Speaker 1: And we are back with another edition of the Federalist
Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, Senior Elections correspondent at the
Federalist and your experience shirpa on today's quest for Knowledge.
As always, you can email the show at radio at
the Federalist dot com, follow us on x at FDR LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast, and
of course to the premium version of our website as well.
Our guest today is the great Mark Mix, president of
the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the
National Right to Work Committee. Today, just before Labor Day,
we talk about the state of worker freedom. Good afternoon, sir,
Thank you so much for joining us on this edition
of the Federalist Radio Hour.
Speaker 2: Matt, it's the privileged to talk with you today. And
what a great day to talk about labor policy.
Speaker 1: Huh oh yeah, perfect timing on all of this sort
of thing. I mean, I guess we start with labor policy,
and I think certainly a sea change in all of
that in this administration, which we'll get to momentarily. But
I think it's important to take a look back at
where we have been in this country in organized labor
and worker freedom and where it suggests we're going. I mean,
there was a time in this country when labor unions
really were, you know, a good deal about protecting workers
and protecting workers from you know, being taken advantage of. Now,
in so many cases over the last several decades, we've
seen workers being taken advantage of by the unions. We
have seen.
Speaker 3: Big labor put in big.
Speaker 1: Amounts of money. I mean, we are talking over the
years billions of dollars into the political system, and it's
all going of course for left wing candidates and policies.
So much has changed since the dawn of the twentieth
century as we get well into the twenty first century,
if you wouldn't mind walk us through, because you folks
show up, you know what, nearly well more than fifty
years ago now, when there was a great deal of
transition going on at that time as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, Matt, you know, the arc of organized labor
in this country is something that doesn't get a whole
lot of attention.
Speaker 3: It certainly doesn't in.
Speaker 2: High school school books or college books, textbooks or whatever.
Speaker 3: But it is an interesting past.
Speaker 2: And when you go back to the he turned the
beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the late eighteen hundreds
early nineteen hundreds. It was interesting because the unions were
formed as kind of a guild movement, you know, almost
like it was in it still is in England and
Great Britain today, the idea that you know that you
were in a particular occupation and there was a guild
there that was designed to kind of create barriers to entry,
so that the hat makers and the window glazers and
the cigar wrappers could protect, you know, their interest in
the workplace.
Speaker 3: But the point then.
Speaker 2: Was Matt that these were all voluntary institutions. They had
no desire at that point. Well maybe they did. Some
of them did, but others didn't. Particularly Samuel Gompers, the
father of the American labor movement and the president of
the AFL, the American Federation of Labor during those formative
years in the late eighteen hundreds all the way up
to nineteen twenty four when he passed away. He believed
in voluntarism and he was one who decided that, you know,
you shouldn't go to political entities to get power or privilege,
because he knew once you did that that you would
basically rely on government power, government privilege to basically expand
your power and privilege in the marketplace, as opposed to
taking steps to protect particular industries or particular guilds and
recruiting members by providing a good opportunity for them or
an ancestral opportunity for family members, et cetera, et cetera.
And so it was interesting when Gompers gave his final
speech to the AFL convention in El Paso, Texas in
nineteen twenty four, he made a point to basically address
what was a grumbling among the delegates of that convention
that they ought to be going to the federal government.
Speaker 3: For more power.
Speaker 2: And he said, and I try to get it as
close as I can. He said, the workers of America
here to voluntary institutions. Anything that forces will destroy what's
brought together through voluntary instincts and voluntary means. And Gomfers
is right about that. You know, it's real kind of
common sense stuff. You know, we don't join organizations we
don't agree with, but we're glad to participate, glad to contribute,
glad to be involved and give time to organizations that
are doing things that we support. I mean, it makes
sense to have that as part of the kind of
the creation of an organization or the strength of an organization.
But Organized Labor back in nineteen twenty six, although the
courts had granted them and Congress had granted them some
special privileges like you know, exempt from antitrust laws and
other things that happened. But their first real big victory
was in nineteen twenty six with the passes of the
Railway Labor Act that gave union officials the right to
organize and represent employees in the in the railway and
airline business. Although the airline business wasn't that big at
that time, it was the railroads that really were the
big part of the American economy. And that was a
huge victory for organized labor and one that basically set
the stage for what they would ask for when Roosevelt
became president in nineteen thirty five, and that was federal
control over private sector of labor management relations across the
entire country.
Speaker 3: And while they tried it in their.
Speaker 2: First go around, when Roosevelt was in the Congress passed
a bill that would have federally granted this power to
union officials to force the representation on workers who didn't
ask for, didn't want, didn't vote for unionization, and that
was up there. While Roosevelt signed it, it was challenged
in the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court struck it down
as unconstitutional. And Matt, this is one of those instances
where history kind of creates an idiom the old quote
switching times save nine, because that was relevant here when
we talk about union power. So Roosevelt takes a beating
from the Supreme Court on his One of his featured
programs of the New Deal was federal control over private
sector labor managed relations. He comes back two weeks later
with the Wagner Act, which is basically the same thing,
and in the meantime talks to the justices and says, you know,
the Chief Justice, Charles Evans hughes and says, you guys
are getting old over there. And you know, if you
continue to function after the age of seventy, we'll probably
give you an associate justice. The time that would have
meant six new justices to get it to fifteen. And Matt,
you're a student of the Constitution. You know that Article
three has no number for the US Supreme Court. It
just says there will be one and Congress can add
and subtract as they see fit. So this was a
really substantial there's a substantial pressure from the president to
pack the court over labor policy, social security Bill, just
a few other things that were part of the new deal.
And obviously the second time around, the Supreme Court capitulates
they uphold it as constitutional. The labor union moves grows
exponentially now that they have this unique power over private
sector workers.
Speaker 3: And the railroad industry.
Speaker 2: Notwithstanding, and it's only until nineteen forty six elections when
there are literally I think millions of workers out on strike,
shutting down the economy. John Lewis of the Mind Workers
is telling the American people, you can't have heat and
coal unless you do what we say. And finally there's
this response that says, wait a minute, we probably went
too far. And instead of repealing the whole thing and
going back to state policy, see where states could be
the experimental laboratories of labor policy, they decided to basically
give the states the ability to.
Speaker 3: Pass what are known as right to work laws.
Speaker 2: So from nineteen forty seven till today, twenty six states
have done that. And that's kind of where we stand
when it comes to unionization. But suffice to say to
your point you mentioned the billions of dollars they spend
on politics. That's the result of their power and privilege
being basically manufactured through the legislative process, whether it be
at state legislatures for government employees, or whether it be
at the federal government to protect their privilege and power
in the federal in the private sector, that's where they play.
That's why they have to pay politics. That's why they
have to raise and spend billions to make sure that
they have legislators that will not only listen but grant
them new powers to force more workers to pay union
do So that's.
Speaker 3: Kind of a quick arc of where we've been.
Speaker 2: And where we are with the labor union movement. I
think that's what you were looking for, I hope.
Speaker 1: So it's very well done, very well done. And you know,
I think about over the course of history and that
pivotal moment where you have the President of the United
States and Frankly Deellan or Roosevelt trying to pack the
court again in no small part over labor policy. I
just keep thinking, the more things change, the more they
stay the same. Democrats, of course, have been talking about
packing the court and expanding the court to try to,
you know, get rid of the control of the Conservatives,
of course that they despise on that court. But you know,
we talk about volunteer how all of this really started.
That's voluntary organization, voluntary membership. And again I hearken back
to the notion that I certainly would never be a
member of a club that would have me as a member.
So I don't know where I would fit in all
of this. But when did when did it become involuntary,
When did it become compulsory? When did the thuggery really begin?
And I'm going to be blunt here because we have
seen lots of union, big labor thuggery over the course
of the last century plus in this country.
Speaker 2: Yeah, indeed, Matt, And you know, again it's a function
of that of that government power and then the privileges
being exempt from antitrust laws, being exempt from having judges
issue injunctions to shut down labor disputes.
Speaker 3: You know, nineteen eighteen Calvin Coolidge.
Speaker 2: When he was the mayor of Boston and they had
a police strike there. That story is really an unbelievable story.
And so all this stuff went on, and employers had
something to do with it. Two Matt to be you know,
we need let's be fair here, because they were trying
to protect their property and they were using sometimes the
Pinkerton guards and others.
Speaker 3: So it was it was both ways.
Speaker 2: But the compulsion and the force started with the Roosevelt administration,
with the Supreme Court upholding that Wagner Act basically giving
union officials the power to compel association and compel payment
of dues and fees. I mean, prior to that, union
officials had to win the hearts and minds of workers.
And sometimes, when you know, the employers are out there
beating people up, they win the hearts and minds of
workers very quickly.
Speaker 3: But when they're beating people.
Speaker 2: Up, sometimes they lose the hearts and minds of workers too.
And I will say to your point that the notion
that employers are continuing to use these tactics, I mean,
these taxes are occurring right now in Boston, Massachusetts, in
this Republican republic excuse me, garbage collection strike that's ongoing.
Speaker 3: They you know, they ran.
Speaker 2: Strikes in San Diego, they ran strikes in Philadelphia, They
ran these kind of these secondary boycott like strikes across
the country, so the teams start could flex their muscles.
In an ongoing strike where garbage is piling up in Boston,
tires are being slashed, people are being threatened, you know,
people are being assaulted with you know, with spray in
the front windshield as they are driving these big trucks
down the road.
Speaker 3: I mean, these things continue to go on.
Speaker 2: We tell a story of Rod Carter, who is a
UPS driver who decided across the picket line at UPS
and you know, he got an anonymous call at his
home that night saying, you know, watch out, we're coming
for you. And the next day he pulls out of
the yard and comes up to a red light and
he's surrounded by five cars and they pull him out
of the truck, stab them five times with an ice pick,
and on where they go.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are the stories of kind of using.
Speaker 2: Intimidation to convince people they shouldn't they shouldn't counter or
shouldn't stand up against this kind of union coercion and
corruption that exists. And so the story the narrative here
in order to add tad insult to injury, we have
a nineteen seventy three Supreme Court case called Enmans E
n MNS, and I always spell it because people will
look it up because they say that can't be true.
Speaker 3: But Edman's the Supreme Court ruled that union.
Speaker 2: Officials cannot be prosecuted under the Hobsact for extortion, racketeering,
and violence that is used to quote achieve union legitimate
union objectives.
Speaker 3: I mean, imagine that, Matt amazing.
Speaker 2: Yes, so you get a get out of jail free car.
And then you have states that pass similar laws that
say no public law enforcement agency can enforce the law
during a violent union strike because until the governor says
you can, or some elected official says you can.
Speaker 3: I mean, these are the privileges that got.
Speaker 2: To them, and then defending their compulsion is usually comes
with a bat or a lead pipe, or nails in
the road or intimidating someone with a bloody severed cow's
head on the hood of.
Speaker 3: Their car when they go to work in the morning.
Speaker 2: I mean, these are all stories that of people that
we've helped through the process of defending themselves against this
type of coercion and type of violence. I mean, look,
there are a lot of union people out there that
love their unions. And they are part of their unions,
and those local unions are doing good things for workers.
But this is part and parcel of the storyline for
the American labor movement. Guys like Jimmy Hoffa, guys like
Sean Fayne, guy like Sean O'Brien, who you know who
use the F word fairly regular is a regular part
of his dialogue. I mean, these people are out there
to prove that they're the toughest people on the street.
And that whole kind of aura is designed to intimidate
people when it comes to you know, union power and
the union workplace. And so it is part of their
kind of mo if you will, to try to protect
what they have, whether it be politically or whether it
be you know, in the at a.
Speaker 3: Particular place of business.
Speaker 2: But it's something that's wrong, and I think it's a
derivative of their compulsion and their force that allows them
to be unaccountable to the rank and file workers.
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Speaker 1: Well, there's no doubt their power is slipping from them.
I mean, take a look at the membership numbers released
in late January, as they are annually twenty twenty four.
What did we see. The percent of wage and salary
workers who were members of unions slipped below ten percent
nine point nine percent in twenty twenty four. Now, that
was little changed from the previous year. But people are
voting with their feet, and they are responding to a
number of different things. First and foremost, it's the stuff
that you're involved in on a daily basis. Worker freedom,
people who are tired of having to be forced to
pay union dues, people who are tired be forced to
be in memberships, or how votes are taken. All all
of these kinds of things. That's what the right to
work movement is truly all about. But there is so
much more to this. What we've seen over particularly this
century thus far, the first quarter of this century, a
lot of different moving parts and certainly some significant changes
on the worker freedom front. You folks were involved.
Speaker 2: In that, Yeah, indeed, Matt, And it's an ongoing fight
every day is you know, you have to defend what
you've got and try to expand individual freedom in the workplace,
whether it be through the courts or through the legislatures
in the fifty States or here in Congress.
Speaker 3: So there is a lot of work to be done.
Speaker 2: But there have been great moments of movement forward. I mean,
for example, the Janis case. You and I've talked about
this in the past. Twenty eighteen, the US Supreme Court
said that every government worker in America, no matter what
level of government, has First Amendment protections against being four
to pay union douser fees to work for government. That's
a right to work law for a very large segment
of the American economy, which is government.
Speaker 3: Unfortunately it's bigger than it should be.
Speaker 2: But those types of wins, those types of battles are
only a result of people. We the people that we
know who we are as our government, this kind of
grand experiment's self. Government have looked and found this model
for forced unionism as wanting. And so it's not surprising
to me growing up in a union household as I did.
My stepfather was a thirty two year member of the
machinist union, seeing how they operated back in the nineteen seventies,
see how they.
Speaker 3: Operate today, and being kind of involved.
Speaker 2: In this in the front edge of it. It's the
union officials that are the biggest problem that the union
movement has in this country. And Matt, probably the best
example occurred back in November of twenty twenty four. You
had a private sector union movement that voted a majority
of the union households and members who voted for Donald Trump,
despite the fact that union of officials, the union bosses
spent literally hundreds of millions of dollars against.
Speaker 3: Donald Trump to stop them from ending up in the
White House.
Speaker 2: That kind of disconnect between union officials and union bosses
on one hand, and rank and file workers on the
other is exactly the type of thing that is driving
down the support for the membership of and the financial
strength of organized labor. There's still a thirty billion dollars
a year business when it comes to government contracts and
union dues and other revenue streams that they have, But
the idea of the support for unions is decreasing because
they continue.
Speaker 3: To rely on compulsion.
Speaker 2: You know, the unions will say, well, you know, seventy
percent of Americans have a favorable opinion of unions. That
may be true, you know, generally, yeah, okay, I agree that,
you know, workers should have a voice in the workplace,
et cetera, et cetera. But when you ask the second
question of are you interested in joining union? Most Americans
say no way. And then if you ask a third
question and say do you believe workers should be forced
to join or pay dues to a union to get
or keep a job, we get to eighty two eighty
three percent of Americans to say, know how, no way,
and that includes seventy percent plus of union members and
union households to get it, you know, as part of
that coalition.
Speaker 1: Well, it's interesting you note that, and that is exactly
what has happened, this disconnect that has been going on
between big labor bosses pulling in some you know, some
very comfortable wages and earnings and the people that they're
supposed to be benefiting. Instead of focusing on, you know,
the worker, they're focusing on political causes that a lot
of the workers don't agree with. They're pouring money into
politicians that go against their you know, personal viewpoints, their
political viewpoints, their economic viewpoints, all of these sorts of things.
And so it is not surprising that Democrats have lost
union support and that unions have lost workers support down
once again to under ten percent. And you see the
dominance still where unions exist remain in government positions. You know, again,
this shouldn't come to a surprise to the unions. They
must be running scared. And you know what happens when
when folks start running scared.
Speaker 3: Yeah, indeed.
Speaker 2: You know what I find interesting is the academics and
the people that follow this, and they're you know, they're
really smart people. The Ivory Tower, people who who who
postulate labor policy that creates utopian situations, which you know,
oftentimes is a dream of the left and the Marxist
and the progressives.
Speaker 3: They you know, if they can control it, then it'll
all work, it'll be perfect.
Speaker 2: It's just those bad people in the Soviet Union, those
bad people in China just don't know how to do
it right.
Speaker 3: But anyway, that is a pretty important point.
Speaker 2: You know, this idea of the radical nature of the unions,
the union officials views on the world, and how it
reflects back. Unfortunately, you know, after Donald Trump won the
presidency and won a majority of private sector workers, whether
they had a union card in their wallet or not,
Republican politicians, Matt and you know you've seen this as
much as I have. You know, all of a sudden
the like goes on and says, oh my gosh, we
just got you know, we're now can be that, we
can be the party of the working people. And how
do we manifest that, how to make that happen? How
do we solidify that? Well, guys like Josh Holly from
Missouri believe the way you do that as you go
talk to the union bosses and say, hey, what legislation
do you want that you know, would make unions a
little more powerful. And when he when he does that,
he forgets that the disconnect between union officials and rank and.
Speaker 3: File workers is real and growing. The thing that we
just talked about. But there are Republicans that do that.
Speaker 2: And to your point, it's about the political money ultimately,
and the Democrats. You know, this is the mother's milk
of many Democratic campaigns, these people, I mean, the Open
Secrets reports just recently in twenty twenty four, the Union
spent two hundred and eighty eight million dollars just in
federal elections. And that's not even really all the money, Matt.
That's kind of what they report and what's visible. There's
a lot of invisible money out there, you know, they
talk about the dark money. The guiltiest party with dark
money are the Democrats and the union bosses for sure.
Speaker 1: The great projectionist of course.
Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, Yeah, that's right, that's exactly right. But so
you have this flow of money and it's just this.
It's again, there there are other players out there that
get more attention than organized labor.
Speaker 3: But we've estimated based on reports they.
Speaker 2: File where they're you know, reporting their LM two forms
to the Department of Labor that include lobbying and politics,
their political action reports that they file for their packs.
I mean, you can get to two billion dollars every
two years, very very quickly. Now I know there's others
out there that are spending, you know, lots of money,
like the Zuckerbergs and the Soroses.
Speaker 3: And others on both sides.
Speaker 2: Frankly, but organized labor is still I would say they
had to be the eight hundred pound gorilla, but there's
certainly the five hundred pound gorilla in the public policy process.
And that's out of all proportion to their members and
their membership. We're only talking about five point nine percent
of the private sector workforce, and to your point, Matt,
under ten percent of all the workers in the country,
including government employees.
Speaker 3: So it's definitely clear.
Speaker 2: That it's not the power of their membership that's what
gives them political power. It's the power of the privilege
they've been granted by politicians. And that's where the rub
is and that's what right works all about. We're trying
to give employees and union members the chance to hold
their union officials accountable for the things that you talked
about them giving money to candidates who oppose and are
have the absolute opposite political or ideological views, then the
members they claim to represent.
Speaker 3: That's the secret of it.
Speaker 2: And I think if we could do that, if union
officials would finally stand up and say, hey, this is
what we're doing wrong. In fact, academics and Ivory towers.
To get back to my point, they're writing about it
now that union membership actually even decreased during the Biden
years when he put his thumb on the scale to
give your officials literally billions of dollars and opportunities with
government power to say, hey, if you want some of
this government money, you have to have a union.
Speaker 3: You have to be neutral about unionization. That didn't even work.
Speaker 1: Interesting. Our guest today is Mark Mex, president of the
National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the National
Right to Work Committee. We talk about the state of
worker freedom as we approach this Labor Day. That is
so interesting. With all of the money and all of
the incentives, people still reject the outsized power of the
unions to control their fiefdoms. And you know, again, the
more things change, the more they you know, the more
they stayed the same. This still remains that revolutionary spirit
of seventeen seventy six that is inculcated in I think
most Americans still, and I think that's the feeling out there.
I have to ask you what happened to Haley you know,
he has been a pretty solid conservative, but man, has
he been courting big labor here for a while. What gifts?
What happened?
Speaker 2: Well, Matt, I obviously don't know. I would love to
get a chance to ask him. You know, the first
thing coming out of the box that he said, which
was so confusing to me and should be confusing to
anyone who heard him say it, was that he said
he would never impose right to work on anyone. I'll
let that sit there for a minute, because you had
the exact right response, like, wait a minute, you have
no idea what you're talking about. Yeah, impose right to work.
The imposition is the forced unionism granted by government back
in the nineteen thirties. They imposed it on the entire country,
They imposed it on the entire private sector. I mean,
that's the that's the first original sin of what happened
to organized labor, as I mentioned, going all the way
back to Samuel Gompers. The government decided to jump into this,
and union is encouraged him to do so, and they
impose themselves on workers. But yet jo Josh Holly comes
out with, well, I would never impose right to work
on anyone, So that's a headshaker to begin. I mean,
this guy's what a Stanford and a Yale graduate, and
he's very good, I mean to your point. Every time
he shows up, and he's a kind of a media hound.
He's you know, he's good at the committee process, he's
good at public public affairs, he's good at framing things up.
Speaker 3: But in this gives good clips.
Speaker 2: Like I was, Yes, he's just wrong. He's just wrong
on this is in fact, it goes this far, Matt.
He's now introduced to bill Senate Bill eight forty four.
You can look this up to verify what I'm telling you.
That basically says this. He says that once the union
gets into a they're certified that negotiations must begin with
the union within ten days, and then within ninety days
you must have a contract in place governing the working
conditions of these employees. Now that may sound like, hey,
what's the problem, why can't we get an agreement in
ninety days. Well, in order to understand how difficult that
can be, is that the conditions over what you're bargaining
deal with every element of the employment process in a business.
Heretofore that's had control over their employees and the benefits
and the conditions and the workouts. All those things have
been part and parcel of that relationship between employees and employers.
A union comes in and says, we're negotiating. We're opening
up everything you do, the way you run your business,
the way you manage your employees, We're now going to
change that. There are what are called mandatory subject of
bargaining that you have to negotiate over. There's voluntary subjects
of bargaining which you don't have to negotiate over.
Speaker 3: But ultimately it ends.
Speaker 2: You know, let me just as a side union security,
which is the forced payment of dues. What side do
you think that is mandatory or non mandatory?
Speaker 1: Matt, I think we know.
Speaker 2: Yeah. For you, you know the answer, it's a mandatory subject
of bargaining. And so basically, within this ninety day period
you have to get a total agreement that now governs
this business. So and if you don't get that, then
what happens is under Holly's bill is a member of
the federal bureaucracy, specifically the Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service
will fly out to your business, will sit down with
the union, and you, the owner of the business, and
you will have thirty days to get through any conflicts
or disagreements you have and if you don't, if you
don't agree at the end of that thirty days, then
the federal government will impose a contract, will impose working
conditions on a private sector business.
Speaker 1: Amazing that you.
Speaker 2: Talk about imposition. There's a real imposition when a government
says to the private sector employer, here's how you're going
to run your business. Here's how you're going to handle
your employees. That's a Josh Holly bill. That is really strange.
Speaker 1: That's what I'm saying. It's really strange. I don't know
how he got to this point, but let me go
to the campaign finance stylings, and I bet I have an.
Speaker 3: Answer for you.
Speaker 1: Do well, I don't have it right here in front
of me, and it is only a subposition on my part,
But I think it's a good hunch that when you
see bills like that coming from people that usually don't
push bills like that, there is money somewhere involved. Well,
we'll check that, of course, but obviously he's changed his
position on these sorts of things for whatever reason, or
is pushing this pro big labor position for whatever reason,
and he seems to be doing that counter to what
we're seeing from Trump two point oh. The Trump administration
in the first seven eight months of Trump two point
oh has been extremely aggressive on all fronts. It has
had an extremely ambitious agenda, trying to do a number
of things to secure America and to make America more prosperous.
And it certainly has been dealing with the labor issue
in this country some pretty big battles and pretty big initiatives.
What are you seeing out of this administration thus far?
Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I think probably the bright spot for me
is what he's doing with the federal bureaucracy and the
unions there. This is really I mean, look, I can
make the case that unions don't belong or the mandatory
bargaining structure does not belong in government, and frankly I
count Franklin Roosevelt as an ally in this particular position
that I have. I count George Meeni in the Executive
Council of the AFLCIO in nineteen fifty nine as allies
in the argument that you don't unionize government employees, you
allow for them to join unions. That's no problem because
These are private organizations and they can lobby. They can
do what you know citizens are supposed to do when
they redress the government for demands or whatever. In Virginia,
we have probably the most powerful union in Virginia is
the Firefighters Union.
Speaker 3: They're a voluntary organization. They've now been.
Speaker 2: Granted some privileges to quote, have union contracts and force
government and these local entities to negotiate with them. But
the idea is, Okay, you get to make your case,
but we have no obligation to recognize you for setting
terms and conditions of government policy. By definition, unions are monopoly.
You don't want to apply a monopoly to a monopoly.
That causes real trouble. And we've seen the results of that,
whether it be in Wisconsin, the first state to do it,
saying my gosh, if we don't reform this system, we're
going bankrupt. Scott Walker did it with Act ten, which
is under attack again, but has saved taxpayers in Wisconsin
something like thirty billion dollars over since that time when
they simply reformed the bargaining structure in Wisconsin. Trump is
doing at the federal level, and the pushback has been dramatic.
From organized labor officials. There are I don't know how
many laws.
Speaker 3: Are, Matt.
Speaker 2: I mean they literally count in the hundreds all the
lawsuits trying to stop President Trump from doing what he's doing.
And I know that the National Treasury Employees Union, the
American Federation of Government Employees asks me SCIU, they've all
got lawsuits against Trump for trying to reform the federal
government structure and basically saying, look, well, you guys can
readdress us, you can talk about this, you can organize,
you can protest, you can stand in Lafayette Park or
in front of the White House, and you can argue
about all you want, but we're going to run this
government the way we think it should be run absent
kind of this power, this power that union officials have
to control the bureaucracy to that degree. So that's been
a real bright light on the private sector stuff. He's
still got a National Lab Relations Board that he needs
to fill out. He's nominated two potential members of that board.
He's nominated a general council. Those are kind of stuck.
Josh Holly being one of perhaps the one of the
obstacles to getting his nominee confirmed who's already had a
hearing in the Senate Labor Committee the General Council, and
Holly expressed he's got significant reservations about the Trump nominee.
Speaker 3: I think when if we can get it through committee, if.
Speaker 2: Josh Holly, if he be a vote in the commute,
I think he'd vote for a Trump nominee. But those
are some of the problems that exist. But it's not
for lack of try. And Matt I think that the
policies that are articulating are exactly the policies that private
sector workers voted for when it came to securing the border,
reducing the size of government, lowering regulation, opening up our
energy policy, things that have at bringing manufacturing back to
the United States, which is, if you're a union official,
you'd say this is great news. We have more chances
to organize more workers.
Speaker 1: Isn't that really what the union should truly be about,
is the return of manufacturing. And yet at every not
all of them. And again, let me make this clear.
You know I came from, like you mark, a union family.
My dad worked for thirty six years John Deere Debuque
and was part of the UAW. I remember the strikes.
I also remember the abuses of course, but you want
to be in a union, you be in a union.
You see the value in being in a union. You
be in a union. But this compulsory stuff is not popular,
as you mentioned with Americans. You know what else isn't popular.
It's unions that are out front and center, marching alongside
with Marxist radicals in opposition to ICE agents who are
simply trying to enforce our immigration laws in America. It's
unions that are forcing their members they're Jewish members, to
pay for anti Semitic policies and speech. This again, we
talk about disconnect, But how much more of a disconnect
do you get on these issues that you know Americans
in the main absolutely agree on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, just to take one of those pieces, the Jewish
students on college campuses. One of the new open frontiers
for organized labor is graduate of students, graduate students in
private colleges and state run government institutions as well at
the higher education level. And we had a case on
behalf of an MIT graduate student who literally had to
support a union, had to financially give them fees and
be represented by them as a condition of continuing his
graduate studies and the fellowship that would get him to
the end of the journey to get that doctorate degree.
And the union that he was forced to associate with
and force to fund was the ones fomenting the anti semitism.
Speaker 3: After the October seventh.
Speaker 2: Attack on the college campuses, we just followed lawsuits on
behalf of a student from Dartmouth College and Cornell University.
Speaker 3: We've had thousands and thousands.
Speaker 2: Of graduate students call us and professors Jewish professors on
campuses across the country that are forced to support the
United Electrical Union or the UAW that are two unions
that intially enough represent graduate students and college professors. You know,
I'll let you figure that out, Matt. I've got a
better mind than I do about how that works. But
the bottom line is this, you know, that forced association
for an organization that's literally lobbing for the boycott, divest
and sanctioned or from the river to the sea mantras
that have been articulated on the college campuses. And he's
sitting back with this guy Will Sussman, who who was
our client at MIT, is seeing by saying, how in
the world can I be forced to associate with that organization.
How in the world can I be forced to pay
fees to that organization in order to continue my studies
in my graduate level work.
Speaker 3: It's just crazy.
Speaker 2: But that's where we are when you add in that
heavy dose of compulsion and forced association, and that there's
no better example of it, Matt than something like you articulated.
And then I give you an example of exactly what's happening,
whether it be on a college campus or in a
private sector workplace.
Speaker 1: I'm familiar with Will's story. It's it's very powerful, and
he is a very powerful, you know, and and articulate
young man who has you know, gotten to a point
that a lot of Americans have and a lot of
members forced to be in unions, forced to pay union dues.
They're sick of having to pay portions of their paycheck
going to ideas and politicians and political views and agendas
they simply do not agree with. So, with all of
that said, with the numbers continuing to decline in America
union membership, where does organized labor go from here? Where
does the right to work movement go from here? Particularly
in a time where you have some I think some
significant opportunities with the president currently in the White House.
But you also know that anything that comes from an
executive order is subject to change, so any of those
victories can be instantly removed with the stroke of a
pen in the next liberal administration. Where do you all
go from here?
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me start with where we are, And really
it's quite simple, Matt. We'll continue to do the work
that we've been doing since nineteen fifty five at the Committee,
in nineteen sixty eight at the Foundation, and that is
defending individual workers' rights, whether it be through litigation or
expanding and protecting the rights that exist for workers across
the country in legislatures across the country. Obviously, we've got
our National Right to Work Act pending in the United
States Congress right now. It's literally a one page bill, Matt,
doesn't add as single word to federal law, simply repeals
the provisions from that nineteen thirty five legislation that imposed
force unionism on the country and basically defaults to voluntarism in.
Speaker 3: The American workplace when it comes to union membership. And
where is that right now?
Speaker 1: Mark? Where?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's been introduced in the Senate. Ran Paul from
Kentucky is the primary sponsor there. We have twenty three
co sponsors of the bill. I believe it's in the
House pending in a committee there. We've got one hundred
and six or one hundred and seven sponsors of that
bill in the House Representatives. Senate Bill five thirty three,
House Bill twelve thirty two, if you want to look
that up literally, it's one page, take my word for it.
So that's kind of our legislative agenda. The litigation agendas
continue to file suits, and to your point, Matt, we've
got a little window of opportunity where if we get
a new National Labor.
Speaker 3: Relations Board, we've got a bunch.
Speaker 2: Of cases in the pipeline that will give the MLRB
a chance to one roll back some of the things
that Biden has done and his MLRB did over the
last four years, including eliminating the secret ballot election almost
while virtually eliminating it, saying that card check was going
to be the default position for union certification, and card
check means three union officials throw show up on your
porch at ten o'clock at night with a little piece
of paper and say sign this. We encourage you to
sign this and if you sign that to vote for unionization.
So we'll continue to try to try to roll back
some of those those things that happened during the Biden
years and then expand more individual workers' rights in the workplace.
Speaker 3: So we'll do that for the unions. What I would
recommend is go.
Speaker 2: Back to the shop floor, get off the legislative floor,
go back to the shop floor. Get out of the
business of supporting things that have nothing to do with
the workplace, like bds, like anti you know, the anti Semitic,
pro Palestinian riots that union officials have been using.
Speaker 3: Does money to support and fillment. Get out of that business.
Speaker 2: Get back into the business of supporting workers and what
it was it to the famous saying Kevin Costner, if
you build it, they will come. If you build a
structure that can provide service to workers and prove that.
Speaker 3: You can benefit them, they will come. But they won't
come because you force them. They'll become.
Speaker 2: They'll become because you're servicing them. And I would recommend,
with Samuel Gompers recommended in that final speech in nineteen
twenty four, the workers of America here to volunteer institutions.
That's a great recipe for successful organized labor because there
was a place for unions. There is a place for unions,
and there will be a place for unions in the future.
It's just a question of how they want to build
their business model or reform it.
Speaker 1: Well, you're an old baseball bum, as I, and you
know that that Kevin Costner line came from a movie
called Field of Dreams that was filmed in Dyersville, Iowa,
not too far from a place where I used to
live and work. And I can tell you this, that
movie is about bringing back some of the old timer
players like Shoeless Joe Jackson. Maybe the sequel they'll bring
back Pete Rose.
Speaker 2: What do you think, hey, Now, Pete Rose was he
was a player that guy gave. Well, he gave more
than one hundred and ten percent to baseball, but he
always gave one hundred and ten percent.
Speaker 1: Charlie Hussel, Maybe Rob Manfred will actually ease his pain,
as they said in that movie.
Speaker 3: Well, as you think about Labor.
Speaker 1: Day and you think about the union movement in the
Marria and some very important victories along the way, there's
no doubt about it. The forty hour week, they'll always
talk about that. They'll talk about the end the battles
against forced child labor and all of those sorts of things.
I don't doubt that significance at all. But I want
you also to think about the significance the importance of
basic principles of this republic, and that is worker freedom
without a doubt. And the people that Mark has been
working with for many, many years now are all about
that worker freedom. Thanks to my guest today, Mark Mix,
president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation
and the National Right to Work Committee, you've been listening
to another edition of The Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt
Kittle's senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back
soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom. I'm
anxious for the fire.
Speaker 2: I heard the fame voice the reason, and then it
faded away.