Joining me now to talk about something that could be a pretty big deal. Is Mark Mix with the National Right to Work Committee. Mark, Welcome to the show.
Mandy, good to be on with you. Thanks for the opportunity to chat a little bit.
Well, I want you to start by telling people what the National Right to Work Foundation actually does. What are you guys doing, what are you advocating for? Explain to the audience what a right to work looks like?
Well, thank you, yes, and it's very very simple, Mandy.
We believe that every worker should have the right to join a union, should be able to associate with the union if they want to do so, but they shouldn't be compelled as a condition of employment to join or pay dues to a labor union to get or keep
a job. Since nineteen fifty five, the National Right to Work Committee's been working on not only protecting the twenty six right to work laws that exist in the United States today, but also passing additional state right to work laws and trying to reform and amend the federal labor policy that imposes forced unionism on the American world. Our
Legal Defense Foundation represents employees all across the country. In fact, we've represented King Super's employees out in Denver and across Colorado over the last couple of years during these labor disputes. So we are all in for the American worker and their ability to choose whether or not to financially support or join a labor union.
So I'm going to play Devil's advocate here for a moment, Mark and just throw this out. So what about the reception that right to work is inherently anti union.
Well, that's just not the case.
Basically, in right to work states, where there are laws protecting workers being from being forced to join or pay dues, union densities actually higher than states that don't have right to work laws. Union officials will tell you this because you know, they want the money. They want the compulsion, they want the force. It's a pretty good business model if you can get it that someone has.
To pay you in order to work.
I mean, we believe that we're basically pro worker, we're anti compulsory force unionism. And really, if you look at the laws on the books in those twenty six stage you'll find that's exactly what they established in states that
have right to work. I know right now in Denver you're having a debate over the so called Labor Peace Act, which is giving union officials that if you appeal that, they're going to give union officials more power to immediately force workers to pay union dues to keep their jobs and not give them a chance to vote on that.
So it's relevant not only in Colorado, but certainly relevant now in the United States of Congress with the bill we had introduced last week by Senator Rand Paul to have basically a national right.
To work law. So what does that look like?
And have you had the opportunity to maybe choose the best of the best because there are so many states that already have right to work laws? How was this law crafted? Were you guys involved in this in any way? What does that look like?
Yeah? Absolutely?
The bill that Rand Paul introduced, literally, Mandy, is a one page bill.
It's a one page bill in the era of five.
Thousand pages pieces of legislation that some congressional members say we have to pass to find out.
What's in it. That's not the case here. It's literally a one page bill.
It does not add a single word to federal labor policy.
It simply goes into the federal.
Labor policy that was imposed on all of the states in the country back in the nineteen thirties.
That basically said, the federal government believes that.
Workers should be forced to pay dues or fees in order to work.
We would change the bias.
In federal law from compulsion and force to voluntary unionism.
That's all this bill does.
It doesn't stop anyone from joining a union participating in a union, doesn't change any other federal law that protects workers' rights to join and participate with the unions.
It simply says the.
Bias will now be in favor of voluntary unionism, meaning the worker gets to choose whether.
Or not they want to pay dues or fees to get or keep a job.
I've always find it odd that the union folks that I've had on the show, and I have had over my twenty years of having a show, I've spoken with union reps from a variety of industries, and when I ask them why they have to force people to pay dues if they're doing such a good job, they inevitably default back to it's a matter of fairness. Why should they benefit from a contract we negotiated and not pay
into the system. And my thinking is how is this not a fundamental violation of my right to free association anyway? And are we in a position now? There's a two part question here, Mark, Are we in a position now where unions that were instrumental in getting workers' safety protections passed and labor laws that tell us how long we can work and things of that nature that we all sort of enjoy, now have they outlived their usefulness in that measure a little bit?
Yeah? I don't think so.
I think the idea of workers joining together voluntarily to amplify their voices is a good thing, and that's something is protected by federal law, as you and I talk right now.
But the idea of compulsion enforces the other question.
You know, union officials, to your point, you use the word, they will default back to this, you know, so called fairness argument.
But there are many cases we've.
Actually represented workers who have gotten promotions and because they're under reunion exclusive bargaining contract, the union is actually grieved to get that.
Promotion taken away from work.
And one of the conditions of usually in a usion contract is, look, the only way you get more.
Pay is by sticking around for a year longer.
The idea of merit pay is something that is an anathema to a lot of workers who are working very, very hard, very you know, very productively, and they're doing it because they want to, because they enjoy their work, or they know that hopefully if they work harder or faster, they can make more money.
When a union official says, look, we want to violate the incentives for the most professional and most.
Productive employees, and we want to protect the employees that don't do the most or are below average, if you will, and we want them all in the middle. And we think that's probably not good. And to your question about freedom of association, you nailed it. The idea of the ability to associate with someone presupposes, logically, the ability not to associate. And in fact, we want a Supreme Court case back in twenty eighteen, a case called Janice v.
Asmy that we one right to.
Work protections for every government employee in America. The Supreme Court majority actually articulated that particular statement, saying unions get incredibly compensated by the ability to force everyone into the
union collective. And then they come back and say, well, and we asked them, do you want to give up that exclusive bargaining privilege over every worker, and they, when you ask that question, there is absolutely crickets because they know the only way they can maintain discipline and power in the workplace and over the most productive and the least productive workers in the workplace is to have this
monopoly power and then to add insult to injury. Once they're given this power, to force everyone into the collective to take away their associational rights. They say, oh, by the way, now you owe money for this quote unquote benefit.
I mean, when you put it like that, it doesn't sound that good. Mark just to say yeah, no, I mean the notion that somehow if I've never worked in a union shop, and that's by design. I was offered one job that was a union shop, and I just said, no, thank you. I'm a meritocratist sort of person, so I want to be able to rise as fast as I can rise. And one of the things I've always thought about unions is that their job is to protect the worst among us. Right, Their job is not to protect
the best worker. It's their job is to protect the worst worker. And that seems like a terrible place to be and a sort of a depressing reality, and we see it play out over and over again when we see horrible teachers that can't be fired or bad cops that have another shot at the apple because of the union contract. I mean, there's a lot of downsides to this. So where are we in the chances of this bill getting passed in this particular Congress.
Well, it's a long road to hope or long road to ho I guess to say that correctly. But look, the important thing is we get the bill introduced, we lobby members of Congress. We actually have Americans lobby members of Congress to co sponsor and support the bill. When we get to a certain point, the pressure will be on the leadership to have a vote.
And what we would like to have many vote on this bill.
I mean, it is so simple that a politician ought to be able to stand up for coercion enforce or voluntary unionism, freedom and liberty on one side, coersion enforces on the other. And let's let the American people decide who they want to support. Once they do that, we know this. Donald Trump, he basically got support from a majority, a large majority of private sector union members across the country,
despite the fact that union officials in the country. The leaders of the biggest unions were spending literally tens of millions of dollars to support Kamala Harris, and yet their rank and file members who they claim to represent, have a completely different view about politics.
So we believe just by.
Introducing the bill, getting the bill in the public domain, and getting awareness build up about it, and having a recorded vote where politicians have to say yes, I'm for freedom or yes I'm for coercion enforce, then we'll let the American people sort it out. Because in this grand experiment of self government, Mandy.
That's the whole idea. We ought to be informed about what Congress is doing.
And I can see no better way than having a one page bill that doesn't have a single word to federal law. Simply takes away the ability for union officials to use their coercive and force unions and power over the workers of America. And then let the American people decide who's right and wrong about this issue of compulsion and force versus freedom.
Can I take you on a sidewinder here, I'd love to hear your thoughts on Trump's nominee for Labor Secretary. She has supported the pro Act in the past, which is definitely pro coercion. Did that surprise you did that cut you off guard?
Yeah? It did it. Did you know?
We were talking with the Trump transition team that was working on.
These issues right after the election.
We had a couple of meetings with them talking about it, and it was kind of regular order, Mandy. They were taking names and asking people to submit information about positions they may want to have.
In the Labor Department, including the Secretary of Labor.
We recommended a couple of names to them and then all of a sudden and basically what we're hearing now, I heard it secondhand, but I think it's pretty clear this is what happened.
That Sean O'Brien, the teamsters of the.
President of the team'sirs union, called up Donald Trump on the cell phone and said, I want this gal to be the Secretary of Labor, and Donald Trump complied.
So it was a surprise.
And it's even bigger surprise because one of the things she was one of three Republican co sponsors to support a bill, the co sponsor a bill in the last Congress that would have wiped out every single right to work along the country. It's really a federal privilege granted the states to pass right to work laws, and if they take away that privilege written into a nineteen forty seven law, then all of the rights to work laws vanished. She also supported a bill that basically would unionize every
government employee in America by federal decree. Every local government, state government, and county government official or a worker would be subject to a federal audit of whether or not they're providing quote bargaining rights for these employees, and if they don't meet those standards, then the federal government would impose it on the stage. That's not federalism, that's expanding
the power of the federal government. And we're thinking what we heard from Donald Trump on the campaign trail was we need to reduce the size of government. And frankly, as actions with Doze and Elon Musk are actually playing out and making sure he's making those promises come true.
But in this case, he supported a Secretary of Labor that will be in charge of a seventy billion dollar agency with fourteen billion dollars of discretionary income, who says she believes workers should be fired if they don't pay union dues or fees to a union official. We disagree. We've lobbied the president, We've written to the President opposing it. Her hearing was yesterday in the United States Senate. Her vote will be next week, well, Thursday of next week
will be her vote out of committee. I think there's a chance she may there. If the Democrats don't vote for and Ran Paul, who's the sponsor of our bill, says he's a no, then she can't get out of committee. So we'll see what happens. There's still a lot of fight left here on this nomination for Secretary of Labor.
Mark Vitz is my guest. He's the president of the National Right to Work Foundation. Mark obviously will be following the progress of this bill quite closely, and you and I can touch base when there's updates in the near future.
I hope, Mandy I would appreciate that. Thanks for your interest in the bill. It's good to talk with you, and good to talk to the folks out in Colorado. Obviously a lot going on out there too.
Absolutely, Mark, I appreciate your time.
Man.
Thank you.