Bangor Daily News editorial: Maine shouldn’t join the race to the bottom by weakening unions

https://bangordailynews.com/2015/04/27/opinion/maine-shouldnt-join-the-race-to-the-bottom-by-weakening-unions/

CONTRIBUTORS
Maine shouldn’t join the race to the bottom by weakening unions

By Ralph Tucker, Special to the BDN
Posted April 27, 2015, at 10:53 a.m.

Maine policymakers want to encourage good job skills and higher wages for working people. Unions have done just that. By providing higher wages and protection against arbitrary treatment, American unions improve the living standards of the middle class. Labor unions are a training ground for citizenship through the practice of participatory democracy. Union members can be found on school boards, town councils and civic organizations all over Maine.

Yet, some legislators are attacking union and worker job security by trying to outlaw union security clauses freely negotiated in labor contracts. One onerous bill seeking to outlaw union security clauses is LD 489, “An Act To Ensure the Right To Work without Payment of Dues or Fees to a Labor Union as a Condition of Employment,” which claims to protect the “right to work” by making union dues voluntary. The bill would undermine collective bargaining. A more apt description for the bill would be the “right to be fired” or “right to work for less.”

Absent a labor agreement or a violation of narrow civil rights laws, the employment relationship under our laws is generally “at will.” An employee’s right to work can be terminated at any time. An employee can be fired for any or no reason. In larger companies, a “just cause” clause in the union contract ordinarily protects an employee’s right not to be fired “at will” for arbitrary reasons.

Union security clauses are contractual agreements that allow paycheck dues collections from covered employees. Such clauses are routine, well-accepted elements of American labor relations. They raise the resources necessary to protect the membership in negotiations, grievances and arbitrations.

FULL story at link.



George Danby | BDN