By: PAMELA PRITT • Register-Herald
CHARLESTON — A right to work law is making its way posthaste through the West Virginia Legislature and will land soon on Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin’s desk — ready for a potential veto and a veto override.
With a narrow 17-16 vote, Senate Republicans claimed victory on the first of their agenda bills, which also include repealing the state’s prevailing wage and creating charter schools.
Right to work — which has been dubbed “Workplace Freedom” here — means employers cannot require union membership at their businesses and, thus, unions cannot collect fees and dues from those workers who choose not to join their membership. The bill carries criminal penalties for business owners who order their employees to belong to a union. Fines range from $50 to $500 a day.
According to the National Labor Relations Board, non-union workers are still protected by the union and enjoy the benefits that union leaders negotiate for their membership. That’s the law. The 1947 Taft-Hartley Act passed by a Republican Congress ensures that all individuals have the right to decline union membership, but still receive the benefits. Non-union members are required to pay “agency fees” to the union to cover the cost of union negotiations.
So right to work or Workplace Freedom already exists, guaranteed for nearly 70 years. Proponents of newer right to work laws say they boost economic development by attracting business to the state, while those who oppose the measure say it’s only about further eroding unions’ power and increasing company profits.
Republicans are rolling the dice with right to work, a bill backed by the state Chamber of Commerce, the West Virginia Business and Industry Council and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), all conservative groups. Union members, who typically support Democratic candidates, are responding with boots-on-the-ground participation in their government, showing up for committee meetings and floor sessions and holding a rally that packed the State Capitol rotunda on two floors while chanting “Right to work is wrong.”
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