Right-to-work ruling a step away from abusing workers

A U.S. judge struck down right-to-work laws in a dozen Kentucky counties this month, ruling that only states can circumvent the federal law that legalizes forced union dues. The decision comes on the heels of a media blitz by Republicans and business lobbyists calling for a statewide law in Kentucky that would do just that.

This is an issue where politics and ideology dovetail easily. For the Koch brothers and other billionaires who finance these campaigns, right-to-work plays into their twin agendas: they want to strip unions — major Democratic donors — of their political influence by draining their savings, and they want to make free-market capitalism the unilateral judge of what constitutes fair pay for a person’s labor.

Union-busters think that without collectively bargained contracts that “artificially” drive up wages, the free market will fairly divvy out capital based on merit. That’s why regulations are no good. Virtually any plan to regulate the flow of pre-tax earnings is just a toxic, clunky, bureaucratic state effort to play favorites or game an otherwise fair system. (Their logic, not mine.)

None of this holds up to scrutiny: it’s just reactionary dogma. But it’s picked up so much steam in the Obama era that it actually shapes public policy. In reality, deregulating and dismantling labor laws only drives wages far lower than what the average American would consider fair.

Here’s how it works: Just like countries, U.S. states compete with one another for the privilege of hosting businesses. Affordable construction, cheap energy, an educated workforce attract them. States who want to lure browsers try to curate “pro-business environments.” It’s how economies grow.

But supply-side strategies for this — lax environmental rules, low taxes, no wage floors, no safety standards — abuse lower- and middle-class workers. By scaling back regulations to promote flexibility and risk-taking, lawmakers end up gutting worker protections to line business owners’ pockets.

They tend to side with business over labor because chambers of commerce hold sway with governments. That leads to bills that favor owners and kneecap ordinary workers — the actual flesh-and-blood human beings who staff those businesses. Then other states further deregulate just to stay competitive.

This cycle is called the “race to the bottom,” a phrase coined over 80 years ago by U.S. Supreme Court Justice and Louisville native Louis Brandeis.

Today, it’s worse. Neoliberal super PACs and dark-money magnates aggressively lobby Washington to stand down and let dog-eat-dog capitalism unfold, while debt hawks in Congress and Tea Partiers in state and local governments work to cripple unions and undo their regulatory victories. That’s why there’s little hope of a renaissance for organized labor.

Still, many fear that we forfeit jobs and growth when we alienate private companies by tolerating forced union fees. To them, I say: OK. Why let fear spook us into passing anti-labor policies?

In a capitalist society, business chases profit. More importantly, business is just one of the many tools we use to augment the quality of human life. It’s an instrument; it’s not here to dictate the values of that life; it’s here to serve them. Catering to businesses’ wishes at the expense of individual well-being is both backward and short-sighted.

Rather than fighting to drag Kentucky down, why not help energize labor’s resistance efforts in the current right-to-work states? We could start by shoring up support for campaigns to repeal the laws already on the books in Indiana, Tennessee and other states that allegedly poach investors and job opportunities from us. That beats sinking to their level.

An even better solution: Endorse Bernie Sanders for president. He introduced a bill in the U.S. Senate called the Workplace Democracy Act that would repeal right-to-work laws in every state. By neutralizing the domestic threat from all directions, that could help us pump the brakes on this race to the bottom.

This story was originally published February 12, 2016 at 5:39 PM with the headline "Right-to-work ruling a step away from abusing workers."