"Emergency Temporary Assessment to Build a Political Fight-Back Fund"

The 2008 election season is upon us, and unions are still getting legal beatdowns for bad behavior in 2005:

A federal judge has ordered California State Employees Association (CSEA) union officials to offer rebates to up to 28,000 state employees who are not union members. Imposing a “special assessment” in addition to mandatory dues, union officials seized an additional 25% of forced union dues to wage their campaign against Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s modest reform measures on the 2005 ballot.

Turns out an “Emergency Temporary Assessment to Build a Political Fight-Back Fund” on every state employee isn't exactly kosher. The union managed to extract $3 million from non-union workers alone.

To extend your five minutes of anti-union hate, go here. Or wait it out for a great upcoming column on the impending horror of card check (the unions ask: what's so great about secret ballots anyway?) by David Weigel.

Full disclosure: I was once a deeply resentful and unwilling member of The New York Times' Guild. Needless to say, reason is not a union shop.

UPDATE: The decision applied to Service Employees International Union Local 1000, an independent affiliate of the CSEA.

Comments

brotherben | April 1, 2008, 4:00pm | #

Sounds to me as though they weren't very organized.

Michael | April 1, 2008, 4:02pm | #

The Landrum-Griffith Act was enacted in 1959. Unions have been trying to get around it every since to the detriment of the very workers they claim to represent. Card-check is just the latest skirmish in this long fight.

ed | April 1, 2008, 4:02pm | #

The 2008 election season is upon us

Not to quibble, but it's been upon us since 2006.

J sub D | April 1, 2008, 4:24pm | #

... on the impending horror of card check ...

Secret ballots are unfair to the workers. If they go into the booth and mark a ballot that will be counted by a third party, that favors the EVIL CORPORATIONS™.

Some people actually espouse this position.

The Democratic Republican | April 1, 2008, 4:26pm | #

full disclosure: I hate the frivolous use of the phrase "full disclosure."

Nothing personal KMW. Otherwise a fun and appropriately union-hating post.

J sub D | April 1, 2008, 4:31pm | #

A federal judge has ordered California State Employees Association (CSEA) union officials to offer rebates to up to 28,000 state employees who are not union members.

That's only $107 each. Pocket change really.

Warren | April 1, 2008, 4:43pm | #

The union managed to extract $3 million from non-union workers alone.

How did they manage that?

classwarrior | April 1, 2008, 4:45pm | #

Katherine, were you really "deeply resentful and unwilling" during your stint there while enjoying the best wage and benefit package in the newspaper industry, not to mention due process in disciplinary matters that most private sector workers can only dream of. Does Reason offer anything close to this?

I'm a former Guild member who worked in the circulation dept. of another newspaper. That publication switched to contracted distributors who have much heavier workloads for much less pay and no benefits. Subscribers aren't getting their papers any cheaper, nor are advertisers paying less for space. But my goodness, company profits have sure taken off (not that they were losing money to begin with)!

Despite going on to get a graduate degree in business and other vocational training since then (keeping in mind you guys keep telling us better education will solve career adjustment), I'm still not making as much as I was, and that was 15 years ago!
Of course I understand that Reason pays you to say bad things about unions, but give yourself a reality check every now and then.

Episiarch | April 1, 2008, 4:49pm | #

Oh noes, classwarrior lost his cushy union job and has to work now! Quell'horror!

val | April 1, 2008, 4:56pm | #

Man, classwarior, were you making a point about unions or something? Cause I couldnt hear you over your very loud sense of entitlement.

J sub D | April 1, 2008, 4:58pm | #

I have no philosophical objection to workers organizing, collective bargaining and striking. As a UAW dependent during the Big 3 glory years, I realize what unions can do for the good of the worker. As an intelligent observer of the world, I also realize that most union leadership is primarily inttersted in their own welfare and power, not the average Joe on the line's. The job that is not there doesn't pay shit.

R C Dean | April 1, 2008, 4:59pm | #

Some people actually espouse this position.

I could be misremembering, but I'm pretty sure
joe has said that he is in favor of "card check" unionization.

Of course, being in favor of card check means you are opposed to secret ballots for union elections. Its a head-scratcher to me, too.

kinnath | April 1, 2008, 5:03pm | #

Despite going on to get a graduate degree in business . . .

Try something useful next time. Perhaps a real degree, like something in engineering.

classwarrior | April 1, 2008, 5:05pm | #

Episarch, if you're going to express an opinion, at least know what you're talking about. The former job I had was very stressful and under the new system turnover among those contracters is much higher. I work hard (as I always have) nonunion in the private sector. In the jobs I've had since leaving the newspaper I've :

1) had pay retroactively cut
2) been slandered in front of coworkers by my boss
3) had a specific agreement made prior to hiring reneged on
4) fired on a made-up pretext and srewed out of a commission.

So kindly spare me your sarcastic judgement if you don't know what the other person has gone through (and what you might well experience yourself one day).

Warren | April 1, 2008, 5:08pm | #

Despite going on to get a graduate degree in business and other vocational training since then (keeping in mind you guys keep telling us better education will solve career adjustment), I'm still not making as much as I was, and that was 15 years ago!

*Silent slack-jawed stare
...
...
...
...
BWAAAA HAAA HAAA HA!
What a maroon, what an ignoranimous.

Forcing employers to pay dead weight like you is one of the ways unions can be counted on to waste money.

Art | April 1, 2008, 5:09pm | #

So if a church presents a political front it loses it's not-for-profit status and protections.
When a union steals money to do it and the employers have to aid in this theft it's okay, unless they stole from non union members as well.
Interesting. BTW, you should read the comments in the Sac Bee from union supporters lamblasting the decision. Pretty sad.

Episiarch | April 1, 2008, 5:15pm | #

So kindly spare me your sarcastic judgement if you don't know what the other person has gone through (and what you might well experience yourself one day).

No, I pick my places of work carefully. It seems you do not.

classwarrior | April 1, 2008, 5:17pm | #

Val, if you want to see a sense of entitlement, check out the golden parachute provisions corporate America gives its executives even after they screw up badly or the tenured college profs who constantly write that the rest of us should be less secure for the good of the economy. Come to think of it, wasn't Adam Smith's last job a secure government gig collecting customs duties? Or that Ayn Rand's great intellect was forged courtesy of a free university education provided by the Soviet government that she considered to be thoroughly evil? By the way, I paid tuition for all my post secondary studies.

NoStar | April 1, 2008, 5:22pm | #

Ayn Rand's college education was paid for by the Commies "appropriating" her father's pharmacy.

Chancellor | April 1, 2008, 5:23pm | #

*cough cough* I can barely breathe in Smug this thick! *cough cough*

val | April 1, 2008, 5:27pm | #

dude, I called it like I saw it. To me your post had a real hardcore tone of 'they owe me'. The fact that some of your employers screwed you have nothing to do with that. If they company screwed you out of commission by the way, as in you have completed a sale, and you comission level were stated in your work contract or even regularly paid, you can take them to court.

Corporate America can give what ever the hell it wishes to who ever it wishes. The difference there is its voluntary, and the protections offered to CEOs by their companies are not codified in law.

Also you're gonna bring up the soviet system? My parents are a product and Im a child of that system. So I've seen it first hand. That university degree sure is great, I would have been able to attend classes between standing in lines for sausage and vodka. And then after I graduated I would.... I would ....I would have still had to stand in line for sausage and vodka.

New World Dan | April 1, 2008, 5:29pm | #

classwarrior,

Don't you think that if the NYT guild was such a great deal, KMW would have been a eager and enthusiastic participant? My experiance working in a union is that they prop up the mediocre at the expense of the better workers. The last time I was in a union represented job I didn't hesitate to bolt for a non-union job that payed much much better -- without skimming a few percent off the top in "dues".

I don't care if someone wants to join a union, let 'em. It's when the union comes to me and says "if you want this job, you're going to pay us for the privelege" that I get ornery.

val | April 1, 2008, 5:38pm | #

the sausage and vodka lines were two different lines by the way...

hey that reminds me of a joke from the good ol' USSR.

So word gets out that a store is going to get a large delivery of sausage. Soon enough a large line forms outside the store.

An hour goes by. The store manager comes out:
-Comrades, looks like there will be less sausage then we thought. There wont be enough for everyone. Im afraid the Jews have to go home.

Another two hours go by. Again the manger comes out:
-Comrades, looks there is even less sausage to be delivered. Only war veterans and party members should remain.

Yet another hour goes by. Again the manger:
-Im very sorry 'tovarischi', but there is only going to be enough sausage for party members.

Again an hour goes by. By then the line has dwindled to only a few party memebrs. The store manager comes out:
-Looks like there wont be any sausage at all today.

The remaining people look at each other and in unison go, 'The F'n jews got lucky again!'

D.A. Ridgely | April 1, 2008, 5:47pm | #

Needless to say, reason is not a union shop.

Mangu-Ward is in the tank for Big Confederacy.

TWC | April 1, 2008, 5:59pm | #

You want a taste of unions? Go look at that Drew Carey video called Unlocked.

ChicagoTom | April 1, 2008, 6:13pm | #

That's great.

somebody comes along and presents very valid reasons why, as a worker, it is advantageous to be in a union (particularly the Union that the blog author is poo-pooing) -- and all you guys can do is snark about a "sense of entitlement" (which classwarrior didn't show -- unless looking back and seeing how you were better off in different circumstances than now is a "sense of entitlement") instead of engaging in the issues.

Sorry illiterates, classwarrior wasn't whining, he was calling it like it is.

ChicagoTom | April 1, 2008, 6:16pm | #

No, I pick my places of work carefully. It seems you do not.


I suppose if you don't have a real argument, you can just substitute smugness.

Episarch, please please please teach us how you can see the future so well?

Between you being able to foresee how a company might be planning to mistreat you if you worked for them, and John's ability to read the minds of others and predict how they will react to hypotheticals -- these skills would really allow the rest of us to prosper. Please teach us how.

R C Dean | April 1, 2008, 6:17pm | #

In the jobs I've had since leaving the newspaper I've :

1) had pay retroactively cut
2) been slandered in front of coworkers by my boss
3) had a specific agreement made prior to hiring reneged on
4) fired on a made-up pretext and srewed out of a commission.

Having pay retroactively cut, having an agreement reneged on, and being screwed out of a commission are all enforceable in court. In many states, you can even get treble damages. Everyone has the right to enforce their contracts; if you chose not to, well, that's your choice, and has nothing to do with the lack of a union.

If your boss slandered you, you have a cause of action for that as well. Again, if you chose not to, etc.

As to being fired on a made-up pretext (that is, for no reason), this is the flip side of being able to quit whenever you want. I've been fired twice. Both times, I wound up with better jobs, in terms of both pay and working conditions.

D.A. Ridgely | April 1, 2008, 6:26pm | #

Sure, unions are often advantageous for their members. That's not news. And people have been known to argue against a system even as they take advantage of some of its benefits, for example, some tenured economics professors. Still not news. And corporate executives have been compensated in excess of what most people would objectively agree they were worth. No news there.

So, is there a point here that I, admittedly a bear of very little brain, have missed?

Taktix® | April 1, 2008, 7:01pm | #

Val, if you want to see a sense of entitlement, check out the golden parachute provisions corporate America gives its executives even after they screw up badly...

Ok, fine. Try and hire a competent CEO for $20,000 a year and no benefits, and see how long you're company lasts. (I recommend you buy a digital stopwatch for this experiment).

As evidenced by your envy of CEO compensation (I assume envy mainly because a CEO's wages have NOTHING to do with unionization), why don't you put yourself on a career path to CEO?

They don't choose heads of companies via raffle, you know.

ChicagoTom | April 1, 2008, 7:14pm | #

Ok, fine. Try and hire a competent CEO for $20,000 a year and no benefits, and see how long you're company lasts. (I recommend you buy a digital stopwatch for this experiment).

What about 500K - 1Million /year with bonuses tied to performance of the company under your watch?

You really want us to believe that competent CEOs couldn't be found at a more reasonable pay grade?

I don't have a problem with companies paying their CEOs whatever they want (assuming the shareholders agree)-- it is their right -- but make that argument. (I'd also like to note that lately I have been seeing many more shareholder initiatives on Executive compensation being put to a vote during the shareholder's votes. So this issue is resonating with at least some of the shareholders)

But please don't insult people's intelligence by pretending that there doesn't exist competent executive who would be willing to take a good (but not astronomical) salary and bonuses tied to performance.

The Libertarian Guy | April 1, 2008, 7:23pm | #

Are these the same kind of union thugs who want to get rid of the secret ballot?

Mr. Nice Guy | April 1, 2008, 8:25pm | #

"Unions have been trying to get around it every since to the detriment of the very workers they claim to represent."

Oh, bullshit. The unions use the money to try to get policy that favors unions and working people over all. Some people just want to create a free rider problem to undercut the unions.

"Are these the same kind of union thugs who want to get rid of the secret ballot?"

Oh get bent. How can the libertarians be so frothing at the mouth about the union cards? Noone forces or frauds anyone into sigining it (that would be illegal even under the union's request). They are free in the most libertarian sense, right? So what's the prob, eh?

"They don't choose heads of companies via raffle, you know." Hey taktix, I'm glad you know so much about how they pick those CEO's. The Market God's annoint their heads with oil only after they have served the public interest by slating their private interest, eh?

Actually libertarian minded economists have long been worried about how CEO's are chosen (part of the principal/agent problem that rightly vexes many of them). Corporate management is chosen by the Board of Directors, which often is chosen by the management. Yeah, that's right. So it can get pretty chummy in there without the market meaning much of a hoot.

Mr. Nice Guy | April 1, 2008, 8:34pm | #

"No, I pick my places of work carefully. It seems you do not."

Wow, that's classic Episarch or generic right wing libertarian bullshit right there. Classic. "Everything is working out and has always been so for me so therefore it must be because I make superior choices and anyone who is doing worse than me must have deserved it in some way, and any protections for things that have not happened to me are of course not necessary, ever."

I love this stuff. In response I'd like to repeat a bit of argument I had with taktix a while back.

Michael Moore (yeah, that Michael Moore) made more money last year than taktix and Episarch combined will make in their life. Probably twenty times as much. His kids will go to better schools, have better experiences, and better support (financial, helpful for getting loans and deals etc) than their kids ever, ever will. I'd bet everything I own on that. Ever. Ever.

Why will his kids do so much better than their kids (in fact, there is some chance their kids will directly work for his kids, they will say "jump" and the H&R regulars kids will say "how high Mr. Moore sir?")? Because, according to libertarian Gospel, he can better serve the public through voluntary exchanges than they can or ever will. He and his kids deserve, in every moral sense, to have these advantages over their kids, because he has made wiser decisions, worked harder, etc...

Now Mr. Moore likes his corndogs by the dozen it seems, so hop to it!

Mr. Nice Guy | April 1, 2008, 8:44pm | #

My favorite was two days ago in the discussion about the woman who was dealing with Wal-mart over the fine print in her health insurance contract. The hard cores around here were all like "well, she should know what is in her contract, noone made her sign it, I'd never sign something like that." Bullshit of the highest order. Every person reading this is currently in a contract the exact provisions on paper they do not fully understand. That they haven't been fucked is just their dumb luck, not their amazing powers of intelligence and foresight. But perhaps they really think the latter, and so they, Super-men that they are, do not need paltry laws to protect them. They will always choose rightly and if they happen to not, they will chin up and hobble around on their amputated limbs or whatever problem they get into because they don't know their contracts (or what not, I know the case was actually about brain damage, just making a point).

Travis | April 1, 2008, 8:46pm | #

I have no problem with workers coming together & forming a union to get better treatment from their employer as long as it is voluntary. If someone(like me) does want to join your worthless(not always but usually) union you can just fuck off. I have big problem with forced unionization & an even bigger problem with unions that get involved in things that have nothing to do with the job like foreign policy, education policy, & national healthcare.

Travis | April 1, 2008, 8:56pm | #

Mr. Nice Guy,

You must be in a better union then the one's I've been in. The only thing they ever did for me was take my dues. One time I couldn't even get a day off when I asked for it off 3 months in advance & the union wouldn't do shit. I no longer work in a union shop & I make alot more money now bargaining for myself.

Rimfax | April 1, 2008, 9:01pm | #

Sorry, classwarrior, the market value of your job plummeted (or was artificially inflated by your union's extralegal authority) and you eventually had to suffer the brunt of it. That just sucks, but it is far more the union's fault for creating false expectations than it is your gilded strawmen.

By the way, I'd love to know about this newspaper that's making buckets of cash. Judging by the stock exchange, they must be in another country.

Mr. Nice Guy | April 1, 2008, 9:01pm | #

Travis
What is "forced unionization?" Is it when an employer and a union enter into a contract that all future employees will be in the union (in part because the union cannot just bargain for everyone if not everyone is paying)? Why can't people contract with a union that way, and then if you want to work for that company you have to join the union (nobody makes you work for that union).

Or are you getting at how the NLRB forces employers to negotiate with unions that win representation elections at a jobsite? They did that because of all the labor strife when it was left up to each side. And you know, the government spent a fair amount of its time on the OTHER side using force to break up some of a freely contracting unions best weapons (like secondary boycotts for example).

J sub D | April 1, 2008, 9:33pm | #

Mr. Nice Guy,

Unions are all for card check over secret ballot because __________________?

C'mon, the benefits of unionization are so obvious, given the opportunity the rank and file will overwhelmingly support it in a secret ballot, tabulated by the NLRB. Right? Or do the union organizers perceive that the intimidation factor is on their side with all of your co-workers aware of your choice?

I'mn cool with unions representing workers. I'm cool with unions driving corporations intio the ground as sometimes happens. I'm not cool with people who can see only one side of the issue. Can you admit that unions sometimes (often?) are not run in the members best interest?

Honda and Toyota workers in the United States disagree with your view on the benefits of union representation.

Chris Potter | April 1, 2008, 9:49pm | #

Mr Nice Guy,

Say a majority of your neighbors get together and say, "Gee, it would be nice if we had flowers planted along all the sidewalks on our block." Then they came to you to ask for money to help finance the project, but you refused, since you really don't care about flowers and are happy enough with your property the way it is.

Does that make you a "free rider", suitable for having your money forcibly extracted by the majority?

Ammonium | April 1, 2008, 10:00pm | #

After some of the grad students at my school unionized, the union has been very good at:

1. Taking 3% or so from those students' paychecks.
2. Getting guarantees of raises that are less than inflation (in exchange for some years with no increases.)
3. Getting a few bucks of a subsidy for health insurance (prices went up more than the subsidy.)
4. Failing to sign contracts in support of the stay-at-home spouses of students who have to pay more than students for health insurance.

I have never seen so many people go from pro-union to anti-union so fast.

Mr. Nice Guy | April 1, 2008, 10:15pm | #

J sub D
Sure, unions can be run by interests antithetical to the workers they claim to represent. This is why workers can periodically vote out either the union leaders or vote to decertify a union representing them.

What's wrong with getting them to choose that choice via the cards rather than a secret ballot? After all, no one is requesting the union can use force or fraud to get folks to sing the cards. They are free to sign or not sign. I mean, you guys are the libertarians right? No one has to sign any contract or take any job, or anything unless force or fraud is used, right?


Chris
But if they plant flowers in my front yard for me I should have to pay up. Unions have a legal duty imposed by the government to represent ALL the workers in their collective bargaining unit. Any benefits they fight for and get all the workers under the agreement share. So workers should have to pay for that service. Likewise the unions pay for political interests that in the long run serve the interest of all the workers, and the workers should have to pay for that too. They could always quit and go to a nonunionized workplace, or they could vote within the union to have their money spent elsewhere. Whats the problem?

matt | April 1, 2008, 10:34pm | #

"the tenured college profs who constantly write that the rest of us should be less secure for the good of the economy"

Please provide statistics as to the percentage of American college professors shilling for Big Business. We'll wait.

blinker | April 2, 2008, 2:12am | #

Mr N.G. --

You never answered the question about why you think unions need cardcheck. They already can be certified by secret ballot in fair elections. There is no purpose to cardcheck other than to give unions more (unfair) leverage over the employer, as well as exert peer pressure on workers who don't want to unionize.

Once a union is certified, an employee is contractually obligated to pay union dues. But i have a problem in allowing a union to assess a charge for political activities and to support candidates that I almost certainly oppose. Let the union make the case to its membership about the merits of it's political positions and the candidates they support. then ask for VOLUNTARY contributions.

prolefeed | April 2, 2008, 4:42am | #

But if they plant flowers in my front yard for me I should have to pay up.

OK, Take Two, MNG -- 51% of your neighbors decide that they should build large, permanent monuments in the middle of each yard on the street saying "George Bush is the greatest President of all time. Unions suck. Liberals really suck. And MNG totally blows." Since they did this favor for you, obviously you (and the other 49% of the neighborhood) should have to pay up, yeah? I mean, otherwise you'd have free riders opting out of these valuable compulsory improvements.

John C. Randolph | April 2, 2008, 5:17am | #

But my goodness, company profits have sure taken off

You say that like it's a bad thing.

If you want a share in those profits, buy stock like anyone else.

-jcr

John C. Randolph | April 2, 2008, 5:21am | #

The unions use the money to try to get policy that favors unions and working people over all.

Heh.. What color is the sky on your planet?

Here on Earth, the unions exist to enrich the union's leaders, and the Mafiosi who give them their marching orders. Any workers who try to challenge the union's thuggocrats get the shit kicked out of them.

-jcr

Episiarch | April 2, 2008, 8:45am | #

Why will his kids do so much better than their kids (in fact, there is some chance their kids will directly work for his kids, they will say "jump" and the H&R regulars kids will say "how high Mr. Moore sir?")?

Oh my, the class warfare fantasies in your head are very rich, Mr. Nice Guy. I think you need a hysterectomy.

MK2 | April 2, 2008, 9:16am | #

If we could only turn the clock back...

During the labor unrest of the late 19th century, businessmen hired Pinkerton agents to infiltrate unions, and guards to keep strikers and suspected unionists out of factories. The most notorious example was the Homestead Strike of 1892, in which Pinkerton agents were called in to enforce the strikebreaking measures of Henry Clay Frick, acting on behalf of Andrew Carnegie, who was abroad; the ensuing conflicts between Pinkerton agents and striking workers led to several deaths on both sides. The Pinkertons were also used as guards in coal, iron and lumber disputes in Illinois, Michigan, New York and Pennsylvania, as well as the railroad strikes of 1877.

appending_doom | April 2, 2008, 1:07pm | #

M. NG

To open the union electoral system to card check is to open it to abuse. There is, after all, a reason that the secret ballot is held to be the gold standard of democracy.

No one here is claiming that the immediate result will be union thugs forcing people to sign cards. But unions, like corporations, are powerful, and enjoy opportunities to expand that power. Such desire can lead to abuse; it will not necessarily, but expanding a union's power to unionize (over that of the employer) more easily raises a red flag in the minds of libertarians.

The secret ballots currently required protect workers from intimidation and influence from both unions and employers - card check removes those protections from both sides, by making one's support for unionization a matter of public record.