Don’t Force Workers to Join a Union

In 1978, when I was 17 years old, I worked as an usher at concerts and sporting events earning $2.25 an hour, the minimum wage. I had to surrender about 15 cents of this meager hourly wage to a union I was forced to join. I could never understand what a union was doing to help me since the company had the legal requirement to pay me $2.25. I was infuriated over the principle of this confiscation by labor bosses I had never met.

I wanted out of the union, but they told me I must pay dues to keep the job. Shouldn’t there be a law against this type of coercion?

There is, actually. It is called the First Amendment. The right of association is not explicitly listed in the Bill of Rights. Still, the courts established this “fundamental right,” ironically enough, in 1958 in the landmark Supreme Court case NAACP v. Alabama. Crucially, the courts declared that “the First Amendment protects a right to associate and a right not to associate together.”

I was thinking about this when I watched the viral video of Rep. Tim Ryan, the Ohio Democrat, on the House floor slamming Republicans for opposing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act that would force tens of millions to join a union.

“Heaven forbid that we pass something that’s going to help the damn workers in the United States of America,” he fumed. “We talk about giving the right to organize; you (Republicans) complain.”

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