HB 1357: Right to Work Repeal Act of 2018 (Passed)

[Esteemed Jimmy]

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People's House of Representatives
Passed in the House of Representatives 5-4-0-0


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Sponsor: Jimmy7812
House Designation: HB 1357

[Esteemed Jimmy]

HB 1357 is now on the House floor. Debate on this legislation has begun and shall last for no less than 72 hours.

[Esteemed Jimmy]

The repeal of right-to-work protects workers by making it easier for them to form unions to bargain for higher wages and better benefits.

I was recently alerted to the possibility that this provision

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Could potentially be interpreted by the executive to include agency fees to unions and thus impose right to work. This clarifies that the provision does not apply to agency fees.

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

The repeal of right-to-work protects workers by making it easier for them to form unions to bargain for higher wages and better benefits.

I was recently alerted to the possibility that this provision

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Could potentially be interpreted by the executive to include agency fees to unions and thus impose right to work. This clarifies that the provision does not apply to agency fees.

This isn't a repeal of right to work.

[YE]

Not in the traditional sense but it prevents employers from having non-union and union workers by forcing them to pay agency dues.

[JGibson]

It is time to repeal the sham that "right-to-work" is. Vote AYE on this is my recommendation.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Not in the traditional sense but it prevents employers from having non-union and union workers by forcing them to pay agency dues.

1. IRL requiring agency fees by non-union employees does not in anyway prevent employers from having both union and non-union employees.

2. In Atlasia, non-union workers cannot be forced to pay agency fees even if this bill passes. As has been discussed at length and never actually disputed by any of this bills proponents:

Question from the gallery.

Can someone (fhtagn or Mr. R) clarify what the POWER Act did with regards to unions and regions?  I recall Mr. Reactionary PMing me about Fremont needing to adopt RTW (via a free speech protection bill) in order to avoid losing federal funds.

If a region is required to do something in order to avoid losing federal funds (like adopt a minimum drinking age, as the US states were forced to do in the 80s), then classifying something as a state/regional issue is a bit disingenuous.

The POWER Act eliminated the federal requirement that unions MUST provide certain bargaining services to non-union members. IRL unions are forced against their will to represent non-union members. Because the federal government imposes this burden on unions, unions rightfully complained that this costs money, and that non-union members were "free-riding" by not paying membership dues. In response, some States permitted unions to charge non-union members they are forced against their will to provide services for an agency fee. As per the IRL Supreme Court, this agency fee does infringe upon free speech but can be justified IF the union is forced to incur a cost, and that further the agency fee was limited to only the costs incurred. I can provide more case citations later, but for a general understanding google "Hudson Notices", which are annual statements unions have to send to non-union members itemizing costs related to agency fees and returning any collected fee money not actually needed.

So when the POWER Act passed, unions were no longer forced to represent non-union workers ... therefore there was no longer a free-riding problem legally justifying agency fees, as the government wasn't forcing the unions to undertake a cost. This means that in Atlasia post-POWER Act, if challenged in Court, I imagine unions would have to annually refund 100% of any agency fee collected in a year within their Hudson notices, as there could never be any more forced bargaining (which again is the fact that made agency fees Constitutional and legally justified in the first place). So for non-RTW jurisdictions, unions could collect agency fees from non-union workers still, but legally they would have had to refund 100% of the money each year. That creates an administrative burden on the unions and affords no benefit to non-union workers. Basically one side gets an interest free loan but has to expend uncompensated administrative expenses returning the money, and the other side gets nothing. At least pre-POWER Act both sides were receiving a benefit; post POWER Act continuing to collect agency fees doesn't do much for anyone.

So because legally agency fees had already become a nullity, the Free Speech Protection Act fixed the issue once and for all by threatening to cut funds for Regions that didn't eliminate them (or frankly any forced fees unrelated to ones job). This was universally supported at the time by both sides, who all seemed to agree that you shouldn't have to pay fees to a church, political party, or other group unrelated to occupational licensing just to hold your job. I have little sympathy for people who didn't realize other group includes unions, and were perfectly fine protecting workers from undue financial penalties until they realized it also applied to their political machine too.

At this time, all 3 Regions have adopted conforming legislation and so no Region is presently at risk of losing any federal funds.

And in closing, the Supreme Court (even pre-Roberts) has always determined that forcing non-union workers to pay money to a union for engaging in speech the non-union worker has no control over is OBVIOUSLY a free speech/free association issue. They just held that the overriding issues related to forced representation and free-riding issues justified the possibility of agency shop agreements that were narrowly tailored by Hudson regulations. That this is some novel reinterpretation is just not true. What happened is that the POWER Act repealed a nearly hundred year law and as a result that upended a lot of related old law, including whether or not Regions are RTW or not. The POWER Act without even mentioning RTW at all effectively ended RTW as a policy issue, because what was ultimately changed was the legal underpinning for RTW/Agency fees. Like if the optics of saying "muh we oppose Right to Work ... 4 less haha" are worth more to Labor than good policy,  you can repeal the POWER Act and create a new free-riding problem for unions to have to struggle with, but that's really what you'd need to do. This particular bill here wouldn't really do what the author wants, because Hudson would still require full refunds each year. In other words, Agency Fee Agreements were viewed as a compromise to help unions saddled with forced costs. We actually solved the problem by just straight up eliminating what necessitated the compromise in the first place. Why you would ever want to revert back to the status quo that also burdened unions (other than the pure optics of saying "we stop RTW") escapes me.

I really dont care if this passes or not since as written it does absolutely nothing. It just seems like a big waste of the Legislatures time to act on a functionally frivolous bill purely for messaging purposes. Remember, if this passes, then yes, Regions can "require" the payment of agency fees by non-union workers but ultimately 100% of agency fees will be remitted back to the non-union workers which means there is literally no benefit for anyone from this and it adds a layer of bureaucracy to deduct, track, then remit the fees.

But by all means, if your only goal is to be able to PM zombies about how you "repealed RTW", knock yourself out. Just remember,  you arent doing anything other than preparing just in case t if e POWER Act gets repealed at a later time.

[YE]

^ I could have worried what I said earlier better, my bad.

[Sirius_]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

[Mr. Reactionary]

^ I could have worried what I said earlier better, my bad.

Lol. U are fine. My posting of the block quote was largely just to make sure the House record includes an explanation of how under existing Atlasian law this bill is functionally pointless regardless of intent. In the Senate no one seemed to care so I doubted the legal analysis would be shared by them with the House on its own.

[MAINEiac4434]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

You are mistaken. Unions need money to organize and operate. Allowing workers to receive the benefits of union membership without paying the dues invariably harms unions and unionization efforts.

[Sirius_]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

You are mistaken. Unions need money to organize and operate. Allowing workers to receive the benefits of union membership without paying the dues invariably harms unions and unionization efforts.

As stated earlier, "So when the POWER Act passed, unions were no longer forced to represent non-union workers ... therefore there was no longer a free-riding problem legally justifying agency fees"

[Sestak]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

You are mistaken. Unions need money to organize and operate. Allowing workers to receive the benefits of union membership without paying the dues invariably harms unions and unionization efforts.

As stated earlier, "So when the POWER Act passed, unions were no longer forced to represent non-union workers ... therefore there was no longer a free-riding problem legally justifying agency fees"

The current status quo does make it much easier for employers to undermine unions, which, in many cases, rely on, well, unity to bargain effectively. Not allowing them to negotiate for agency shops (when the union voluntarily gives up its ability, from the POWER act, to not represent non-members and instead chooses to represent all employees) severely hampers their ability to bargain. Especially as some sectors, such as manufacturing, are rapidly losing jobs - employers could easily start to prioritize giving jobs to workers who agree to “wink and nod” yellow-dog contracts, dramatically driving down wages and worsening working conditions.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

You are mistaken. Unions need money to organize and operate. Allowing workers to receive the benefits of union membership without paying the dues invariably harms unions and unionization efforts.

As stated earlier, "So when the POWER Act passed, unions were no longer forced to represent non-union workers ... therefore there was no longer a free-riding problem legally justifying agency fees"

The current status quo does make it much easier for employers to undermine unions, which, in many cases, rely on, well, unity to bargain effectively. Not allowing them to negotiate for agency shops (when the union voluntarily gives up its ability, from the POWER act, to not represent non-members and instead chooses to represent all employees) severely hampers their ability to bargain. Especially as some sectors, such as manufacturing, are rapidly losing jobs - employers could easily start to prioritize giving jobs to workers who agree to “wink and nod” yellow-dog contracts, dramatically driving down wages and worsening working conditions.

Norris-LaGuardia prohibits yellow dog contracts as an unfair employer practice and has since the Great depression.

[Sestak]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

You are mistaken. Unions need money to organize and operate. Allowing workers to receive the benefits of union membership without paying the dues invariably harms unions and unionization efforts.

As stated earlier, "So when the POWER Act passed, unions were no longer forced to represent non-union workers ... therefore there was no longer a free-riding problem legally justifying agency fees"

The current status quo does make it much easier for employers to undermine unions, which, in many cases, rely on, well, unity to bargain effectively. Not allowing them to negotiate for agency shops (when the union voluntarily gives up its ability, from the POWER act, to not represent non-members and instead chooses to represent all employees) severely hampers their ability to bargain. Especially as some sectors, such as manufacturing, are rapidly losing jobs - employers could easily start to prioritize giving jobs to workers who agree to “wink and nod” yellow-dog contracts, dramatically driving down wages and worsening working conditions.

Norris-LaGuardia prohibits yellow dog contracts as an unfair employer practice and has since the Great depression.

It prohibits yellow dog contracts explicitly, yes. But employers can still choose to hire candidates who indicate to them in one way or another that they won't join a union over ones who don't.

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

Crickets! I guess that means it's time to vote?

I move to go to a vote on this legislation

[Esteemed Jimmy]

Crickets! I guess that means it's time to vote?

I move to go to a vote on this legislation

Motion to have a final vote granted. Representatives have 24 hours for objections.

[Mr. Reactionary]

I don't personally believe that not requiring union membership makes it any harder to unionize. It's an issue of freedom of choice. If we were banning lower governments from banning/severely undercutting unions, I would support this. But in the current form of the bill it doesn't seem like it does anything that really helps workers.

You are mistaken. Unions need money to organize and operate. Allowing workers to receive the benefits of union membership without paying the dues invariably harms unions and unionization efforts.

As stated earlier, "So when the POWER Act passed, unions were no longer forced to represent non-union workers ... therefore there was no longer a free-riding problem legally justifying agency fees"

The current status quo does make it much easier for employers to undermine unions, which, in many cases, rely on, well, unity to bargain effectively. Not allowing them to negotiate for agency shops (when the union voluntarily gives up its ability, from the POWER act, to not represent non-members and instead chooses to represent all employees) severely hampers their ability to bargain. Especially as some sectors, such as manufacturing, are rapidly losing jobs - employers could easily start to prioritize giving jobs to workers who agree to “wink and nod” yellow-dog contracts, dramatically driving down wages and worsening working conditions.

Norris-LaGuardia prohibits yellow dog contracts as an unfair employer practice and has since the Great depression.

It prohibits yellow dog contracts explicitly, yes. But employers can still choose to hire candidates who indicate to them in one way or another that they won't join a union over ones who don't.

If they violate the law how will passing another law stop that?

[At-Large Senator LouisvilleThunder]

I object to the motion to a final vote. I'll have an amendment posted shortly to address concerns.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

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People's House of Representatives
Pending

Sponsor: Jimmy7812
House Designation: HB 1357
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I propose the following amendment

[Esteemed Jimmy]

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People's House of Representatives
Pending

Sponsor: Jimmy7812
House Designation: HB 1357

I propose the following amendment
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The proposed amendment is not friendly.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Can the sponsor please explain his issue with this amendment and why he seems to believe that individuals should be required to join a union as a condition of employment. This amendment very simply moves up the implementation date (the current implementation date has passed) and gives workers a choice on whether they want to join a union. No person should feel compelled to join an organization that is unnecessary to be a part of.

[P. Clodius Pulcher did nothing wrong]

We have explained why we believe what we believe on many occasions. The issue is bigger than simply choosing to join a union. Can we get a move on with this legislation finally? Clearly nobody is going to change their mind by the end of this debate

[fhtagn]

We have explained why we believe what we believe on many occasions. The issue is bigger than simply choosing to join a union. Can we get a move on with this legislation finally? Clearly nobody is going to change their mind by the end of this debate

If you care about workers so much, why do you want to take away their right to choose whether or not they join a labor union? If unions are as good as you say they are, why do you have to force them to join one?

[Esteemed Jimmy]

Due to an objection by the sponsor, a vote on whether to adopt the amendment below has started and will last for 72 hours, or until all representatives have voted. Please vote AYE, NAY, or ABSTAIN.

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People's House of Representatives
Pending
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