Stewart Stremler wrote:
begin quoting Chris Mauricio as of Tue, Jul 12, 2005 at 11:17:22AM -0700:
[snip]
Once unions do their job and becomes sources of political power in and
of themselves, is it _possible_ to prevent 'em from being co-opted by
the politically-minded for their (the politically-minded) own ends?
I would like to think so, but I strongly suspect not.
point- the teachers union just 'assessed' additional dues of $780 / per
year (I may be off on the figure ) for political positioning ( my words )
mostly attaking Arnolds stance on tenure, merit pay etc. Under current law,
all union members pay, regardless of their feelings about the stance of the
union.
Last I heard, non-union members paid dues to the union for the ability
to NOT be a member.
Can't get around THAT for fairness can you? ;-)
The UFCW, of which I was a member under protest for 14 years, shot down
a similar ballot measure a few years ago. That law waould have only
required the members to pay for that portion of their dues that went to
actual benefits, like retirement and healthcare, if any. The trouble(for
the union) was that most of that was paid for by the employer. I forget
the exact amount, but I think it was about 40% of my dues went to
political contributions with which I disagreed. I was never able to get
a straight answer as to where the rest of it went. They were listed as
"administrative costs." I wouldn't be surprised to find that much of
that translated to salaries of those who work directly for the Union. In
fact, in all my time with the union, the only time the shop
stewards(went through three of them) were ever interested in talking to
me was the two or three time a year they came to ask for more money in
some way. Strike fund, market share protection fund, etc, all of these
are political in nature. I was particularly put off by the guilt trip
they tried to lay on you if you even hinted at saying no. Their line was
that you weren't giving your fair share if you didn't want to give more.
I asked one of these folks if they were required to give to this fund,
and was told that they were not. I asked how much the Union was paying
him per year, he wouldn't give me a straight answer, but I managed to
get him to admit to between 35 and 40 thousand per year. I was living
out of my camper van at that time on less that $10,000/year. I told this
jerk that if he ever tried to tell me again that I was not giving enough
when he was making more than four times what I did and wasn't required
to contribute, I'd throw him down the break room stairs. That
conversation didn't end well. The problem was I /couldn't/ say no. If
I'd refused, they would simply have garnished my already lousy wages.
Whatever unions once may have been or done, whatever good they might be
able to do, it is my opinion that there is nothing that unions do that
could not be just as well, if not better, accomplished, today, here and
now, without them.
Under the proposed bill they could request a refund. In states with
similar laws, the participation in these contributions have fallen from a
mandatory 100% participation to a voluntary 7% participation. The message is
clear at least in the area of political arean regarding unions.
People are cheap?
Not necessarily. The 7% refers to 7% of members who voluntarily
contributed the political component of their dues, not seven percent of
total dues contributed. In the case of my UFCW dues, the UFCW would lose
93% of 40% of total dues, not 93% of all dues. The total membership
would still pay 62.8 percent of what they were paying before, apparently
to pay for actual benefits. Personnally, I wouldn't have had a problem
with paying for that portion of my dues that went to real benefits, but
I see no reason that I or anyone else should be forced to adopt a
political agenda in the process. It's a free speech thing. If California
were a right-to-work state, where unions are forbidden to make joining
the union a requirement of Employment, that would be one thing, but as
it is not, I think this is tantamount to legalized extortion. Pay for
our political agenda or we'll take your job away.
Robert Donovan
--
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