Badger InstituteBadger Institute
  • Home
  • Issues
    • Taxes
    • Education
    • Crime & Justice
    • Spending & Accountability
    • Economy & Infrastructure
    • Federalism
    • Licensing
    • Healthcare
    • Civil Society
  • Mandate for Madison
  • Research
  • Magazines
    • Diggings
    • Wisconsin Interest
  • Events
  • Media
    • Podcast
    • Fact Sheets
    • Viewpoints
    • Press Releases
    • Badger in the News
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Testimony
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
    • Visiting Fellows
    • America’s Future
    • Careers
  • Newsletter
  • Donate
  • Contact Us

Subscribe for Updates

Get the latest news and updates from Badger Institute.

What's New

UW-Milwaukee Graduation Numbers for Black Students Plummet Even Further

June 1, 2023

Why public school-goers support choice

June 1, 2023

Natural gas and regulation in Wisconsin: a policy brief

June 1, 2023
Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn Instagram
TRENDING:
  • UW-Milwaukee Graduation Numbers for Black Students Plummet Even Further
  • Why public school-goers support choice
  • Natural gas and regulation in Wisconsin: a policy brief
  • State landlords hit hard by eviction moratorium
  • Legislature protects Milwaukeeans from $15-per-rider fare-free trolley folly
  • Latest crime figures show a Milwaukee in trouble
  • Wisconsin lawmakers in the dark on broadband
  • Foreseeing the Future of Wisconsin’s Flat Tax
  • Donate
  • Newsletter
  • Contact
Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn Instagram
Badger InstituteBadger Institute
SUPPORT OUR MISSION
  • Issues
    • Taxes
    • Education
    • Crime & Justice
    • Spending & Accountability
    • Economy & Infrastructure
    • Federalism
    • Licensing
    • Healthcare
    • Civil Society
  • Mandate for Madison
  • Research
  • Magazines
    • Diggings
    • Wisconsin Interest
  • Events
  • Media
    • Podcast
    • Fact Sheets
    • Viewpoints
    • Press Releases
    • Badger in the News
    • Video
    • Audio
    • Testimony
  • About
    • Our Mission
    • Board of Directors
    • Team
    • Visiting Fellows
    • America’s Future
    • Careers
Facebook Twitter YouTube LinkedIn
DONATE
Badger InstituteBadger Institute
Home » Viewpoints » Economics of the fist: Unions favor telling to asking with Wisconsin’s right to work
Viewpoints

Economics of the fist: Unions favor telling to asking with Wisconsin’s right to work

By Patrick McIlheranApril 6, 2023
Share
Facebook Twitter LinkedIn Pinterest
The strong-arm tactics of Act 10 antagonists

Among the winks and nudges offered by Janet Protasiewicz on her way to the Supreme Court was that Act 10, the Gov. Scott Walker labor reforms, are toast. 

Fist holding different denominations of US currency against a blue background.

“I marched at the Capitol in protest of Act 10,” she said.

Would she appropriately sit out a relitigation?

“Maybe.”

Wink, wink.

Democrat-friendly media spelled out that this isn’t just about public-sector unions at issue in Act 10, but a raft of policies that includes “an anti-union right-to-work law,” as a New York Times columnist put it.

Only 7.1% of Wisconsin employees are union members nowadays. But given how progressives, soon in majority on the Supreme Court, apparently see it as a free-range editor of laws they don’t like, Wisconsinites’ legal ability to be uninterested in joining a union is endangered. So what are unions like?

Let’s look to the federal agency they more or less own, the Department of Labor, which has an online primer, “Unions 101.” Across the screen is the welcoming portrait of the labor secretary and a line of people — all brandishing fists. As everyone saw during the 2011 progressive freakout over Act 10, unions love fist imagery. The thug vibe isn’t a stereotype; it’s branding.

Source: https://www.dol.gov/general/workcenter/unions-101

Not terribly successful branding: Wisconsin union membership is half what it was in 2010, when 14.2% of the employed workforce paid dues, suggesting that Walker’s labor reforms gave Wisconsinites an escape they desired.

This is something you must hold in mind: The Walker era labor reforms didn’t ban unions, didn’t even make them harder to join. They just made it easier for Wisconsinites to say no.

Act 10 concerned government employees. Under it, the state and local governments were required to bargain about wages — but not workplace rules or benefits, other than with firefighters, cops and other public safety personnel.

This meant that the Wisconsin Education Association Council no longer could strong-arm school districts into buying overpriced health plans from the union’s captive insurer. Districts fled the insurer and taxpayers were no longer fleeced as a means of funneling insurance profits toward union politics.

More crucially, the law stopped governments from skimming union dues out of paychecks: Now, if you want to pay dues to the teachers union, you certainly may, but you have to write a check. Or not, and many prefer that: WEAC had about 98,000 members in 2010; it has 43,000 now that it has to ask politely.

Right to work passed the Legislature in 2015 and endured two years of legal challenges from unions claiming something was taken from them. What was taken were captives: The law, which governs private-sector unions, says that no one can be coerced into union membership as a condition of employment nor fired for not paying the union. It’s up to an employee and no one else.

It is this, your option to join or not as suits you, that unions hate.

Union-friendly Democrats seized majorities in Michigan’s Legislature last fall and already have disposed of that state’s right-to-work law, despite concessions from unions leaders in recent years that they’ve had to work harder at providing satisfactory service to members since membership became voluntary. So much for that: Now it’ll be join or else.

The same threat to your liberty is in play in Wisconsin.

“They can do it,” I was told by Mark Mix, president of National Right to Work Committee. Unions will have to gin up a case and run it up the ladder to a newly friendly Supreme Court, but elections have consequences that translate into opportunities. “Is there a threat? Yeah,” said Mix. “But that threat is predicated on judicial activism.”

It is not predicated on Wisconsinites’ preferences. The Badger Institute has polled repeatedly on whether Wisconsinites think they should be fired for not paying dues, and the answer repeatedly is no. Three-fourths said in 2015 that no one should lose a job for disobeying those brandished fists, including more than half of Democrats. No wonder: Research shows that workers’ income grows faster in states where workers are free.

Unions often claim that workers who don’t pay are “free riders,” benefiting from contracts unions negotiated. But as Mix points out, law doesn’t require that unions add clauses to contracts saying that all employees are covered. They’re free to work a deal for members only, as unions in Europe sometimes do. They won’t. Their bargaining position depends not on cooperation with employers and employees but on being a cartel, a tollgate through which all others must pass.

At bottom, unions — and the progressives looking to make them again mandatory in Wisconsin — don’t get markets. They don’t get that in a market, a seller and a buyer or an employer and an employee must both benefit or no future deals happen. Instead, the game is zero sum, a fight for morsels, and only the bigger fist wins.

Why should Wisconsinites tolerate going back to that?

Patrick McIlheran is the Director of Policy at the Badger Institute. Permission to reprint is granted as long as the author and Badger Institute are properly cited. 

News
Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Tumblr Telegram Email
Patrick McIlheran

Related Posts

Why public school-goers support choice

June 1, 2023

Natural gas and regulation in Wisconsin: a policy brief

June 1, 2023

State landlords hit hard by eviction moratorium

May 25, 2023
Categories
Top Posts

Local pols filling old budget holes with massive COVID aid

December 8, 20221,490

This is not four years ago

November 10, 20221,316

Latest crime figures show a Milwaukee in trouble

March 23, 2023891

Legislature protects Milwaukeeans from $15-per-rider fare-free trolley folly

May 11, 2023748
Archives

Sign Up for Top Picks

Our weekly e-Newsletter with the latest items and updates

Connect with Badger Institute
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • YouTube
  • LinkedIn
About Us
About Us

The Badger Institute is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit institute established in 1987 working to engage and energize Wisconsinites and others in discussions and timely action on key public policy issues critical to the state’s future, growth and prosperity.

Facebook Twitter Instagram YouTube LinkedIn

Sign Up for Top Picks

Our weekly e-Newsletter with the latest items and updates

What’s New

UW-Milwaukee Graduation Numbers for Black Students Plummet Even Further

June 1, 2023

Why public school-goers support choice

June 1, 2023

Natural gas and regulation in Wisconsin: a policy brief

June 1, 2023

State landlords hit hard by eviction moratorium

May 25, 2023
© 2023 Badger Institute | Privacy Policy | Disclaimer | Sitemap

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience.

Privacy settings

Privacy Settings

This site uses functional cookies and external scripts to improve your experience. Which cookies and scripts are used and how they impact your visit is specified on the left. You may change your settings at any time. Your choices will not impact your visit.

NOTE: These settings will only apply to the browser and device you are currently using.

CRM Software

Customer Relationship Management Software

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic. Google uses the data collected to track and monitor the use of our Service. This data is shared with other Google services. Google may use the collected data to contextualize and personalize the ads of its own advertising network.

You can opt-out of having made your activity on the Service available to Google Analytics by installing the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on. The add-on prevents the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js, analytics.js, and dc.js) from sharing information with Google Analytics about visits activity.

For more information on the privacy practices of Google, please visit the Google Privacy & Terms web page: https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en

Powered by Cookie Information