PAYCHECK PROTECTION
PROP. 75: PAYCHECK PROTECTION INTENDED TO ELIMINATE PAYCHECK EXTORTION
by
Ken Eliasberg
Proposition 75, commonly known as the paycheck protection proposition, is simple and direct. It merely empowers a member of a public union to authorize the union’s use of that portion of his union dues relegated to political action of some sort—i.e. lobbying for a political candidate or cause. In other words, you are free to spend my money on a political cause only if I approve of it. What’s wrong with that? NOTHING!!! It is intended to deal with the problem referred to in last week’s column—the fact that 40% of union members vote Republican but more than 90% of union monies devoted to political action go to Democrats and Democratic causes. This is really no more than taxation without representation—the use of a union member’s dollars for something having nothing directly to do with collective bargaining—the essential task with which unions are customarily charged—and spent on causes which the union member does not support. In short, the Union coerces the contribution and then spends a portion of it in direct contravention of the member’s desires. Paycheck protection is no more than a simple case of upholding one of the basic precepts of a Democracy, i.e. governing with the consent of the governed
There is nothing new about this, and the practice—of using a union member’s money for political purposes unacceptable to the member in question - has been taken up and rejected by the courts. Indeed, the Supreme Court, in Communications Workers v. Beck, concluded that this practice was inappropriate; that the union member should be consulted on matters of this nature, and his approval of the expenditure secured before the union could take such a liberty.
If the Supreme Court concluded that the employee had the right to protest the particular political manner in which a portion of his dues was being utilized and request that this portion be returned to him, why then are we (and other states) now dealing with paycheck protection as a legislative or quasi-legislative matter? Simple, because, while the Supreme Court acknowledged the existence of a right, they provided no adequate remedy, i.e. a means to easily enforce the right. Indeed, the union member had to resign to enforce his Beck rights. Also, Unions were not particularly helpful in this regard, failing in a number of instances to even provide their members with notice of their Beck rights.
Beck was decided in 1988. Shortly thereafter, Bush 41 issued an executive order which required unions to publish notice of this decision and thereby inform the union member of his (her) rights under Beck. However, when Clinton came in he rescinded the order. Bush 43 republished the executive order. Actually, it really didn’t make much difference because, as noted, the unions did whatever they could to honor this mandate more in the breach than in the observance. And no government agency (i.e. the NLRB) made much of an effort, if any, to enforce a union member’s Beck rights.
Paycheck protection statutes, however, relieve the union member of the obligation to take affirmative action to secure the return of the portion of the dues in question and shifts the approval burden to the Union, i.e. the Union is obliged to secure member approval. This not only greatly simplifies the process, it makes certain that there is meaning in the member’s right. Since Beck, several States have enacted paycheck protection measures, and we’ll take a look at the results of a couple of those later in the discussion.
What then is the Left unhappy about? That’s easy, you’re stripping them of some of their ill-gotten gains (and thus leveling the playing field). But what argument do they advance to vote against prop. 75? The usual left-wing nonsense. Let me be more specific—here’s some propaganda from their publication put out by “Alliance for Better California.”
“This measure [prop. 75] is sponsored by corporate and right-wing
activists [there they go again; those big bad Republicans are at it again], whose motive is to place bureaucratic burdens on public employees [like getting their permission] to deter their involvement in politics. It unfairly targets public employees with restrictions that don’t apply to other groups or corporations, which regularly spend shareholder money on politics without permission. Prop. 75 does not protect the rights of teachers, nurses, police, and firefighters. Instead it’s designed to reduce their ability to respond when politicians would harm education, health care and public safety [how? by merely asking for the member’s approval?]”
As my bracketed comments may indicate, this is pure garbage. How does getting a member’s consent interfere with his actively engaging in a particular political activity—all he has to do - IF HE (OR SHE) WANTS TO - IS GIVE THE CONSENT!!! And that’s the rub; the Union knows that they are going to have a lot of trouble getting that consent; after all, they never had to do that before—they could coerce the member’s contribution and then, politically speaking, do whatever they wanted with the money no matter how much that might conflict with the member’s actual desires.
The comparison with private corporations is fallacious (in the extreme) for a couple of reasons. First, I don’t believe you will find too many corporations—certainly not public corporations—who contribute as high a percentage of their political monies as the Unions do to one political party, i.e. over 90%. And, more significantly, comparing a union member’s involuntary contribution with the entirely voluntary contribution of a shareholder in a private corporation is not comparing apples to apples, nor apples to coconuts, not even apples to refrigerators. A shareholder can quit if he is unhappy with the corporation’s political decisions (or any other decision, for that matter) and walk away with his money, or, in the alternative, he can band together with enough other shareholders to throw the directors out and realign management accordingly. A union member in the minority (i.e. the 40% who vote Republican) can do nothing; he goes along with the Union’s decision or he (or she) doesn’t work!
This is your typical left-wing populism argument—you know, the people versus the powerful. Only here, as is also typical, the left has it backwards. The people are the citizens of California who have been forced to allow the Unions to gorge themselves at the public trough, and the disenfranchised Union members referred to above. The powerful are the Labor Unions, and all these ads that you have been bombarded with are pure unadulterated garbage—just a lot of Union propaganda.
But, as they say, the proof of the pudding is in the eating. What has happened where paycheck legislation had been enacted; have Union members supported the Union? Absolutely not!! For example, in Utah, where such legislation went into effect in 2001, over 93% of Utah teachers refused to give even one dollar a month to the Utah Education Association Political PAC. Likewise, in Washington, where similar legislation was enacted in 1992, 85% of the teachers in the Washington Education Association chose NOT to have money deducted from their paychecks for political purposes. Are you beginning to understand what’s behind the Union’s propaganda barrage in California? If they can’t sell this garbage to their own members (as indicated by the results in Utah and Washington), don’t let them sell it to you. VOTE YES ON PROP. 75 AND TAKE US ONE STEP CLOSER TO GOVERNMENT BYAND FOR THE PEOPLE BY VIRTUE OF SECURING THEIR CONSENT.