If overwhelming public opposition were sufficient to halt the drive to repeal Michigan’s decade-old Right to Work law that Big Labor political operatives launched a few months ago, this lobbying blitz would already be at a standstill by now.
On February 13, Michigan journalist Bruce Walker filed a story for the Center Square news service publicly announcing the results of a scientific online poll conducted by SurveyUSA, a national pollster with an “A” rating from the FiveThirtyEight web site.
The SurveyUSA poll found that 74% of Michigan’s registered voters support retention of their Right to Work law, which prohibits terminating employees merely because they refuse to fork over dues or fees to a union they personally have chosen not to join, but which wields monopoly-bargaining power over compensation and discipline matters in their workplace. Just 14% of registered voters support the return of forced union financial support as a job condition.
The poll also showed that opposition to union bosses’ bid to destroy Right to Work is very strong among Michigan voters regardless of their political party affiliation, gender, age, race, employment status, education level, or where they live in the state.
While SurveyUSA did not attempt to ascertain why Michigan voters oppose Right to Work repeal by a five-to-one margin, the key sources of opposition are well known.
For decades, the vast majority of Americans have agreed that compulsory unionism is morally wrong, plain and simple. Moreover, there is ample evidence that Right to Work laws are economically beneficial. In Michigan, for example, manufacturing payroll jobs rose by 6.4% from 2013 to 2021, the first eight years the state Right to Work law was in effect. Meanwhile, the total number of factory jobs decreased by 1.1% in the 23 remaining forced-dues states.
Unfortunately, Big Labor doesn’t see the individual worker’s ability to hold union officials accountable for malfeasance by withholding his or her financial support as a benefit. For the likes of Sean O’Brien, who took over the presidency of the notorious International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT) last year, that’s actually a big problem.
Before taking the helm at the IBT, O’Brien headed IBT Local 25 in Boston for many years. He was in charge when fellow union officer Mark Harrington and four union militants threatened and intimidated the cast and crew of the union-free Top Chef reality show in Milton, Mass., located near Boston.
The entire cast and crew as well as restaurant patrons allegedly faced a gauntlet of Teamster verbal and physical attacks. Union goons threatened to assault and even kill crew members as a means of “persuading” the show’s producers to change their minds and sign a union contract. One union goon allegedly snarled at host Padma Lakshmi, “I’ll smash your pretty little face in.”
Subsequently, Harrington and his four accomplices were indicted for extortion and other crimes, and O’Brien apparently got nervous about being indicted himself. In advance of the Top Chef trial, he let investigators know that, if asked to testify, he would invoke his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination rather than comply.
Harrington pleaded guilty to attempted extortion in 2016. But the four indicted Teamster toughs who went to trial in 2017 were all acquitted. And today, O’Brien proudly takes the credit for getting off the hook union goons who allegedly trampled an elderly security guard and yelled racial and other slurs at the Top Chef production crew.
By O’Brien’s account, Teamster lawyers that he and other Local 25 bosses bankrolled with forced-dues money did a bang-up job of persuading the judge presiding over the case to interpret the U.S. Supreme Court’s controversial 5-4 Enmons decision far more expansively than most other jurists. Enmons routinely shields union officials and their agents from federal prosecution for extortionate violence.
The judge’s instructions left jury members with little choice but to acquit, even if they believed the defendants had done exactly what they were accused of doing.
O’Brien must know there are vast numbers of honest IBT-“represented” workers who would never voluntarily fork over money to a union headed by a man like him. No wonder he recently penned an op-ed for Bridge Michigan hurling vitriol at the Wolverine State’s Right to Work law and the nearly three-quarters of Michigan voters who support retaining it. O’Brien’s eagerness to kill Right to Work actually highlights why it must stay on the books.
Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Committee.
