Wall Street Journal ignores impact pro-business
U.S. Supreme Court has on union members
By JESS LEVIN
WASHINGTON, D.C. (PAI) —
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) editorial
board — the bible of business and a
mouthpiece of the right — recently sug-
gested the decline in union membership
over the last 30 years is due to lack of
employee interest, but ignored the im-
pact of aggressively anti-labor “right-to-
work” laws and a string of pro-business
U.S. Supreme Court decisions.
The WSJ claimed the overall de-
crease in union membership indicates
the irrelevance of unionism in the mod-
ern workplace. From its Sept. 16 edito-
rial:
“The promise of joining a union has
always been it will deliver better pay,
benefits and job security. That propo-
sition long ago stopped being true for
most workers, and now even the AFL-
CIO is tacitly admitting its loss of rele-
vance in the private American work-
place. At last week’s annual convention
in Los Angeles, labor delegates voted to
expand AFL-CIO membership, inviting
even nonunion members to join their
flagging consortium…
“As dues-paying membership de-
clines, the AFL-CIO is essentially try-
ing to attract the equivalent of donations
from the larger public. Send in whatever
“dues” payments the AFL-CIO requires
for membership, and in return you get
— what exactly? At least if you donate
during one of those PBS pledge drives,
you get a tote bag and maybe a CD of
Yanni at the Acropolis. It isn’t clear
what nonunion members will get for
their cash, other than the pleasure of
knowing they’ve helped AFL-CIO chief
Rich Trumka stay in a better class of ho-
tel. Will he throw in a T-shirt?”
The Journal editorial board can’t
even get its facts right. The AFL-CIO
convention occurs only every four
years. As for better pay and benefits for
union members, ask the Bureau of La-
bor Statistics about that. It’s true.
What the WSJ neglects to mention is
a series of anti-union and pro-business
Supreme Court decisions over the last
20 years that drastically reduced union
organizers’ ability to communicate di-
rectly with workers, provided extra pro-
tection to employers who try to aggres-
sively prevent unionization, and ob-
structed access to justice for victims of
labor law abuses.
These decisions eroded unions’ abil-
ity to engage in meaningful communi-
cation with potential members and pro-
tect themselves from illegal labor
practices, and have generally con-
tributed to the reduction in membership
numbers.
Later this year, the court will hear ar-
guments in two cases that could poten-
tially “put a dagger in organized labor”
should Chief Justice John Roberts and
the five-man GOP-named conservative
majority continue its pro-business
streak.
The first, NLRB vs. Noel Canning,
deals with Democratic President
Barack Obama’s authority to fill open
positions on the National Labor Rela-
tions Board, the government agency
that oversees union elections and hears
cases involving unfair labor practices,
while the Senate is in recess. Obama
filled the vacancies during a Senate
break after “Republicans ... engaged in
an unprecedented level of obstruction
of his nominations.”
The second case, Mulhall v. UNITE
HERE Local 355, questions the consti-
tutionality of “organizing agreements,”
to let unions and employers they bar-
gain with establish rules prior to start of
contract negotiations. The agreements
typically require employers to remain
neutral during union organizing drives.
The Atlantic described such negoti-
ated employer neutrality as “probably
the most successful union organizing
strategy of the last decade.” The organ-
izing agreements, challenged in a case
from the South, now face extinction if
the Supreme Court agrees with the
plaintiffs that such arrangements pro-
vide "”things of value” to unions in vi-
olation of the law.
The WSJ avoids a discussion of the
blow these cases could deliver to union
membership, choosing instead to insist
that modern employees simply aren’t
interested in joining.
The Journal editorial board also sug-
gested union dues are wasted, ignoring
that a wave of aggressively anti-labor
legislation caused a severe financial
strain on unions. Union membership
has been significantly and negatively
impacted by state-level “right-to-work”
O PEN
F ORUM
legislation and other laws, notably those
killing collective bargaining rights.
Since 1947, anti-labor groups man-
aged to pass “right-to-work” laws in 23
states — an Indiana court tossed out
RTW law #24, there, last month. The
laws allow workers to refuse to pay
union dues even if they work in a union-
ized workplace and enjoy all the bene-
fits of unionization. The Journal’s
ridiculous PBS analogy fails. Non-
members in unionized workplaces pay
nothing and in return they get compul-
sory union representation at the bar-
gaining table, not to mention free legal
representation in the event of unfair la-
bor practices or other workplace abuses.
Ultimately, the WSJ seems to be
content in its decision to paint unions as
workplace nuisances, even if it means
ignoring the facts and the ramifications
of the historically anti-labor Roberts
court.
(Editor’s Note: Jess Levin is senior
director of external affairs at Media
Matters for America. This article was
distributed through Press Associates
Inc.)
Wyden should know more
about Trans-Pacific trade talks
To the Editor:
The Northwest Labor Press story
“Back for August recess, Sen. Wyden
hears from labor,” brought out the fact
that Sen. Wyden voted “yes” on
NAFTA itself — and every NAFTA-
style trade agreement except for one in
2003, along with one in 2006.
The article points out that the Obama
Administration has been negotiating the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in se-
cret. Sen. Wyden is quoted in the article
about the Trans-Pacific Partnership say-
ing “I will lead a fight this fall to find
out what’s being talked about,” mean-
ing the TPP.
It is extremely difficult to believe
Sen. Wyden doesn’t know what is be-
ing negotiated in the TPP, because he is
the chair of the Senate subcommittee on
International Trade, Customs and
Global Competitiveness. If he truly
doesn’t know, he certainly should know.
At this point in his career, along with
the seniority he holds and with the
chairmanship he now has, Sen. Wyden
should demand to be informed on the
negotiations of the TPP.
Sen. Wyden should know that since
his yes votes on NAFTA-style trade
agreements, the state of Oregon has lost
50,000 jobs due to these unfair trade
agreements. This job loss is one of the
reasons Oregon doesn’t have enough
tax base to properly staff its schools.
OCTOBER 4, 2013
NORTHWEST LABOR PRESS
Certainly the senator has heard about all
the funding problems in his home state.
Not knowing on what is going on
with the TPP negotiations isn’t accept-
able; not when you know 50,000 work-
ers and their families have already been
victims of NAFTA. It almost sounds as
if the senator has joined the other polit-
ical party that the media has suggested
are “obstructionists.”
Perhaps a little history story will
help Sen. Wyden.
President Harry Truman said that to
solve today’s problems all one has to do
is look at its history. This history clearly
shows NAFTA wasn’t a good thing for
Oregon’s workers and history clearly
shows the answer is for Sen. Wyden to
vote “no” on the Trans-Pacific Partner-
ship trade agreement.
Mike Sullivan
AWPPW Political Director
(Retired Steelworker)
McMinnville, OR
2-1-1 can be a lifesaver
2-1-1 is an easy to remember tele-
phone number that connects callers to
information about critical health and
human services available in their com-
munities. In Oregon, it is run by
211info, in partnership with United
Way. It can be accessed on line at
www.211info. org.
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