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 Unions across the country declared victory late Tuesday as
numbers rolled in from Missouri showing voters struck down the state’s pending
right-to-work law.
AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka called it a “tremendous achievement.”
Is this a sea change for unions in the Midwest? A signal that worker freedom
will forever be squashed in non-right-to-work Illinois?
No.
In fact, the union strategy in Illinois’ southwestern neighbor should leave some
rank-and-file members scratching their heads. The victory was expensive,
potentially short-lived and may even cut against some of the unions’ other
political priorities.
It’s yet another reason workers might want to keep more of their paychecks in
their own pockets, rather than seeing those dollars thrown away on political
crapshoots.
Some background: In February 2017, now-disgraced former Missouri Gov. Eric
Greitens signed a right-to-work bill into law.
 A right-to-work law doesn’t change collective bargaining. It doesn’t change
union representation. It doesn’t even necessarily weaken unions, especially if
they treat members well. It only does one thing: right to work allows workers to
withhold their money from a union if they don’t feel like it is representing his
or her interests effectively.
Without right-to-work protections currently offered in 27 states, you pay the
union or lose your job. It’s very simple.
Unlike Illinois, Missouri gives motivated citizens a fighting chance to serve as
a check on the state legislature. So following Greitens’ signature, unions
rounded up 300,000 signatures to block the law’s implementation until voters had
a choice at the ballot box.
To say unions outspent right-to-work proponents would be an understatement. It
was an avalanche.
The union-backed We Are Missouri Coalition raised more than $16 million from
labor organizations and spent nearly $7 million on ads in July alone. They
outspent two opposing groups combined by a nearly 5 to 1 margin, according to
the Wall Street Journal’s analysis of state filings.
With that money, unions secured a landslide victory.
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Or did they?
An important thing to note about the Missouri case is that Greitens
could not have played more into unions’ hands.
Too eager to pass a
landmark reform, he gave organizers most of the spring and all of
the summer to gather signatures. Any first-year lobbyist would have
taken a different tack. State lawmakers could have waited to vote on
a right-to-work bill until the last day of session in mid-May,
waited to send the bill to the governor until the end of May and
then Greitens could have sat on it well into July before signing,
thus giving motivated interests just a few weeks to gather
signatures – rather than six months.
Unfortunately for union members who saw millions of dollars in dues
money flow to this fight, that gamesmanship is still very much on
the table. If Missouri Republicans hold on to their supermajorities
in November, which is not unlikely, a right-to-work bill will
certainly bubble up yet again in 2019.
And that brings us to the electoral angle.
Missouri U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill is perhaps the most vulnerable
Democratic senator in the country. Millions of union dollars that
flowed to the right-to-work battle will no longer go to support her.
And millions of dollars that weren’t spent trying to outmaneuver
unions in that fight will flow to her opponent, Republican Missouri
Attorney General Josh Hawley.
Despite the right-to-work proposition being the star of the primary
election, Missouri Republicans cast about 60,000 more votes than
Missouri Democrats statewide. That’s not a good sign for McCaskill.
So at the end of the day, what did union members get in exchange for
millions of dollars?
An opportunity for union officials to pat themselves on the back, a
weaker position in a key congressional race and a few more months,
though possibly years, of compulsory dues.
Was it worth it?
Private sector union members in right-to-work states have reason to
ask themselves that question, because they have a choice in whether
to fund those fights.
Missouri’s private sector union members have little reason to,
because they still don’t.
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