Even Poor Norma Rae Got to Vote on the Union

There’s a breathtaking new law under construction in Sacramento. State Senate Bill 645 would create an “agency shop” at all California State Universities: a mandate that virtually all employees, from faculty to groundskeepers, join the union. The bill sailed past the state Senate and is before the Assembly.

An agency shop? The university? This isn’t exactly the stuff of “Norma Rae.” Why is it that unions are on the decline in the private sector but rising in the public sphere?

Unions got their start as a result of abuses against workers in the 19th century. Now they have become less relevant because of legislation that protects the physical safety of workers and their right to be free from arbitrary and unfair employment practices. That, combined with notorious inefficiencies created by unions, marked often by their cushy treatment of union officials at the expense of the workers they represent (one New York Times article last year found presidents of union locals making more than half a million dollars a year and occupying penthouses in Manhattan) has helped spur their decline. Finally, the incentives created by guaranteed job security and limited entry to new workers (Silly enough to try to get a SAG card? Ever see a film production shut down because someone from the electrical union has to be the one to plug in the lights?) have made unions seem too expensive both to companies and to the employee / members who pay the dues. All of these factors have made unions seem an extravagant, unnecessary anachronism.

Everywhere, that is, but in the public sector. Unions have been on the rise among public employees. What accounts for the difference? Well, government just isn’t run like private industry, is it? There’s no profit incentive, so “productivity” isn’t measured (or measurable) in the same sense as when Sally Field was punching those die stamps. But are university employees the lowly oppressed? Not exactly. It is true that public sector work is underpaid compared with the private sector, but job security, and for some people job rewards, tend to be greater.

For 17 years, there has been a union for CSU faculty. The California Faculty Assn. (CFA) was designated as the negotiating agent on behalf of all CSU faculty, but membership has been optional. Now SB 645 would make membership mandatory. Oh, and workers wouldn’t get to vote on this. It would be instituted first, and then employees could vote in 2004. This is like saying: “We know there’s a presidential election coming up. Let’s just save time, declare George W. Bush the president, and in four years you can vote on whether you wanted him elected in the first place.” Oh, one more thing: You don’t actually have to join the union. If you belong to a bona fide religious order that has historically objected to unions, you can opt out after paying equivalent fees to a charity of the union’s selection. No one has designated which divine deity would (1) acknowledge which religious objections were sufficient, or (2) designate union-approved charities.

Who thought of such a cockamamie scheme? Well, the unions of course. This would boost their membership--and their coffers--considerably. Currently only 38% of CSU’s eligible faculty belong to the union. How did they get the state Legislature to go along? After all, it’s the taxpayers who, indirectly, would foot the bill. The measure’s authors are state Senate President Pro Tem John Burton (D-San Francisco) and Assembly Speaker Antonio R. Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles). Pretty lofty company and, one cynic noted, the Democratic Party would be a likely recipient of considerable union donations if the bill goes through.

I went to Sacramento recently with professors Shirley Svorny of Cal State Northridge and Arthur Bohart (Cal State Dominguez Hills), meeting up with Don Hall (Cal State Sacramento). All of us had gone to register our dismay at the proposed law. The CFA’s lobbyist testified to the Assembly Committee on Higher Education that we were “freeloaders” because we had received the benefit of union representation for all of these years without bearing the cost.

Union dues would take, apparently, about $500 from each faculty member annually. Proportionate deductions would be paid by all other CSU employees. For what benefit? If the union hasn’t proven its worth in 17 years, I’m not holding my breath.

I’m just a regular citizen, naive enough to think that I should be able to vote before being represented and that, except for the government, people can’t take money out of my paycheck without my agreement. That, and the fact that the only people testifying in favor of the bill were the lobbyists of every affected union, got my hackles up. And we’re freeloaders?

When I ran into the CFA lobbyist later, he said that he had not meant to offend, but that “freeloader” was a standard labor law term. Since when? It turns out that he confused “free rider” (a term economists use to refer to those who take the benefit of services without paying the costs) and “freeloader” which, I explained, was used by Borscht Belt comedians when referring to deadbeats who skip their bills.

Well, that’ll be my last excursion to Sacramento for a while. I’ll let the freeloaders have the town to themselves.