Right-to-work is a direct attack on unions

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Updated: February 2, 2012 8:16AM

After listening to President Obama’s recent speech — given one century after Teddy Roosevelt had spoken in the same spot, Osawatomie, Kan. — I felt compelled to go back and read Roosevelt’s full commentary. I was struck by how relevant his analysis is to today’s reality. “The absence of effective State and, especially, national restraint upon unfair money-getting,” he stressed, has created “a small class of enormously wealthy and economically powerful men, whose chief object is to hold and increase their power.” Sound familiar?

Roosevelt argued, furthermore, that progress in society required an extension of democracy; what he described as “the struggle to equalize opportunity, destroy privilege and give to the life and citizenship of every individual the highest possible value.” He would have been outraged at the voter ID laws, like the one passed in Indiana, and any other effort to restrict democracy, such as the so-called “right-to-work” legislation.

How is right-to-work a direct attack on democracy? Democracy depends on broad participation in society and a strong collective voice for working people. Democracy describes a process, a way of governing or doing things. Anything that undermines or weakens the power of the collective people, in the name of the “individual,” and in the interests of the elite or 1 percent, narrows democracy.

Despite Republican claims that “right-to-work” legislation is not about unions but rather “freedom” for business or “freedom” for individuals to work non-union, right-to-work has one aim only, and that is to undermine and weaken unions. Once workers struggle to unite to get a union and then a contract, that contract covers the workers in that workplace. If the number of unionized workers in that workplace should decline — the goal of right-to-work, to allow employees to stay outside the union while enjoying its benefits — the power of the union declines as well, and then the contract deteriorates until there is no union left. No worker wins in this scenario.

It was unions that first introduced democracy into the workplace, by giving workers a voice in determining conditions. Economic democracy is just as important as political democracy, and both are under attack in the state legislature.

“Right-to-work” has little to do with attracting business or upholding individual rights. “Right-to-work,” just like the voter ID requirement, the defunding of Planned Parenthood, elimination of state employee unions and restrictions on bargaining rights are all aimed at undermining our standard of living, discouraging collective participation, and thereby allowing a few to control and dominate the many. What is happening in our state legislature, pushed by a handful of Republicans, is a mean-spirited anti-democratic push from 1 percent of Hoosiers to marginalize the rest of us. If you think democracy is better than a dictatorship, you should demand that “right-to-work” legislation be CUT from the legislative agenda.

Teddy Roosevelt realized back in 1910 that he had to increase government regulation to get money out of politics. He upheld “the general welfare” against “corporate greed,” because of the latter’s destructive impact on a nation’s democratic life. Further along in his speech, he, too, linked citizenship with a decent standard of living. “No man (or woman) can be a good citizen unless he has a wage more than sufficient to cover the bare cost of living, and hours of labor short enough so that after ... a day’s work, he will have time and energy to bear his share in the management of community.” (my emphasis) Right-to-work looks to lower wages, eliminate unions, and give “freedom” to robber barons to bring back sweatshops.

The degree of unionization in a country is a reflection of how far a society has come in establishing democracy. It took more than a century of struggle to force companies to recognize organized workers and negotiate with them. Before unions, workers referred to themselves as “wage slaves.” Anything that restricts voting rights, free public education, or unions is anti-democratic, because in the long run, it will restrict opportunities for meaningful participation in society. Nothing will be for the people unless it is of and by the people. Roosevelt would have agreed in today’s world that “right-to-work” is un-American.

Ruth Needleman is director of the Leadership & Social Justice Program at Calumet College of St. Joseph, Whiting.