National Policy Expert Questions Union Tactics, Facts
Face the State Staff Report
In a move drawing ire from a leading national labor policy expert, at least one Colorado union is using misleading statistics to recruit elected officials in its fight against a 2008 statewide ballot initiative.
In a September 6 letter obtained by Face the State, United Food and Commercial Workers International Vice President Ernest Duran solicited Arapahoe County Clerk Nancy Doty to join his organization’s effort to defeat a Colorado ballot initiative slated for next fall. The initiative, which would provide workers more opportunities to reject union membership and representation, is being characterized by Duran in his letter as a "Right-to-Work-for-Less-Initiative." Along with the letter, Doty was sent a pre-paid reply postcard soliciting volunteer hours, an official endorsement, and an appearance in the union's anti-right-to work media campaign.
Ryan Frazier of the Aurora City Council is co-sponsoring next fall's initiative and rejects Duran's assessment of his effort. “Really, I think this comes down to whether we think the worker should have the choice for themselves whether they participate in a union or not,” Frazier said.
Currently, 22 states have laws that protect a worker’s right to choose whether or not to join or pay fees to a union as a condition of employment. These laws typically are known as “right-to-work” laws. “Right now, they don’t have that basic freedom here in Colorado,” said Frazier. “If someone doesn’t want to participate in a union, whether to join or to pay the fees, the union can seek to have that employee terminated. Based on the terms of their contracts, employers would have to do that. I don’t think it’s right.”
To support his “Right-to-Work-for-Less” claims, Duran favorably compares the average earnings of a grocery clerk in Fort Collins to a grocery clerk in Cheyenne, Wyoming, a right-to-work state. His letter says a Fort Collins clerk makes three dollars an hour more than the Cheyenne counterpart. An attached leaflet cited government data to assert that workers in right-to-work states make $5,333 a year less than workers in other states.
But Stanley Greer, a senior researcher at the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, says the comparison is faulty because it doesn’t take into account the purchasing power of the dollar.
“Once you factor in cost of living, any state (with compulsory union membership laws) sees its earnings ‘advantage’ melt away, and, in fact, studies that factor in cost of living have time and again shown a right-to-work advantage,” said Greer.
A NILRR study found that the average adjusted annual income in major counties of right-to-work states was $46,135 in 2004, compared to $41,447 in states where forced unionism is allowed by law.
According to Greer, the substantially lower cost-of-living in most right-to-work states also refutes Duran’s assertion that right-to-work laws raise poverty rates. An analysis of data taken from a 2003 study actually finds adjusted poverty rates to be slightly higher in states where the right-to-work protection does not exist.
Also in his letter, Duran cites government data that shows 21 percent fewer residents of right-to-work states have health insurance coverage. Greer says the discrepancy stems from the fact that younger people, many more of whom choose to go without health insurance, have migrated to right-to-work states in large numbers.
Frazier says he can understand the migration away from states that can force workers to support unions. “People want to work in places that are friendly to business,” he said.
Greer further rebuts UFCW’s claims that worker freedom increases infant mortality, calling the claims disingenuous. Noting that early childhood deaths are “unfortunately higher among racial minorities", he also has found that the infant mortality rate among African-Americans in right-to-work states is slightly lower than the national average. But because African-Americans make up more of the population in right-to-work states, Greer says the figures are distorted.
“Unless current forced-unionism proponents are adjusting for race . . . their information on this topic is worthless,” Greer said.
Frazier believes Greer’s assessment sums up union leaders’ broader opposition to his ballot initiative.
“Their argument, quite honestly, is lacking substance,” he said. “If the union is really about empowering employees, they should fully support the right of workers to choose for themselves.”
Nonetheless, Frazier remains undeterred by the opposition.
“Union leaders will seek to distort our message and falsely tell people that this is anti-union,” he said. “But I believe it’s a commonsense proposal that will resound in the hearts and minds of most Coloradans.”