By Hannah Davis
House Bill 2022 was signed into law on the first of this month by Gov. Sam Brownback. The bill, proposed by the Kansas Chamber of Commerce, prevents public employee unions from taking voluntary donations automatically from union members’ paychecks.
This bill has led to much controversy in the last few weeks over labor unions. Organizations such as the Kansas Organization of State Employees (KOSE) and the Kansas National Education Association (KNEA) strongly oppose HB 2022.
“They’re trying to take public employee unions out of the picture,” Executive Director of KOSE, Michael Marvin, said. “They don’t want us to be a voice for our employees because they have their agenda they want. […] We don’t only speak for what we believe is good for our people, but these people speak out. Certain people want to silence that voice and they don’t want that voice to be heard.”
Jerry Magliano, professor of Computing Sciences and Information Technology, said this is simply how the adversarial political system works.
“Whichever political party is in power is going to try to minimize and marginalize the power of the opposition party,” Magliano said. “In this case, in the state of Kansas, the Republican Party is very strong, and they were in a position to pass laws that could, in a certain way, without impinging on people’s constitutional rights, marginalize, to some extent, the power of labor unions.”
Professor of History, Patrick Dobson, and a member of a local ironworkers union, opposes the bill and dismissed the supporters’ reasoning.
“That’s nonsense,” Dobson said. “It’s not like a lot of money is going into advertising campaigns for candidates that Republicans don’t like. Right? Or the conservatives beyond being Democrat or Republican don’t like. It’s a drop in the bucket. Basically, that’s not, it’s not for what they say it is. It’s ultimately about weakening the power of unions overall, because if they can do that to teachers unions, state employees, municipal employee unions, they can then, ultimately, find a way into doing it for other kinds of unions that actually do unions a lot of good.”
Dobson said the good unions do for members range from safe working conditions to wages.
Marvin, who serves as a liaison to the legislature for state employees said the Kansas Chamber of Commerce and conservative legislators that supported the bill misrepresented the issue.
“They believe that, the argument that they put out there the whole time, is that the state shouldn’t be in the business of doing political actions for the union, like its tax dollars, not employee dollars,” he said.
Marvin also said some union members were upset about the bill because it “is telling them how they handle their money.”
A common argument is that workers are often pressured or coerced into joining and paying dues to unions.
“Out of a hundred workers they may find that one person who is resentful,” Dobson said. “Maybe didn’t get their grievance, maybe didn’t come out exactly their way, or whatever. There’s always going to be people like that. And much of that is anecdotal, and it’s very bad policy to establish law on anecdotes. If it was thousands, it might be something else. It might be a trend. It might be indicating inefficiency on the part of unions, or abuses.”
As an American historian, Dobson dated the modern labor movement during the mid-19th century after the Civil War.
“Unions have been involved in trying to get laws favorable to say, worker longevity,” Dobson said. “Not just at a particular job or a particular craft or industry, but also in a very real sense, you know, worker longevity because ultimately employers will mostly only respond to pressures for workplace safety if they can get sued. But we take it one step further, that it’s not just being sued, it’s just the right thing to do – to make sure people don’t get hurt on the job, get fired and that’s it for them and the rest of their lives.”
Kansas is a “right to work” state, which means workers do not have to join a particular union.
“The unions have been faced with diminishing membership in recent years, both private sector and public sector unions, and I’m sure they’re all looking at what happened in Wisconsin,” Magliano said. “When Wisconsin passed similar laws regarding the collection of union dues, guess what? Their membership declined pretty dramatically. […] That’s why the unions are very concerned about anything that might discourage current or future members to participate.”
Marvin believes unions are important for the welfare of workers.
“We’re out there to support the employees to the best of our abilities and give them a voice,” Marvin said. “There is a huge, huge reason for unions, despite what other people will say on the other side. Employees need someone to stand up for them.”
The bill will be enacted on July 1, 2013.
To read House Bill 2022, visit www. kslegislature.org
Contact Hannah Davis, news editor, at hdavis18@jccc.edu