Right-to-work laws aim to end unions

No matter whom you voted for in 2014, I am sure you don’t want your elected politicians undermining any collective voice you may have at work, but that’s what is currently taking place in the N.M. State Capitol.

Now it is time for the men and women of the state of New Mexico who punch a clock every day to start voicing their opinions — loudly — about laws these unfriendlyto-labor lawmakers look to change.

One of those laws called “right-to-work” is one of those names given to a law to trick people into believing it’s a good cause. Who doesn’t want the right to work?

Everyone should, but this is America and you and I as Americans already have the right to work.

But that is not what this law is about. The law divides the union workforce into two factions; dues-payers and freeloaders.

RTW laws may differ from state to state — there are six versions of the law being written for the 2015 fight against the workers of New Mexico, including HB75 called the “Employee Preference Act” — but they all have one thing in common: protect the freeloader.

RTW laws let the worker at a union job stop paying dues, but the union is still required by law to provide all services to the non-duespaying worker.

The freeloader gets all the benefits of the union for free, even though it costs money to employ local union business agents who negotiate those great wages and benefits that the freeloader came to the union job for in the first place, including negotiated perks like pensions, paid insurance and higher wages.

The union is also still required under RTW laws to help with grievances and terminations, etc., of the freeloader.

But if everyone is freeloading, the union will not be able to afford the costs associated with fair representation, and eventually there will be no one to help the freeloader or the union member — and that is the ultimate goal of RTW: to weaken or eliminate the union and thereby weaken the workers’ position in the workplace.

The average worker makes about $5,000 less in RTW states, why is that?

Ask yourself, would these same anti-labor lawmakers ever pass a similar law called “Right-to-Live,” where someone would have the “right to live” here, drive on America’s roads, send their kids to America’s schools, work an American job, and collect a Social Security check when they retire, but not have to “join America” or ever pay taxes? Of course not, but that is essentially what these lawmakers expect from unions: to support a person who is reaping all the benefits of the union (the country) without paying the dues (the taxes) that built it, keep it running and allow a worker to retire with a pension (Social Security check) that is just not available to most modern-day nonunion workers.

A majority of union workers that stop paying dues do so to save money, not because they don’t want to be union members or object to the union in any way. They are just cheapskates that have nothing to lose since the law requires the union to continue to serve them and they know it.

These legislators that pretend RTW is good for the worker are not just lying to you, they are hypocrites. Their only motivation in passing RTW is to please the big out-ofstate corporate donors that got them elected, not to do what’s right for American workers.