By Harry Kelber; CORPCAMP at aol.com
Oct 1, 2001
Oklahoma became the 22nd state to enact an anti-union "right-to-work" law
when 54% of the voters approved Question 695 on Sept. 25. The state Constitution has now been amended so that unions cannot negotiate contracts that require employees to pay dues or an agency service fee as a condition of employment.
Proponents of the measure trotted out all their familiar arguments about "economic development" and "personal freedom." The business interests that financed the campaign said that Oklahoma will be better able to compete with neighboring Arkansas, Kansas and Texas - each of which is already a
"right-to-work" state - when union power is restricted and wages and benefits drop accordingly.
Working people, in turn, were told they could still get the benefits of a
union contract without paying dues or an agency fee. Under federal law, called "the right of fair representation," unions are required to service
nonunion employees at work places where they have a contract.
Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a Republican who backed the anti-union amendment from the moment he took office in 1995, is ecstatic about the outcome of the vote. "This is affirmation of Oklahoma's greatness, Oklahoma's willingness to change, to become a renaissance state¦ This is the first step in the liberation of the Oklahoma economy. It's a statement for prosperity and growth," he exulted.
Oklahoma unions represent only about 8% of the state's work force, considerably less than the 13.5% national average. State AFL-CIO President
Jim Curry tried to put the best face on a major defeat. "We got over 46% of the vote. Over 350,000 Oklahomans believed our message," he said. "We have to back up and regroup. We built some fabulous coalitions - teachers, firefighters, legal scholars, professors. We registered over 30,000 new union members over the summer."
"Right-to-work" laws that effectively ban free collective bargaining exist in nearly every Southern state. That explains why unions have had so little success in organizing the South, which has become a haven for companies seeking lower wage standards and a "union-free environment." Other "right-to-work" states are Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah and Wyoming.
What unions call "right-to-work-for-less" laws are based on Section 14(b)of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which prohibited the closed shop, under which union membership was a condition of employment where a collective bargaining agreement is in force. The federal law still permits "agency shops" where workers who don't want to join a union pay a fee in lieu of dues for services they receive under a contract. But more than 20 states have taken their anti-labor bias a giant step further by banning even the agency shop.
While AFL-CIO state federations have fought off many attempts to enact anti-labor legislation, they have never managed to repeal - or even attempt to repeal - "right-to-work" statutes in any state. In fact, organized labor, which in 1948-49 called Taft-Hartley a "slave labor act," hasn't seriously challenged its anti-union provisions for half a century.
>From its founding in 1954, the National Right-to-Work Committee,
generously financed by employer organizations, has placed unions on the
defensive by cleverly appropriating a vaguely appealing but misleading
slogan to mask its union-busting motives. Until now, its most recent
triumph was the 1986 vote that made Idaho a "right-to-work" state. Â
Labor's defeat in Oklahoma raises an important question: Why must the AFL-
CIO play defense, simply reacting to whatever moves the "right-to-work"
strategists make? Can't the federation mount an aggressive campaign to repeal "right-to-work" in at least one of those 22 states?
"LaborTalk" can be viewed at www.laboreducator.org every Monday. Our "Inside the AFL-CIO" column appears every Tuesday.