Well, 55% of them, according to a recent poll.
In a rare display of common sense and acceptance of individual sovereignty, Michiganders (Michiganians?) revealed in a poll last week that they support, at least in principle, the moorings of a right-to-work movement. And although a true right-to-work initiative in Michigan is political suicide, ceding the notion that “Union dues should be optional” is certainly a step in the right direction.
“This is America, and it is about choice,” Middleton, a teacher at Dawson Elementary [in Detroit] said Friday.
“I love the fact that I have a union to represent me, but some people may not wish to be involved in that, and it’s very important that we have choice,” she said.
But Peter Eckstein, a former economist for the AFL-CIO suggests that the results of polls are always subject to how the quesiton was phrased:
“You can get a 30 or 40% shift, depending on how it’s phrased,” he said. “If I asked the question, ‘Do you think workers in a plant should benefit from a union-negotiated contract without having to pay dues to the union?’ I suspect you’d get a different answer.”
Which in turn, reveals the true liberal bias. Leftists are always willing to put the the priveleges they’ve strongarmed ahead of the rights of others.
But theoretically speaking, Mr. Eckstein is putting the cart ahead of the horse. There is no reason to suppose that non-union employees working side-by-side with union employees would be under the same contract. In fact, it’s likely that they might be under different contracts, or that they might be at-will employees who negotiated their own terms. The unions’ strength always and everywhere is largely derived from their legal ability to preclude employment of non-members at any wage.
It’s about choice, and freedom. If an employer wants to hire some union employees at a certain wage, that fact alone should not preclude him from hiring non-union members at the same wage, or a wage that is lower than or higher than that wage commanded by the union bargaining agreement.
