 Study by O'Leary Morgan, Kathleen, and Scott Morgan, State Ranking 2001. Morgan Quitno Press, 2001.
15 List of U. S. States by life expectancy - Wikipedia.