Let’s say you saved up some dough and decide to treat yourself to a new car.
It’s a nice one and you’re going to have to pony up $100 a month for the insurance. You take a breath, bite the bullet and sign up. You figure it’s worth it for the value of owning a car you’ve wanted for a long time. Let’s say Joe Schmoe comes into the dealership right behind you and buys the same car but doesn’t care for the price tag on the insurance. No problem. We’ll just write him in on your policy and you can pay to cover both cars.
Sound stupid? It is, but that’s exactly what the Indiana legislature is trying to cram down our throats right now with their right-to-work legislation. Dues-paying union members get to pick up the tab to supply wages and benefits for new workers who don’t care to join a union but like the perks that come with a decent contract. Those are the bills in a nutshell, and it is just plain wrong to suggest that they have anything to do with one’s right to work.
In union parlance it’s called scabbing. It’s a nasty word and for good reason. Nothing builds strife in the workplace like paying employees different scales for the same work. That’s right. The non-union employee will take home more cash than his union benefactors because he won’t be seeing the payroll deduction for union dues. Nice work if you can get it. I can’t imagine why a person in business would want to take on this kind of baggage unless he thought it might lead to busting the union.
In the business community it sounds tough to cross swords with a union on the property, but it’s prudent to remember that these swords have two edges.
The very management that would resort to union-busting is the same gang that led the employees to organize in the first place. An old adage comes to mind: a company with a union on the property always ends up with the union it deserves. Tough tactics extend to both sides of the table. I’m neither pro- nor anti-union. There are benefits and pitfalls to either solution.
The fact is that a union in its best setting can be of mutual benefit to both parties. The political solution of right-to-work legislation as presently crafted will lead to nothing more than strife and discontent in the workplace that will ultimately take a financial toll on all Hoosiers.
CRAIG BARTSCHT
Fort Wayne
