Amendment 47 – Unions and Right To Work

Because I’m sure everyone really wants to know my opinion of this amendment, here it is: I’m for it.

I’m for it for two reasons: 1) while I was a contractor at Lucent (later Avaya after the split), I saw, first-hand, the laziness of workers who were sufficiently far up the union ladder that they no longer needed to work – they just showed up and did whatever they wanted. The company couldn’t fire them (except VERY slowly), and one person in particular I depended on, and he was very slow to respond to anything because there was nothing I could do about it. I can compare this to my current job, where if I don’t perform I’m out the door. Unions protect all the workers – good and bad.

But 2) my second reason is that I cannot in good conscience require a worker to give up money just to help fund some political campaign that the union boss likes. That, to me, is borderline theft or fraud. In addition, the union boss (or “manager” as they sometimes like to be called) has 0 productivity – he doesn’t help me code, or design databases, or manage servers. He even interferes with my ability to manage people (should I have any underneath me in any way).

I can understand why, in some trades (mostly blue collar) unions may be a great way to go, but let’s keep them competitive – if union membership brings real benefits then people will want to join/form them. Otherwise people will go elsewhere. That way I can go work for non-union shops where I know I can can a worker if they are consistently non-productive.