Unhappy Labor Day

The Boston Globe

The trouble with unions
By George C. Leef

THE BREAKUP of the AFL-CIO has sparked a debate over what ails organized labor. Some say it needs to work harder at electing friendly politicians, assuming that some new laws would make a big difference. Others want to try harder at getting more workers into unions, ignoring the fact that many workers, when given a choice, reject the siren songs of union organizers.

Both ideas miss a crucial point. Most Americans don't like the idea of compulsory unionism, but that's the only kind that big labor is interested in pushing.

Early labor union leaders like Samuel Gompers thought that unions should be voluntary associations. The freedom to leave would keep union officials honest and dedicated to the interest of the workers.

Alas, that isn't the way unionism works today.

The root of the problem is that unionism is rooted in coercion rather than consent. Workers can't just sign up for union services like they would for, say, an Internet service provider, staying with it as long as they're satisfied that they're getting good value for the money.

Instead, the law makes the choice of union representation into a collective decision by majority vote that's binding indefinitely. Most American workers who have union representation have never even had the chance to vote on keeping that union, and if they don't like it, all they can do is quit.

No other private organization in the United States has the authority to compel people to accept its services. Americans love freedom of choice, but the laws -- laws that unions fought to get back in the 1930s -- have set up a system that gives union officials monopoly power.

This system gives union heads great power over the people they claim to represent. They might accomplish some good for the workers, but they also might do things that are detrimental.

The history of union abuses is a sad and bitter one. Sometimes officials have decided to sacrifice jobs rather than allowing wage or benefit cuts that would save the company. Sometimes violence has been unleashed against individuals who criticize the union. Sometimes workers have had large amounts of their dues money squandered by officials who use it to live high on the hog. Very often workers are compelled to pay for the political activism of the union officials, funding candidates they don't agree with.

A recent case illustrates why many Americans want nothing to do with unions.

Due to the cooperation of Los Angeles County politicians, a local of the Service Employees International Union was declared to be the bargaining representative for more than 97,000 home healthcare providers. Most of them were care-givers for elderly family members. They weren't asked if they wanted union representation. Union-backed politicians just declared that since the people were being paid by the government, the union should ''represent" them.

The care-providers suddenly found themselves paying union dues for services they didn't want. To top it off, when some of them complained about this sweetheart deal, it turned out that SEIU was illegally charging them more than the amount allowed. Carla West, the lead plaintiff in a lawsuit filed by National Right to Work Foundation attorneys against SEIU, said that she resents the fact that union officials want to make off with a chunk of the money that should be going to care for her elderly mother.

A settlement in the case required the union to repay nearly $8 million in illegally seized dues.

It was a great mistake to have enacted the laws that transformed unions from voluntary associations into monopolies with quasi-governmental authority. But it isn't too late to change the law. We just need more lawmakers who believe that union representation should be voluntary, never coerced.

The great thing about freedom and competition is that it prevents businesses from taking customers for granted. Business managers who put their own desires ahead of the interests of their customers never last long. Free choice regarding unions would be just as beneficial.

Big labor will continue its decline until it begins to give workers the same freedom of choice they have with all their other business and personal associations.