Building Worker Power

The United Steelworkers (USW) mounted tireless battles for fair trade and other lifelines that helped to keep McLouth Steel open during the 1980s, enabling Jay McMurran and thousands of other Michigan workers to raise families and build pensions amid one of the nation’s worst economic crises.
Recognizing that other workers need the same kind of strength behind them, McMurran resolved to fight back when Republicans rammed union-gutting “right to work” (RTW) legislation through the state legislature in 2012.
He and other union supporters and their allies worked relentlessly for years to oust the corporate toadies and elect pro-worker lawmakers instead. Their long struggle culminated in victory Tuesday when new Democratic majorities in the House and Senate voted to repeal the deceptively named RTW laws, restoring workers’ full power to bargain fair contracts and safe working conditions.
Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer vowed to sign the legislation, which represents the latest in a string of victories for workers mobilizing to build strength across the country.
No one in America is ever forced to join a union, and no union wants workers to join against their will. Yet a union has a legal obligation to serve all workers in its bargaining unit.
Many states allow unions to charge non-members a small fee to help cover the costs of representation. But in some states, RTW laws pushed by corporations and anti-worker groups enable non-members to receive union services for free.
These laws intentionally divide workers, erode the solidarity that’s the foundation of union strength and starve unions of the resources needed for effective bargaining, training and other essential purposes—all to the boss’s benefit.
“‘Right to work’ is simply a union-busting scam that the Republicans dress up as ‘choice,’” observed McMurran, a longtime USW member who worked at McLouth Steel for 27 years.
“It weakens the local union,” he said. “It weakens every worker’s position when you get into collective bargaining, when you get into grievance hearings, when you get into arbitrations. The boss knows your weaknesses, and he exploits them.”
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