Table 1 shows the percentage of Americans who gave unions favorable and unfavorable ratings in the years 2001, 2005, 2007, and 2010. These results are consistent with earlier Gallup polls that showed that in 2008, 59 percent of Americans approved of unions while in 2009, only 48 percent approved. They are also consistent with a Rasmussen poll released in March 2009 that showed that only 9 percent of union-free workers would prefer to unionize.

Table 2 shows the percentage of Americans who agreed and disagreed with the proposition that “unions are necessary to protect workers” in the years 2003, 2007, and 2009. While the figures for 2009 show that more study is needed on this question, the trends are encouraging.

Table 1: Americans’ Opinions of Unions
Year    Favorable    Unfavorable
2001    63%             28%
2005    56                33
2007    58                31
2010    42                41

Table 2: “Unions are necessary to protect workers.”
Year    Agreed    Disagreed
2003    74%        23%
2007    68           28
2009    61           34

Table 3 shows the percentage of Americans who agreed and disagreed with the proposition that “unions have too much power” in the years 1999 and 2009. This trend is also encouraging. The perception that government has too much power is growing. Since government-employee unions (GEUs) are becoming the dominant face of American unionism, I expect even more people to conclude that unions have too much power.

Table 3: “Unions have too much power.”
Year    Agreed    Disagreed
1999    52%         40%
2009    61            33

The Winter 2010 issue of The Cato Journal provides excellent reading on this matter. It consists of 12 articles addressing the question “Are Unions Good for America?” The authors argue persuasively that the answer is no. In the concluding article I imagine what might replace the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) when unions have lost enough respect to make it possible to repeal that law. What follows are some highlights of the other papers.

Armand Thieblot surveys American union history and concludes that, because labor law bestowed coercive powers on unions, “many individual union members simply found themselves beholden to a different set of bosses, who took part of their pay for dues.” Under current union law, unions have almost run out of rent-seeking opportunities in the private sector. They now have turned to two types of political rent-seeking. They have diverted most of their organizing energy to the capture of government employees (51.3 percent of all union members are now government employees), and they lobby for even more coercive power over private-sector workers—for example, card check. Thieblot wonders “whether there can be any way to stop or divert substantive union control over the economic activities of the entire country.” In my view, President Obama’s appointment of Andy Stern, former president of the SEIU, to his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform makes Thieblot’s point.

Project labor agreements (PLAs) and prevailing-wage laws are two other forms of political rent-seeking. PLAs are schemes to strip away any advantages that union-free construction firms have over their union-impaired rivals when bidding on construction projects by requiring union-free firms to pay union wages and benefits, use union hiring halls to obtain workers (even workers who are already their employees), and submit to union work rules. PLAs also force all workers to pay union dues and to contribute to union pension plans. They are usually imposed by state and local governments, but by executive order Obama has forced them on federal construction projects. David Tuerck critically examines the arguments unions use to justify PLAs and finds them all spurious. On average they raise the cost of government construction projects 12–18 percent.

Prevailing-wage laws also apply to taxpayer-funded construction projects. The federal Davis-Bacon Act (1931) was the first such imposition. Since then 31 states have adopted their own versions. These laws require all firms that work on government construction projects to pay union wages and benefits. Thus union-free firms cannot compete on the basis of worker compensation. Freeman book review editor George Leef dissects all the arguments that unions have used to lobby for such laws and examines the historical record of their effects. He concludes that they all should be repealed.

Randall Holcomb and Jim Gwartney explain how American labor law has resulted in significant declines of economic freedom and prosperity. The authors explain the precipitous decline of private-sector union density and the disastrous effects of American unions in the auto and railroad industries, and they provide useful international comparisons.

Opportunistic behavior by private-sector unions eventually results in capital flight from heavily unionized cities. Capital flight causes declines in both population and real income in such cities. Stephen Walters analyzes the carnage, paying particular attention to Detroit.

According to the Pew survey, the demographic group most supportive of unions in America is blacks. Paul Moreno gives an extensive account of how unions have long “used racial discrimination as an economic weapon.” While blacks are no longer excluded from unions, many of them are subjected to more subtle forms of discrimination through such union-based institutions as seniority rules.

The “high-wage doctrine” is the belief that unemployment comes from lack of spending, which is in turn the result of insufficient money wages. So when faced with unemployment the remedy is to increase money wages. Those who believe this silliness and also think that unions increase money wages are likely to approve of unions. Lowell Gallaway destroys the high-wage doctrine and in doing so eliminates one of the most effective arguments in favor of unions.

Unions used to endorse free trade because it lowers workers’ cost of living. Now unions oppose it ostensibly to protect American jobs. Daniel Griswold explains how free trade actually increases jobs and worker compensation. The problem for unions, of course, is that under free trade “unionized firms just fade away.”

Unions abhor right-to-work laws because in those states that have them, unions cannot force workers to pay union dues. Moreover, unions find it more difficult to organize in those states. Richard Vedder explains how right-to-work laws promote liberty, prosperity, and quality of life.

That’s right. In Louisiana, you can’t sell flower arrangements unless you have permission from the government. How do you get permission? You must pass a test graded by a board of florists who already have licenses. To prepare for the test, you might have to spend $2,000 on a special course.

The test requires knowledge of techniques that florists rarely use anymore. One question asks the name of the state’s agriculture commissioner—as though you can’t be a good florist without knowing that piece of vital information.

The licensing board defends its test, claiming it protects consumers from florists who might sell them unhealthy flowers. I understand the established florists’ wish to protect their profession’s reputation, but in practice such licensing laws mainly serve to limit competition. Making it harder for newcomers to open florist shops lets established florists hog the business.

Other states are considering adopting Louisiana’s licensing law, but before any do, I hope that the law will be stricken. The Institute for Justice, a public-interest law firm, has challenged the licensing in court, saying it violates liberty and equal protection, and so is unconstitutional.

“One of the most fundamental tenets of the American dream is the right to earn an honest living without arbitrary government interference. What could be more arbitrary than saying who can and who cannot sell flowers?” IJ President Chip Mellor says.

Other states have their own sets of ridiculous  licensing rules. In Virginia, you need a license to be a yoga instructor. Florida threatened an interior designer with a $25,000 fine if she didn’t do a six-year apprenticeship and pass a test, at a cost of several thousand dollars. Fortunately, the Institute for Justice got that law overturned.

I’m rooting for IJ because licensing interferes with the freedom to make a living, harms consumers by limiting competition, and protects established firms. It’s an old story. Established businesses have always used government to handcuff competition. Years ago, small grocers tried to ban supermarkets. A&P was going to “destroy Main Street,” the grocers cried. Minnesota legislators responded to their lobbying by passing a law that forbade supermarkets to hold sales. Consumers were hurt.

What about Doctors and Lawyers?

Okay, while licensing of florists, interior designers, and yoga teachers is ridiculous, what about more important professions, like law? Surely people need protection from people who would practice law without a license. Again, I say no. The lawyers’ monopoly on helping people with wills, bankruptcies, and divorces is just another expensive restraint of trade.

David Price recently spent six months in a Kansas jail because he wrote a letter on behalf of a man who was wrongly accused of practicing architecture without a license. When Price refused to promise never to “practice law” again, a judge sent him to jail.

All he did was write a letter. Price didn’t misrepresent his credentials. However, he did save a man from paying $3,000 to a lawyer. Perhaps that was his real offense.

Competition is better than government at protecting consumers from shoddy work. Furthermore, licensing creates a false sense of security. Consider this: When you move to a new community, do you ask neighbors or colleagues to recommend doctors, dentists, and mechanics even though those jobs are licensed? Of course. Because you know that even with licensing laws, there is a wide range of quality and outright quackery in every occupation. You know that licensing doesn’t really protect you.

A free competitive market for reputation protects consumers much more effectively than government can. Today, online services like Angie’s List make it even easier for consumers to get better information about businesses than government licensing boards will ever provide. We do need protection from shoddy businesses. But it’s freedom and competition that produce the best protection.

No one can honestly believe that Louisiana’s flower cartel is necessary to protect consumers from renegade flower sellers. Rather, it is a classic case of protecting favored groups at the expense of consumers and entry-level entrepreneurs.

Such is the state of economic liberty in America today. Across the nation, the basic right to earn an honest living is under attack. Legislators and bureaucrats are teaming up with entrenched special interests to create needless obstacles to countless entrepreneurs’ pursuit of the American Dream. In the past few decades there has been a nationwide explosion of protectionist regulations—while there were about 80 occupations with such barriers to entry in 1981, today there are over 1,000.

An Institute for Justice (IJ) case that recently attracted international media attention vividly illustrates the uncontrolled growth of occupational licensing and the outrageous lengths that a cartel will go to protect all facets of its business from the most harmless of trades.

Mercedes Clemens was threatened with thousands of dollars in fines and criminal prosecution unless she stopped . . . massaging horses. In Maryland two powerful groups decided to monopolize the growing field of animal massage by requiring all practitioners to spend four years in veterinary school—where massage is not even taught.

Suggesting that only people with veterinary degrees are capable of massaging animals is like suggesting that only people with medical degrees are capable of massaging humans. Preventing Clemens—who is a licensed human-massage therapist and certified in equine massage—from working in her chosen trade has absolutely nothing to do with consumer or animal safety and everything to do with the financial interests of the veterinary cartel.

In 2004 the Tenth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in Powers v. Harris, “[W]hile baseball may be the national pastime of the citizenry, dishing out special economic benefits to certain in-state industries remains the favored pastime of state and local governments.” And for decades, following the instructions of the U.S. Supreme Court, federal and state courts have stood by while legislators engage in this “favored pastime” at the expense of consumers and entrepreneurs.

Government Protects Special Interests

In the absence of meaningful judicial supervision, politicians have gone to almost any imaginable length to protect special interests. When a powerful lobby demands protection from competitors, governments have been all too willing to invent—and courts all too willing to accept—patently ludicrous excuses for shutting down entrepreneurs. A court upheld Louisiana’s florist-licensing scheme, for example, because requiring florists to take a test, which would be graded largely on the subjective beauty of their floral arrangements, might help protect the public from “infected dirt.”

The true victims of this new “favored pastime” are people like Clemens and countless other Americans, honest individuals whose lives have been turned upside down solely to protect the politically powerful. Such examples are seemingly endless.

In Texas, all computer-repair technicians must now become private investigators. “If you’re investigating or analyzing data, then you should need a little more credentials than someone who just repairs computers,” the legislative sponsor said. The PI license requires a criminal-justice degree—or a three-year apprenticeship under a licensed private investigator. If a consumer knowingly takes his computer to get repaired by an unlicensed specialist, he faces thousands of dollars in fines and a year in jail. This law no doubt benefits special interests, but those benefits come directly at the expense of ordinary repair technicians and their customers.

A new law in Philadelphia will make it a crime in the coming weeks to talk about the Liberty Bell for money without the government’s permission. Unlicensed tour guides will be subject to hundreds of dollars in fines for talking about the place where the Declaration of Independence was written. Perhaps the most well-organized cartelization effort underway in the United States today is in the interior-design industry. A powerful faction of insiders has already put thousands of its competitors, mainly middle-aged and elderly women, out of work.

The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) represents less than 3 percent of all designers, but its members have designated themselves as spokespeople for the entire industry. In over 30 years of lobbying, ASID has never presented a single shred of evidence to support its extraordinary claim that literally “every decision an interior designer makes affects life safety and quality of life.”

ASID has been relentless in teaming up with legislatures coast to coast in its strategy for total cartelization. IJ has documented these efforts in a study titled “Designing Cartels.”

Such laws exist today for one reason: Our nation’s judicial system fails to protect the right to earn a living. Courts have decided that this fundamental right—economic liberty—is simply not as important as other rights, and less-important rights are thus not subject to meaningful judicial scrutiny and rarely are afforded protection under the law. If the government can simply dream up a conceivable reason for violating economic liberties, even if that reason is based on no facts, the regulations are generally upheld. Amazingly, courts will even help by inventing their own hypothetical rationales for economic protectionism. This system does not just stack the deck—it gives the politically powerful a hand full of jokers.

Thankfully, entrepreneurs are fighting back. Taxicab drivers, African hair-braiders, sign-hangers, waste haulers, casket sellers, and others have battled the odds (with help from IJ) to strike down occupational-licensing schemes.

Mercedes Clemens’s lawsuit has already caused one of the licensing boards to backpedal. The Philadelphia tour guides, now represented by IJ, had a hearing in federal court on October 6. In Texas, computer-repair technicians and interior designers are standing up for their constitutional rights.

F. A. Hayek famously wrote that “the great aim of the struggle for liberty has been equality before the law.” That is precisely what the fight for economic liberty is all about.

H. L. Mencken opined that “Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.” The November 2006 congressional elections are an excellent example of Mencken’s proposition.

The attempts by the 110th Congress to steal property and other rights from most of us at the behest of organized interests from which politicians take their orders are too numerous to count and too outrageous to ignore. They make one fear for the future of American liberty. For example, consider just a few congressional efforts to steal for the benefit of union bosses.

In my July/August 2007 column I wrote at length about the cynically named Employee Free Choice Act, the actual effect of which would be to eliminate employee free choice on the issue of union representation. This is a clear case of politicians stealing rights from workers to benefit union bosses. Here are other examples:

• HR 1644, the so-called “Respect Act,” would disrespect workplace supervisors by exposing them to coercive union organizing. The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) specifically exempts supervisors from its regulations. The Respect Act would remove that exemption. Union bosses like to pretend that any workers not subject to their control are being exploited. The truth is that most workers not subject to the impositions of the NLRA are grateful to be free of coercive unionism.
• HR 980 would force all police, firefighters, and emergency medical technicians (EMTs) to pay union dues before they would be permitted to do their duties. It would also outlaw volunteer firefighters because volunteers don’t pay union dues. Police, firefighters, and EMTs are usually employees of state and local governments, and many such governments protect their emergency workers from coerced unionism. HR 980 would override those protections.
• Continuing congressional efforts to turn back the clock on free trade are all about shielding some unions, and the manufacturers whose workers those unions represent, from global competition. This is a theft of rights of consumers as well as of workers willing to compete in the global economy. Union bosses know that if they don’t have to face competition from foreign workers, and if more American workers can be forced to become union members through, for example, the Employee Free Choice Act, the bosses will be much more powerful than they have ever been.
• As Doug Bandow has pointed out, congressional insistence that all international trade agreements include “labor standards” gives union bosses the opportunity to appeal to the International Labor Organization (ILO) when they are frustrated by rulings of the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) and American courts. For example, the ILO’s definition of freedom of association does not include the right of workers to choose not to associate with unions. Twenty-two states have right-to-work (RTW) laws that protect private-sector workers from having to pay union dues and fees as a condition of being able to work. The ILO claims that RTW laws are violations of the covered workers’ freedom of association. Union bosses prefer the ILO to the NLRB on this issue.

Hiding Corruption

One of the most outrageous attempts by Congress to steal for union bosses is its effort to permit them to hide their corruption and theft from workers and the general public. Union bosses will have to wait until after the November elections to collect most of their loot. However, they are assured that starting with the new fiscal year they will escape effective supervision by the Office of Labor Management Standards (OLMS), which is the agency in the Department of Labor responsible for investigating, exposing, and prosecuting union corruption and victimization of workers. One of its roles is to collect and make public the LM-2 union disclosure forms in which unions are supposed to reveal and explain their revenues and expenditures. Congress delivered this loot to the union bosses by drastically cutting the OLMS budget. Since the federal budget is not subject to a line-item veto, this is a fait accompli.

Department of Union Bosses

During the Clinton administration the OLMS was effectively prevented from doing its job because the Labor Department was run as if it were the Department for Union Bosses. For example, the LM-2 forms then used by the department permitted union bosses to obfuscate their revenues and expenditures, making it almost impossible for the OLMS to enforce the Supreme Court’s 1988 Beck decision. In that decision the Court prohibited unions from using agency fees, which are forcibly extracted from workers who prefer to be union-free, for political purposes.

Beginning in 2001 the department was run somewhat more in the interests of workers than union bosses. For example, in 2003 it adopted a new LM-2 form, which forced unions to disclose some, but not all, financial details relevant to Beck enforcement.

Moreover, the unions were required to divulge details of salaries paid to some union bosses. According to the Wall Street Journal, in 2006 the treasurer of the United Steelworkers received a salary of $825,262 and the president of the United Food and Commercial Workers received $679,949. This came as a surprise to many rank-and-file who had become accustomed to their leaders complaining about excessive compensation of corporate officers.

In 2001–2006 the OLMS received a 50 percent increase in its budget, and the agency increased its audits of unions by 200 percent. This resulted in 780 convictions of union apparatchiks on charges of corruption and theft, and over $110 million was wrested from union coffers and returned to hitherto victimized workers. In 2006 alone the OLMS conducted 741 compliance audits, prosecuted 339 criminal cases, and won 129 convictions. Union bosses are, to say the least, displeased. They want the Labor Department to once again act as the Department for Union Bosses, and Congress is doing its best to comply.

The three recent strike-threat settlements involving the United Auto Workers (UAW) and General Motors, Chrysler, and Ford all included the creation of a trust fund, to be administered by the UAW, called a Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association (VEBA). GM gave $35 billion, Chrysler $8.8 billion, and Ford $13 billion to the UAW to set up VEBAs, which are supposed to be used by the UAW to take over the provision of retiree health benefits from the auto companies. This reduces the so-called “legacy costs” of the American auto companies, which have made it difficult for them to compete with foreign producers. Altogether UAW bosses have an additional $56.8 billion to play with. It is the responsibility of the OLMS to oversee the administration of these funds to assure they are managed in the interests of the retirees. It seems that Congress doesn’t care very much about this oversight.

It is disturbing to note that in 2001–2006 the OLMS enforced the same laws that existed before 2001. The difference was not the law, but the willingness to enforce it. The rule of law is a favorite shibboleth of American politicians. Yet when it comes to laws affecting unions, there is no rule of law. What the OLMS does depends on the politicians who run the Labor Department. They all make it up as they go along. Politicians in thrall to union bosses decide one way, and politicians more dedicated to the interests of workers decide another. Law is subordinate to politics. Inasmuch as the NLRA was and remains designed to grant privileges to union bosses at the expense of workers who want to be union-free, its total repeal is a necessary condition for the rule of law to be re-established in American labor markets.

American union law denies individual workers the right to decide for themselves whether to be represented by a union on their jobs. Rather, under the doctrine of “exclusive representation,” if a majority of employees on a job want a union to represent them, all workers must submit to such representation whether they want it or not. They don’t have to be union members, but they must accept representation. Except in the 22 right-to-work (RTW) states, this often gives rise to “union security” arrangements in which every worker who is not a member of the union is forced to pay “agency fees” to the union in order to keep his job. Washington is not an RTW state.

In its 1977 Abood decision the Court said, on First Amendment grounds, that agency fee payers in government employment do not have to pay for a union’s political and ideological advocacy. In its 1986 Hudson decision the Court set out minimal procedural rules unions must follow to enforce the Abood decision. The minimal rule at stake in the Davenport case was that agency fee payers must be given a chance to opt out of paying any fees unions would use for political purposes. If they opted out, fee payers would get a refund of a portion of the agency fees. If they said nothing, unions could use their agency fees for politics.

The paycheck-protection provision of Washington’s 1992 campaign-finance law went beyond Hudson’s opt-out rule. It said that before a union could use any agency fees for politics, the fee payers must first consent. In other words, they would have to opt in. Silence was now taken as denial of permission to use the fees for politics.

The WEA ignored the opt-in rule of the initiative until, in 2000, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation filed a complaint with then-attorney general Christine Gregoire, who proceeded to launch the litigation that culminated in the Court’s Davenport ruling. Along the way six of the justices on the Washington state Supreme Court declared the paycheck-protection measure unconstitutional because it placed too much of a burden on the WEA’s right of free political speech. The state court said the Supreme Court’s earlier agency-fee jurisprudence (Abood, Hudson, among others) balanced the constitutional right of unions to receive money from those they represent in order to participate in political speech against the constitutional rights of agency fee payers not to be coerced into funding political speech with which they disagree. The paycheck protection provision, the state court said, broke that balance.

Justice Antonin Scalia, who wrote the Davenport decision, quickly dispensed with that bit of sophistry: “The agency-fee cases did not balance constitutional rights in such a manner because unions have no constitutional entitlement to nonmember employees’ fees.” First Amendment rights inhere in individuals, not groups. Scalia also wrote, “It is undeniably unusual for a government agency to give a private entity the power to tax government employees.” Only unions representing government employees have that privilege, and there is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits government from regulating that privilege. Governments can revoke that privilege altogether (as in the RTW states), and they can restrict it, as Washington voters did, by implementing an opt-in rule.

Since the 1950s the National Right to Work Committee has tried to enact RTW laws in as many states as possible. The Committee is now promoting a national RTW law which would eliminate the collection of forced union dues throughout the country. Many RTW supporters have regarded paycheck-protection legislation as, at best, a diversion of resources, effort, and attention from the more fundamental RTW effort. Nevertheless, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation participated in the Davenport litigation against the WEA. It did so because if the state Supreme Court’s ruling that unions have a constitutional right to receive money from nonmembers to fund the unions’ political speech had been allowed to stand, the whole RTW principle would have been in legal jeopardy.

The main significance of Davenport is that it is now clear the unions have no constitutional right to seize money from nonmembers. However, except in the RTW states, unions continue to have a statutory privilege to do so. This is the “unusual” legal, but immoral privilege of “a private entity . . . to tax government [and private] employees” Justice Scalia alluded to. That egregious grant of tax powers to unions is what ought to be addressed. Paycheck protection accepts what is evil and merely attempts to make it less burdensome. This is better than doing nothing, but it is very little indeed.

Because of Davenport, other state governments and/or voters may be encouraged to enact paycheck-protection legislation. However, if they do so I do not think workers who want to be union-free will be much better off than they are now. Notwithstanding Davenport, the opt-in provision of paycheck protection is no longer available to Washington state employees. In anticipation of the Court’s decision, Washington’s legislature and Governor Christine Gregoire simply repealed the opt-in rule. The Court said that states may impose opt-in rules, but it did not say states must do so. Oh, yes: The legislation that removed the opt-in rule included an emergency clause that makes it impossible for Washington voters to restore paycheck protection by another referendum. Such is the union-based politics of plunder.

Unenforceable Protection

Various paycheck protection measures have been enacted in several states. Even in those cases where politicians do not conspire with unions to repeal or amend them, they are practically unenforceable. The paycheck-protection principle is that agency fee payers should not be forced to pay for union politicking. All it takes is a bit of creative accounting and imaginative tinkering with definitions for unions to evade the law. For example, when the Washington legislature and governor, at the behest of their union bosses, repealed the opt-in provision, they also declared that henceforth no nonmember agency-fee money would be considered to have been spent on politics if the union receiving the fees had sufficient other money to have made the political expenditures. The fact that money is fungible makes this a nonsense proposition. The agency fees will simply take the place of the non-fee money that would otherwise be spent on something else. The bottom line is the same: Agency fees make increased political spending possible.

Classical liberals should be interested in fighting coercive unionism. The fundamental instrument of coercion is exclusive representation. Without that, the whole union-security question and its concomitant RTW issue would be moot. Without exclusive representation there would be nothing about unions from which a paycheck would need protection.

The three most egregious impositions of the NLRA are exclusive representation, union security, and mandatory good-faith bargaining. Leef has little to say about the first and the last, although he defeats the case for the latter with a clever analogy to bargaining in the housing market. Union security has always been the primary concern of the National Right to Work Committee and its sister organization, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Union security is the means by which the NLRA empowers unions to force workers who have already been forced to accept unwanted union representation to pay for that representation or be fired from their jobs. Leef begins by destroying all the hoary arguments by which unionists try to justify this legalized extortion and brilliantly deploys all the counterarguments. He then tells the right-to-work (RTW) story in crisp, entertaining, and informative prose.

The RTW movement was begun by railway workers who resented attempts by some railway unions to monopolize labor representation in that industry after the passage of the Railway Labor Act in 1926. With the onset of the Great Depression, Herbert Hoover placed the independence of individual workers in even greater jeopardy when he signed the Norris-LaGuardia Act (1932). The hegemony of unions over individual workers was completed by enactment of the NLRA (1935). The 1947 Taft-Hartley amendments to the NLRA did almost nothing to defend all workers’ right to make choices for themselves. The infamous “except” clause that was added to Section 7 of the NLRA gave forced-dues extortion more apparent legitimacy than it ever had. Under Section 7 workers may refrain from union activities except when unions can prevent them from doing so by union-security agreements with employers. Apparently to make up for that bit of duplicity, a majority of the 1947 Congress added Section 14(b), which stipulates that individual states have the power to proscribe union-security arrangements within their respective jurisdictions.

One of Leef’s most dramatic stories is his account of the 1965 attempt by President Lyndon Johnson and the Democrat-controlled Congress, at the behest of the AFL-CIO, to repeal Section 14(b). He likens it to World War II’s Battle of Midway, with the union behemoth as the Japanese navy and the National Right to Work Committee and its indefatigable president, Reed Larson, along with Senator Everett Dirksen of Illinois, as the vastly outnumbered American fleet headed by Admiral Spruance. The unions and their political sycophants thought they had won the battle before it began. They completely discounted the ability of the Committee to arouse public opinion and grassroots activism against repeal. Nor did they worry about the minority of politicians (of both parties) who opposed repeal. With public-opinion polls it had commissioned, the Committee was able to convince a reluctant Senator Dirksen to lead a successful filibuster against the repeal. Leef’s telling is filled with nail-biting suspense and high drama. Dirksen and the Committee defeated repeal in 1965 and again in 1966.

In numerous other legislative battles, both in Congress and state legislatures, Leef exposes what can only be called hypocrisy. Most Democrats openly opposed RTW and still do. In contrast, many Republicans—in Congress and the White House (especially Presidents Nixon, Ford, and both Bushes)—claimed to support worker freedom of choice; but when it was time actually to vote or to take some executive action they cowered before the AFL-CIO. This, too, continues to be the case.

Two attempts at labor law “reform”—that is, making it easier for unions to capture forced dues-payers—during the Carter and Clinton years are especially interesting. The filibuster to stop “reform” in 1978 survived six cloture votes before the union-owned politicians were forced to concede defeat.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, which Leef tells us was patterned after the NAACP Legal Defense Foundation, was created in 1968 to carry the battle against worker coercion into the courts. The Foundation has been astonishingly successful at the Supreme Court—for example, in those cases in which the Court ruled that unions may not collect money from unwilling workers for their political and ideological spending. This effort began with railway- and airline-industry cases, continued with government-sector cases, and culminated for most private-sector workers with the famous Beck case in 1988.

Alas, victory in the Court does not automatically translate into victory in practice. Even some in the Reagan administration were reluctant to enforce the Beck decision. The first President Bush refused to do anything to enforce Beck, except at the last minute before the 1992 election when he was trailing Clinton in the polls. All he could summon the courage to do then was to require federal contractors to post Beck rights in the workplace. President Clinton rescinded that order as soon as he took office. The National Labor Relations Board, whose continued existence depends on coercive unionism, still resists enforcing Beck.

Leef tells many other stories. Among them, the attempts by unions to harass the Committee with the help of the IRS and the Federal Election Commission are especially maddening. I will close with a story Leef doesn’t tell.

FDR Infuriates the Unions

Section 7(a) of the 1933 National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) permitted individual workers to decide for themselves whether to have any union represent them. The unions fought hard to take this right away. On March 1, 1934, Senator Robert Wagner introduced a bill that would have done so. On March 25 President Roosevelt approvingly announced the settlement of a nationwide labor dispute in the auto industry that endorsed free choice for workers. The union establishment was furious, but without Roosevelt’s support Wagner’s 1934 bill died. In 1935 Wagner came back with a new bill which, among other things, stipulated that union representation must be decided by majority vote among workers in their respective workplaces. The winning union would become the exclusive bargaining agent for all workers who were eligible to vote. This bill became the NLRA on July 5, 1935, with Roosevelt’s signature.

What accounts for Roosevelt’s change of heart between March 25, 1934, and July 5, 1935? I think it was spite. On May 27, 1935, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that NIRA was unconstitutional. This was the cornerstone of Roosevelt’s feckless attempts to do something about the Great Depression. He was furious with the “nine old men” on the Court who opposed his corporatist ideas about how an economy should be run. The Wagner bill was consistent with those ideas, and many of those who opposed the Wagner bill were openly jubilant over the Court’s NIRA decision. Roosevelt could have seen support of Wagner’s bill as a way to get back at his political enemies.

George Leef and I agree that by any reasonable reading of the Constitution the NLRA is unconstitutional. It should be repealed. In the meantime all who subscribe to the freedom philosophy owe Reed Larson, the Committee, and the Foundation a great debt of gratitude for their persistent defense of worker freedom. A national right-to-work act would be a fitting tribute.

For example, last fall Sweeney and his cronies suffered two important, crushing defeats. On September 25 the voters of Oklahoma, by a 54-46 percent vote, approved a state constitutional amendment that made it the 22nd right-to-work state. Just eight days later, on October 3, 68 percent of the workers at Nissan’s assembly plant in Smyrna, Tennessee, voted to remain union-free.

The Oklahoma Story

Section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) permits states to ban “union security” clauses in employment contracts within their respective jurisdictions. Union security clauses force all workers in a firm in which a union has been certified as exclusive (that is, monopoly) bargaining agent to pay fees to the union as a condition of continued employment. Where union security exists, workers do not have a right to work for willing employers without buying permission from unions with monopoly bargaining privileges. In the 22 right-to-work states, which now include Oklahoma, the right of any willing worker to be employed by any willing employer is guaranteed. No union, even with monopoly bargaining privileges, may abrogate that fundamental right.

It is not hard to see why unions abhor right-to-work laws. If they are restricted to collecting dues from their voluntary members–forbidden to force unwilling workers to pay them for representation services those workers do not want–they will have much less money to play with than they otherwise would. Money is crucial to unions because in the face of falling unionization rates their only hope for long-run survival in the private sector is for politicians to change the NLRA in ways that will make it harder for workers to avoid unionization. To that end, the AFL-CIO and its constituent unions spent approximately $500 million in cash and in-kind electoral support of union-friendly politicians in the 2000 elections for president and Congress. In the Oklahoma right-to-work battle the unions spent approximately $15 million to defeat the proposed constitutional amendment, while the victors only spent $6 million. A majority of Sooners, it appears, are far too smart to yield to the blandishments of desperate union officials who, from now on, will have no forced dues from Oklahoma to play with.

The Nissan Story

The story in Smyrna, Tennessee, is even more devastating to the Detroit-based United Auto Workers (UAW). The UAW had 1.5 million active members in 1970. By July 2001 active membership had fallen to 733,000. The Big Three Detroit-based auto producers are all heavily unionized and have been since the 1930s. But they are rapidly losing market share to union-free auto producers that are largely foreign-owned, with plants located in the largely union-free south. The UAW needed to win this certification election at Nissan to establish an auto-industry outpost in the south and to set a precedent that it hoped would make southern workers less union-resistant. The vote against certifying the UAW as the monopoly bargaining agent wasn’t even close. Nissan workers rejected the UAW 68-32 percent.

The outcome is not surprising since Nissan workers in Smyrna make an average of $22 per hour without overtime. This is double what comparable workers in other industries earn in the South. Moreover, workers are becoming increasingly aware that union-free employment provides more job security than unions can offer. Unionized firms are impaired by the lack of ability to adapt to rapidly changing market conditions that have become common due to globalization of competition. Firms must be competitive to survive and flourish in the 21st century, and the unions impair competitiveness.

Robert King, a UAW official, said that the union’s loss “offers dramatic proof of the tremendous obstacles workers must overcome in the face of a hostile employer.” He just doesn’t get it. In 1989 the UAW lost its first certification election at Nissan by approximately the same decisive margin. It dropped attempts even to get an election in Smyrna in 1997 and again in 2000 for lack of worker interest.

The message seems clear: Nissan workers in Tennessee want to remain union-free. They want the UAW to go away; but, because it is so desperate, the UAW probably will continue to try to capture Nissan workers. The NLRA permits unions to harass workers and employers with certification elections and threats of certification elections indefinitely. Resources consumed in fighting these repeated attempts at hostile takeover are not then available to meet the challenges of competition. But unions don’t care about the costs they impose on others, even workers. They care only about their institutional survival and capturing more fee payers.

Despite the bad news for unions in Oklahoma and Tennessee regarding their continued collapse in the private sector, they continue to prosper in government employment where the unionization rate was 37.5 percent in 2000, up from 37.3 percent in 1999. The trend seems clear. Unionization in America is becoming a phenomenon by which government workers and their union leaders attempt to live at the expense of private-sector workers. I will address issues of government-sector unionization in my next column.

Today, union leaders rarely tell the rank and file about Gompers’s defense of individual rights. Armed with tens of millions of dollars in forced dues from compulsory union membership, today’s unions engage in political activity, social causes, and ideological crusades to which many of the members personally object. That may change, if a 1988 Supreme Court decision is ever enforced.

In 21 “right to work” states, workers are protected from union compulsion by laws that make union membership voluntary. But in the other 29 states, a simple majority vote at a work site is sufficient to dragoon all workers into a union. With this “exclusive right of representation,” unions then negotiate security clauses in contracts with employers that give them the power to coerce their “members” to pay dues.

Employers routinely approve these clauses, even though no law mandates them, in exchange for concessions at the bargaining table. A security clause obligates an employer to fire a worker who fails to pay these fees at the union’s request. Since this guarantees that the union will get whatever it demands from workers, it is usually in the union’s best interest to sacrifice other proposals at the bargaining table to secure this lucrative and self-perpetuating device.

Workers covered by a security clause must pay dues for the union’s collective-bargaining activities, but they are not required to financially support the union’s political or ideological causes. In fact, workers are actually entitled to a refund of their dues used for purposes unrelated to collective bargaining, contract administration, or grievance processing, according to the 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Communication Workers of America v. Beck.

In that celebrated case, it was determined that the union had been using as much as 79 percent of Harry Beck’s dues for partisan politics—and almost all of it on behalf of one particular political party. In a more recent case from Ferris State University in Michigan, a teachers union was found to have been spending over 90 percent of its members’ dues money on political and other non-bargaining activities.

Ten years after the landmark decision, Beck rights go largely unrealized because workers simply do not know these rights exist and state and federal governments have done almost nothing to enforce them. In April 1996 Luntz Research revealed that 78 percent of 1,000 union members surveyed were unaware that they had a right to a refund of the portion of their dues that went to political activities. Moreover, a whopping 84 percent in the survey said that their union leaders should be required to disclose “exactly how they spend” union dues.

Peer pressure and veiled threats from the top discourage the informed few from even attempting to exercise their Beck rights. When union members have actually challenged their union leadership to honor the decision—and there have been a courageous few—they get the cold shoulder or worse. Union leaders behave like the monopolists they are—stonewalling, falsifying the numbers, and forcing disgruntled workers to spend large sums of money to litigate the issue. To most workers, that expense is hardly worth the eventual refund.

In a free society, membership in any organization would be a matter of choice and the issue of spending dues money against the wishes of dues payers would be a rare tempest in a very tiny teapot. Compelling someone to join and pay dues to support collective bargaining does obvious violence to that principle, but the Supreme Court’s Beck ruling was intended to prevent something even worse—forcing a worker to pay for other people’s political agendas.

In April 1992, President George Bush issued an executive order requiring all firms doing business with the federal government to inform their workers of their Beck rights. Shortly after assuming office in 1993, President Bill Clinton rescinded that order. It remains a travesty of justice in America that in spite of a ruling from the highest court in the land, our so-called public servants with few exceptions cannot bring themselves to enforce every worker’s right to abstain from supporting causes and candidates he opposes.

The state of Washington is virtually alone in attempting to enforce Beck rights. In 1992, 72 percent of that state’s voters approved a ballot initiative requiring teachers unions to secure written permission from each worker before deducting political-action assessments from his paycheck. For state-government workers, the voters approved even stricter language: state-employee unions could not deduct for political contributions under any circumstances; an employee’s personal check was required.

What happened after these changes was nothing short of astonishing. The number of teachers contributing to their unions’ political-action committees plummeted from over 45,000 to just 8,000. And the number of state workers making such a contribution—over 40,000 before the change—evaporated to a microscopic 82. No wonder unions everywhere are scared stiff that Beck rights might become a cause célèbre.

California voters will go to the polls later this year to decide on a Beck-inspired referendum. If it passes, unions in that state could no longer collect or use money from employees for political purposes without express permission. Millions of dollars will be spent by both sides over the exercise of a right that ought to be a given in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

The failure to enforce that right mocks justice and offends a most fundamental principle of individual liberty. Freedom lovers everywhere should yearn for the day when American workers are no longer compelled to cough up cash for the pet political projects of union leaders.

For example, Weyerhaeuser Paper Co. and the United Paperworkers International Union (UPIU) have a union security clause that requires all maintenance and production employees to “become and remain members of the union in good standing” as a condition of continued employment. It also requires new employees to do the same after a 30-day probationary period. It seems clear: a worker who doesn’t join the union will not be employed by Weyerhaeuser. But, as Roland Buzenius proved in a Sixth Federal Circuit Court of Appeals decision on September 8, 1997, that is not what the clause means. If it did mean that, it would be illegal.

It is well known that in the 21 right-to-work states all forms of union security clauses are banned. In those states workers can be forced to have a union (selected by majority vote) represent them, but they cannot be forced to join or pay dues. In the 29 other states—California, for example—union security clauses are permitted, and they are usually worded like the Weyerhaeuser clause. Unions routinely try to use those clauses to dupe workers into thinking that full membership in good standing can be compelled.

Word games have always been a large part of labor-relations law. Section 8(a)3 of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) says that it is “an unfair labor practice for an employer by discrimination in regard to hire or tenure of employment . . . to encourage or discourage membership in any labor organization.” By itself, that would make union security clauses illegal. However, Section 8(a)3 goes on to say, “provided, that nothing in this Act . . . shall preclude an employer from making an agreement with a labor organization . . . to require as a condition of employment membership therein.” In other words, employers cannot encourage membership in a union; they can only compel it. Such is the stuff of laws designed to serve special interests.

The proviso of Section 8(a)3 would seem to make union security clauses that require membership legal. Not so, says the U.S. Supreme Court. In the 1963 case NLRB v. General Motors Corp., the Court said that required membership is limited to its “financial core.” That means that the only thing a union can require of the workers it represents is the payment of union dues and initiation fees. No other obligations of membership in good standing can be imposed. In the 1985 case Pattern Makers’ League v. NLRB, the Court said that any union member in good standing could resign membership at any time for any purpose without giving any notice and become a dues-paying represented worker. Finally, in the 1988 case Communication Workers of America v. Beck, the Court said that a worker could be compelled to pay only that portion of union dues and initiation fees used for collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance procedures. No worker can be compelled to pay dues for such things as politics, lobbying, and union organizing. On average, unions spend only 25 percent of their dues on the three activities for which they may collect forced dues.

So “membership in good standing,” as that term is usually interpreted, cannot be compelled in any of the 50 states. All that can be required in the 29 states that have not banned all forms of union security is that workers represented by a union pay partial dues. Any union member paying full dues can resign at will and become a partial-dues, financial-core represented worker. Obviously, unions do not want workers to know this.

This brings us back to Weyerhaeuser and Roland Buzenius, who tried to resign his membership in UPIU. The union ignored his resignation, continued to collect full dues from his paycheck, sent him a new membership card, and said if he resigned he would forfeit his job. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys represented Buzenius against UPIU before the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB acknowledged Buzenius’s rights under the court decisions and ordered the union to stop collecting full dues from him and imposing any other membership requirements on him. It also required the union to post a notice telling all Weyerhaeuser maintenance and production employees that they have the same rights.

However, the NLRB allowed the wording of the union security clause that requires “membership in good standing” to stand. It said that the Supreme Court has never addressed the issue of permissible wording, so any wording agreed to by the employer and the union and consistent with Section 8(a)3, is permissible. Buzenius took the wording issue to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, which on September 8 ruled that the Weyerhaeuser union security clause “leads employees to believe that they must become full-fledged union members as a condition of employment,” and since that is “directly at odds with Supreme Court precedent,” it must be disallowed.

The Sixth Circuit includes only Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Tennessee. (The issue is moot in Tennessee because it is a right-to-work state.) Until the Supreme Court decides the wording issue, or until Congress codifies the three Supreme Court decisions in amendments to the NLRA, misleading union security clauses will still be allowed in all other non-right-to-work states. But the basic issues are already decided. No American worker can legally be forced to become or remain a union member in good standing in any state.

The trouble is that the Department of Labor refuses to enforce the Supreme Court decisions and allows the AFL-CIO to keep workers in the dark concerning those decisions. This means that workers must file individual cases with the NLRB and the courts to secure their rights.

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation offers free legal representation to workers whose unions refuse to let them resign and become partial-dues, financial-core represented workers. It can be reached on the Internet at www.nrtw.org. An amendment to the NLRA currently under consideration in Congress would extend right-to-work protections to workers in every state. If that were to become law there could be no compulsory union dues for any purpose in any state.

They shot me as I opened the door of my pickup truck. They hit me five times. One bullet tore into my left knee. A bullet went into my right hand. A bullet went into my right side and exited next to my navel. Two bullets went into my thigh. I felt like I was being burned with a hot poker, and then I went into shock.

I dragged myself behind the truck, hoping to protect myself from further shooting. I dragged myself into the house so I could call for help. An ambulance took me to Mid-Jefferson Hospital, a few miles away in Nederland, Texas. I didn’t see or hear anything.

I didn’t have to see them to know they were militants from the local of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union. This was October 2, 1982, amidst a bitter strike at the American Petrofina oil refinery in Port Arthur, Texas, where I helped maintain boiler systems. I had been the first to defy union bosses and exercise my right to work.

About 25 years ago, a small group of men had taken over this local. Like union bosses elsewhere, they exploited the powers of compulsory unionism and forced dues, sanctioned by federal laws. The Wagner Act (1935) in particular made it easy for union bosses to gain control of a workplace and extremely difficult for workers to get rid of the union bosses. They forced workers to join the union against their will. Membership was effectively a condition of employment. Union bosses spent members’ dues in ways that would enhance their power, and there wasn’t much anyone could do about it.

To flex their muscles they called a strike at the expiration of every two-year contract between 1972 and 1982. I’d say the strikes averaged about a month and a half. One strike lasted about three weeks, another about three months. Consequently, it was hard for anyone there to build up life savings. We saved to get through the next strike.

I was sick and tired of these pointless strikes. I reckon the best way of putting it is that you don’t have bad companies or bad unions. What you have are bad leaders. If they would work with each other, things would be great.

But the union bosses were like kids who were never willing to back down for anything. Instead of negotiation, there was confrontation. The union hierarchy was having an ego trip. They enjoyed the power. If I had to quit the union, I was willing to do it.

Well, on January 7, 1982, the Petrofina contract expired again, and union bosses called another strike. The issue supposedly was work rule changes which the company wanted. Some 300 workers walked out. Peer pressure to do so was tremendous, as always.

Petrofina supervisors and non-union workers from other refineries kept our refinery going. Soon there was violence as militants shot a company vehicle. They shot a security post with three guards in it. Cars were vandalized. The road going into the refinery was littered with nails.

By 1982, my 18-year-old daughter, Wendy, was in college, so I faced big expenses. I decided that if the strike dragged on, I’d go back to work. Naturally, my wife, Barbara, was anxious, but she agreed I should do what I needed to do.

On September 22nd—I remember it was a Wednesday—I was working again. It was something of a milestone, because in the entire 45-year history of this refinery, no member of the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union had gone against the bosses and crossed a picket line.

But the Texas constitution guaranteed one’s right to work. On paper anyway, exercising one’s right to work wasn’t supposed to be a big deal.

Plenty of other Petrofina workers were worried about family finances. The union got many calls from workers anxious for the strike to be resolved soon. Union bosses feared that unless something were done about me, more members might return to work, and their power would collapse.

We got threatening phone calls. A caller warned Barbara: “Tell Bill we’re going to get him—and you had better watch your little girl.”

At the entrance to the Petrofina plant, union militants hanged a life-sized effigy of me from a tree. There was a sign saying “this is what we do to scabs.”

One evening as we sat in our house, rocks crashed against the outside walls.

Then came the shooting that morning as I was about to head for work.

Threatening calls continued to come. One caller warned Barbara at the Wal-Mart where she worked: “We didn’t do such a good job on your husband, but you’ll be next!”

Other callers threatened to blow up the store if Barbara weren’t fired.

I was still in the hospital when Roy Lynch, chaplain of the local, wrote a letter to the local newspaper saying, “Lots of us wished we would have done it [shot me] because of what he did by crossing.” This was the union chaplain sanctioning violence! After the first trial, he told my wife he was sorry from the bottom of his heart.

A Small Minority

I’d guess there were fewer than ten militants in our local. It doesn’t take many to intimidate a whole community. A person can be a wife beater or a murderer, and they’re one of the boys, as long as they’re loyal to the union bosses. The union takes the place of religion for some of them.

I got out of the hospital after about two weeks and returned to work. I limped, but I crossed that picket line. I remember telling Barbara: “I’ve never run from anyone, and I don’t intend to start now.”

I must say I didn’t expect things would go as far as they did. I figured the militants would try to lump my head. Shooting seemed a bit much. I served in the Korean War, and I never got a scratch.

I knew those guys. I had worked at that refinery since 1958 when I was 26.

My job was to take care of steam, water, and air lines throughout the plant, so I saw all kinds of people. Everyone was nice. I thought I was well-liked. I learned that everything suddenly goes out the window if you defy the union bosses.

I have never been able to look at work the way the union bosses do. If a man hires me and pays me what he says he will, I don’t care how much money he has. I work for so many hours, he pays me what he says, that suits me.

Such views are heretical, especially since we lived in a union town. Practically everyone worked at the oil refineries. Union bosses influenced local government, including the police. When there was union violence, militants were seldom ever caught. Witnesses, if any, didn’t dare step forward. The veneer of law wears pretty thin when people know they can get away with violence.

In my case, there weren’t any witnesses. It was about 5:30 in the morning—no cars going by our residential street, no people out walking their dogs. It was dark, and I didn’t look up as I walked out of the house.

As far as I knew, the police seemed to be doing their job, but there wasn’t anything brought out, because no one was going to talk. Although a crab fisherman found a semiautomatic rifle whose identification number had been rubbed out, police couldn’t prove anything. A grand jury called some union militants, but they took the Fifth Amendment, and that was that. Nobody was ever arrested.

If it hadn’t been for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, nothing would have been done. They had plenty of experience fighting union violence. I talked to them about three weeks after I was shot, and their attorney Bob Gore visited me.

He began gathering strong circumstantial evidence for a civil case against the union. For example, the telephone company has records of all local calls placed to a number. These records aren’t shown on your bill, but the phone company has them. If you give phone company people your number and the approximate time someone called you, they can find where the call came from. Barbara and I kept a journal of the threatening calls, all traced to known union militants. Some calls were traced to the vice chairman of the union local.

We filed suit against the local and four union bosses. The charge was conspiracy to violate my right to work under Texas law. The trial began in Beaumont, Texas, September 1986. Right-to-work attorneys called witnesses to many acts of violence which had occurred during the Petrofina strike. One of the union bosses was on record as warning members not to be violent in front of television cameras that Petrofina had set up on its property. The attorneys presented evidence about my case. The jury, however—in this heavily unionized area—found the union bosses not guilty.

The attorneys subsequently learned that one of the jurors was the niece of a striker who was a former defendant in the case —and she was less than forthcoming when questioned by attorneys. Another juror confirmed that the union juror had intimidated the rest.

Judge Jack King ruled the case must be tried again, this time in an area less subject to union influence—about 95 miles away in Huntsville. In October 1987, the jury ordered the union to pay us $1.2 million in damages. But a month later, the presiding judge invalidated the jury award.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys brought the case before the Texas Court of Appeals. In July 1989, judges there decided that union leaders had sanctioned violence and failed to curb the militants. The jury verdict was upheld.

Then the union appealed to the Texas Supreme Court, but it declined to hear the case, which meant the jury decision stood. The union declared bankruptcy.

I’m still feeling the injuries I suffered. I’ve had my knee operated on three times, and I drag my left leg. I can’t squat down or lift very well.

Barbara is a strong person, but this was the first time union violence hit home, and it was bad for her. I didn’t realize it affected her as much as it did. She was so worried about me and our daughter. We have learned to live with it.

Incidentally, the strike ended about two months after I was shot. There hasn’t been a strike at the Petrofina refinery since —more than a decade of peace and prosperity. Workers can now save for their families instead of always preparing for another strike.