Right-To-Work

Please help me understand how right-to-work laws are undemocratic, bad for workers and bad for the economy. The basic right of every American is the freedom of choice. In fact, our great prosperity can only be attributed to this fundamental principle of our liberty.

When opposing forces engage in the contest for the hearts and minds of their constituencies, it is this freedom of choice that fuels the energy, the passion, and the creativity of opposing arguments. It is this process that elevates and stretches us beyond the status quo to reach for the ideals we have embraced. It is the duty, responsibility, and obligation of any advocate to carefully, thoughtfully, and persuasively articulate and promote the legitimacy and worthiness of the cause. This is not the easy path but it is the one which ensures we prevent intentional abuses of our idealism.

To compel anyone to do anything is rarely, if ever, a good idea. In fact, coercion is the tool of the impotent and the incompetent and is an admission the argument is unworthy and indefensible. And this I have observed; those who employ the tactics of coercion and intimidation do so as a means to fulfill their personal ambitions without regard for the consequences to others. It is also the irrefutable evidence of their complete lack of trust and faith in our fellow citizen to make informed choices. Those who fail to inform and persuade become remnants of history and undeserving of our respect and admiration.

In nearly every other endeavor of the human spirit, it is the freedom of choice that propels great achievement. And if we know that to be true, why would we choose otherwise? Possibly because mandatory membership maximizes revenues and thereby inflates the union bosses’ power and influence, and control over those who would choose not to join. To refuse to join the union may be selfish and self-serving, but do we want to live in a society where our behavior, our affiliations are mandated by a controlling entity?

Right-to-Work laws reflect the essence of free markets which perpetually change and evolve to meet the ever-changing climate of supply and demand. Maintaining the status quo is the surest path to decline and failure. It is incongruent to believe the labor market should somehow be insulated from the certainty of economic cycles. And it is incongruent to want the benefits provided by free markets without accepting the attendant risk. Unions should accept the same degree of risk of failure as do the employers they serve. Allowing union membership to rise and fall in response to the economy is the safeguard against the union losing its vitality, its focus on the individual member, and its value to society. Free markets abhor any suggestion that anyone is entitled to anything. The past does not create an entitlement for the future -- change is the only constant in our lives and you either embrace it or be crushed by it.

The only conclusion we can draw from those who support mandatory union membership is they reject the principles of liberty, democracy and free markets in favor of a system that subjugates the individual's right to freedom of choice. Centralized planning and control of the populace, at any level, has never created the utopian society originally intended. And since we know this to be true, why do some among us continue to pursue a philosophy that guarantees failure?Right-To-Work