From: nyxfer%panix.com@UMCVMB.missouri.edu (N.Y. Transfer)
Subject: News: Union Dues & Don'ts
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: University of Missouri
Resent-From: "Rich Winkel" <MATHRICH@UMCVMB.missouri.edu>
Date: Thu, 16 Apr 1992 21:58:17 GMT



Via The NY Transfer News Service ~ All the News that Doesn't Fit

                      UNION DUES AND DON'TS

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited.)

So George Bush issued an executive order April 13 to bar unions
from using non-members' dues for anything but bargaining or
grievance handling. What's wrong with that?

Actually, the order went a little further. It required that
notices be posted in every work place under federal contract. The
notices must inform workers who don't belong to unions that they
can demand an accounting of how their agency fee--paid to
compensate the union for representing non-union members--is spent.
And they can demand a refund if their money was spent on political
activities or anything else. The notices must also remind workers
they have a right not to join the union.

A right not to join the union. Maybe the problem is getting a
little clearer.  The main force behind Bush's move is the National
Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, winningly described in the
April 12 New York Times as a group that "provides legal aid to
workers who feel their rights have been violated." Actually, of
course, it's a big-business organization that fights for the
bosses' "right" to a union-free environment.

That's what Bush's executive order is all about. It's another
attack on the labor movement--one of the most blatant yet. Why
should non-members' dues pay for union activities? Because the
unions represent them. That's democracy. Why should unions have a
right to spend their money on political activities like fighting
for anti-scab legislation? Because the workers' struggle takes
place in a much larger arena than just the negotiating table, and
labor has a right to be heard. That's free speech.

Yet C. Boyden Gray, counsel to the president and the order's
likely author, wrote in the April 13 Wall Street Journal that it
will "advance the causes of free speech and democracy."
Furthermore, he asserted, the "order clear[s] away encumbrances to
democracy and reduce[s] the excessive power wielded by special
interests."

Bush himself put it more simply and eloquently. "We enforce
individual rights," he said. Right. Individuals like the
Rockefellers, Mellons, Lee Iacoccas and Frank Lorenzos. Actually,
we think we can put it even simpler and more eloquently. Bush
wants to destroy the unions any way he can. This is just the
latest attempt.

Bush, Gray and the class they represent--the owners--don't care a
whit about free speech or democracy or individual rights or
fighting special interests.  After all, unions exist to enforce
individual rights--workers' rights. Unions fight the real special
interests--big business, the banks, the right wing.

                               ***

This article originally appeared in Workers World newspaper. A
10-week trial subscription is available for $2. A year's
subscription costs $15. Makes checks payable to Workers World, and
send to 46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010.Phone (212) 255-0352. You
may contact Workers World editors on NY Transfer or PeaceNet at
"workers."

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