Right to work laws.

However, I am a bit confused as to what the debate is; I regret I must start my argument by pointing out that Pro, the instigator, has not established what this debate about. Since Pro/Instigator has not done so, I will proceed on the assumption that Pro is attempting to argue that "right to work" is somehow good, while I will attempt to show that it is not. RESPONSE TO PRO 1) I am not a legal expert, and will not attempt to debate whether or not it violates any U. S. federal law. As there are several states that have become "right-to-work," I presume those laws have been challenged and yet still stand. The current legality, however, I consider irrelevant on the question of whether or not "right-to-work" is better than union states. 2) This is a weak argument and contains a falsehood. Unions can come into being by a vote, and union actions -- approving or disapproving a new contract, union leadership, whether or not to strike, etc. -- is done through voting, direct democracy; it is a falsehood to state or attempt to imply that unions are entities that dictate their existence and authority over the will of workers. Further, unions inherently have no bargaining ability if other shop workers can work without being in the union; if the employer offers a contract to union workers that is unsatisfactory to the workers of the union and they vote to strike, the employer can permanently replace them with the non-union members of the shop and effectively prohibit any and all collective bargaining power. 3) This is completely false and made up; union shops have long withstood many legal challenges and have not been found to inherently violate anyone's civil rights. Unless Pro can cite an example where shop unions have been found to inherently violate the civil rights of workers by requiring union membership to work in a shop, I declare Pro's claim to be fallacious and debate voters should weigh this when evaluating Pro's 'Conduct' during the voting phase. 4) States that have 'right to work' laws do, indeed, have fewer unions. As a result, rates of poverty are much higher, public workers are often unable to live in he cities and districts where they work, quality of life is lower and a higher % of the populations in those states are dependent on public assistance, since lack of collective bargaining depresses wages and access to basic medicine for many workers. The tax base in these states is also much lower, since workers earn less to pay into those taxes. 5) Unions are unions, they are not for profit, they collect only enough money to fund their activities. Unions operate as a direct democracy, with positions within the union and acception or rejection of contracts conducted by ballot. Shop unions fight hard for their workers, and have a lot more negotiating power and achieve much better results; if 'right to work' state unions (which virtually don't exist since they don't have any real power to negotiate anything, as stated previously) really cared about their workers, wouldn't they get better results for their workers? 6) This is false and unsupported, and I won't even bother trying to respond to such false remarks. 7) During the mid 1800s, slavery was legal and in many Southern states, most of the population was slaves that had zero income. The economic expansion enriched only the already wealthy and privileged, it did not help the slaves nor young children working in factories nor other working and exploited poor one bit. During the Great Depression, the wealthy generally did not lose wealth and the income inequality skyrocketted with massive amounts of wealth concentrated in a very tiny minority while huge swaths of the population were homeless and impoverished. Income inequality has grown steadily over time, and accelerated with the rise of the union-busting laws to the point that in the 2000s, spearheaded by a union-busting president and Congress, the U. S. has set increasingly worse income inequity records with the 1% wealthiest people in the nation controlling 40% of the nation's total wealth; this compared with the 12% wealthiest people in the nation controlling 33% of the nation's total wealth 25 years ago. No European nation comes close to the U. S. in terms of wealth inequality, unless you count Russia with its oligarchies as a European power; another nation with a similar wealth inequality is Iran. Source: . http://socialistworker.org... Union workers in union shops earn much more, and it is a rather bold statement for Pro to claim this isn't true. As a matter of fact, it contradicts Pro's earlier argument in 3) that union shop labor garners higher pay. I ask voters in this debate consider Pro's inconsistency in Pro's unfounded claims in the appropriate cateories. 8) From 2000-2010, export of U. S. production to third world nations has experience unprecedented growth with a corresponding huge loss of jobs, especially in I. T. and industrial jobs, within the U. S. The reason, corresponding with Pro's claim, is obvious: fat will seek to go where they do not have to pay fair wages and abide by expensive environment and human rights laws. In this debate, which I presume is whether 'right-to-work' is a good thing, I believe it is irrelevant that greedy shop owners would move shops to anti-union states as they also move shops to tyrannical regimes that conduct forced, unpaid labor. I hope to heck Pro doesn't intend to argue that shop owners' greed is a more important value and right to protect than the right of every American to fair wages and benefits for their work. 9) See 8) 10) See 8) === My points: 1) With the decline of union states, replaced with "right-to-work" states, there has been a corresponding increase in the number and % of total population who have no or inadequate health coverage. Occasional bumps in the minimum wage aside, wages have actually declined (when factoring in cost of living and inflation) for most working-class folk. Thanks in no small part to union busting, gone are the days of the single family wage earner; while I am as for women working as anyone, with both parents in a home having to work full-time jobs, this 2) Pro's unnumbered claims about public unions are likely related to events in Wisconsin which has been tyranically transformed by the governor to not merely eradicate union shops, but to absolutely prohibit all collective bargaining for public workers regardless of whether they wish to or not, even after the unions reluctantly agreed to pay more for their members' health care. The rights for every member of every affected union were denied, as none had a voice in whether or not they wanted to dissolve their unions. The 'right to work' farce is anything but. 3) Unions have pushed hard for numerous improvements where they work to improve not only safety for the workers there, but quality for the customers and clients. In schools, for instance, teacher unions push hard to reduce class sizes, and the effect on education quality is significant. Unions force shop owners to pay closer attention to safety, to not exploit children nor allow undocumented workers and other abuses committed by employers to undercut fair pay. A 2003 report from the United States Department of Labor shows that states with right-to-work laws in general had a higher rate of workplace fatalities per 100,000 workers. 4) Unions in union-only shops do a much better job of protecting workers from discrimination and unfair hiring or firing practices by a company. RTW workers are paid little and cannot afford legal protection whereas in a union shop they would be inherently protected by the union against illegal practices by their employer. 5) Non-union members of RTW shops that have a union freeload bargaining off of paying union members; this is cheating and stealing. (Ran out of space)