Wednesday, February 01, 2012

A New Light For Freedom Shines

It shines in Indiana, the 23rd state to pass a right-to-work law, which means that Indiana workers now have a right to work without having to financially support a union as a condition of employment. This is in contrast to California, a so-called "fair share" state, wherein employees (like me) can be compelled as a condition of employment to give money to a union even if they choose not to be union members.

9 comments:

Mrs. Bluebird said...

I love living in a Right to Work state - one of the reasons we moved here. I also love no state income tax - another reason we moved to The Volunteer State.

Dean Baird said...

The "right-to-work" state map closely mirrors the 2008 presidential electoral map. Unsurprisingly.

mmazenko said...

I like the Colorado solution. It's not a right-to-work state, but it's not a mandated union state either. It's left up to individual shops and contracts. That's the freedom I like. Allow the market to decide, and don't pass unnecessary laws.

Darren said...

Mazenko, that's not a market solution. There's no such thing as a "market" solution to individual liberties--and union membership, along with other associations, should be individual.

Darren said...

Dean, I wonder how well it aligns to a map of states that are doing relatively well economically.

Because you know, things are going just swimmingly here in California. BTW, did you see that Controller John Chiang says we're going to run out of money *next month*? Again?

DADvocate said...

Progress, that progressives hate. Love it.

I grew up in Tennessee, a right to work state from way back. Unions are generally scorned there.

Darren said...

I'm not quite sure how having more government mandates over your life is "progress". Totalitarianism is nothing new.

EdD said...

I taught for nearly 30 years, 12 of those in a union security state, and never joined the teachers' union. My contention was that learned professionals do not join unions. (Please don't contend that doctors and lawyers belong to unions; they are members of regulated monopolies)
If you want to see how well non-union teacher organizations work, take a look at the Clovis Unified School District. CTA has tried to "organize" them for years
but the teachers prefer their own faculty organization and just say "No thanks."

allen (in Michigan) said...

Just another bit of evidence that the era of unions is coming to an end. Private sector unions have been on a slide for a couple of decades and now its the turn of the public sector unions.

Good.

Unions are nothing but monopolies on labor and like all monopolies are inevitably abusive. The extent and targets of the abuse varies with the union but there are always abuses which would be impossible without the coercive power the monopoly confers.