Right to work - or, my life as a 'scab'

When I was in high school and college, I didn't have the good sense to work part-time jobs during the school year or summer jobs that would actually look good on my resume or help me with my future career. I, in retrospect very stupidly, worked mainly construction jobs, primarily because my father worked for a steel company that supplied reinforcing steel to job sites, giving him good connections for me to get hired.
It led to some interesting jobs. One time I was on a cement crew, building curbs, gutters, and sidewalks for the company that was developing much of the industrial area known as Fulton Industrial Park in western Fulton County in Atlanta, Ga.
Another time I worked on the construction of  13-story building - not exactly a 'high rise' by Atlanta standards, but tall. They didn't quite know what to do with me on this job, because it was a union job and I was unskilled labor. I could, for example, pull nails but couldn't drive them (only carpentors' union members could drive nails); I could carry equipment for creating cinder block walls, but I could neither participate in the mixing of the concrete (despite my prior experience) nor the stacking or unstacking of concrete blocks, since that was for the masons' union.
Finally, they put me on what, at the time, was a job I enjoyed. On this site, they put together the forms for each floor on the ground (basically the support for the next floor of the building before they poured the concrete to create the actual floor), and then lifted that form in place by crane. They needed someone to ride the form into place in order to control and then release the straps once the crane had placed the next form (or floor) in place. That was my job, and it was really fun as the building got higher. The crane operator had a reputation for being crazy, and I think he liked to swing the floor while I was on it just to see me scramble to keep my balance. But when you're 18 years old, swinging seven or eight stories off the ground on a floating platform was fun.

However, because this was a union job, I was required to be in a union. My only option was the Common Labor Union, for 'unskilled' workers. I avoided the union man as long as I could, but one day he caught me with the question, "How do you stand with the union?" I paid the initial fee that started the process to being a full fledged member, but didn't want to start paying monthly dues because I was trying to save money for college.
I'd become what I thought was pretty good friends with this one carpenter - an apprentice actually. He'd been a Sears Appliance salesman who lost his job, so he joined the carpenters' union and was doing his apprenticeship on this job. I'd been working around wood all my life (my Dad's hobby was building, and he later started his own remodeling company), and I would often help this guy with the machinery and making proper cuts and even, on occasion, driving a nail when it was in a space he couldn't get to.
One day he was talking about the union, and I mentioned I hadn't joined the union. He looked at me in surprise, threw down his hammer, and walked over and said something to another guy, who threw down his hammer, and before I knew it, the entire work force of this construction site walked off the job.
"What happened?" I asked the foreman who had hired me.
"You're a scab,'' he said. "They won't work with you. They've shut down the jobsite."
"What do I do?" I asked.
He thought a minute, then said, "You're going back to school in - what? Three weeks? I'll pay you for two and you just go on home."
Once he told the union organizer I'd been let go, everyone went back to work.
I thought that was all pretty silly. But let me also say I worked another job - putting up billboards in rural Georgia (a company that led to my being involved in an exorcism, which I wrote about here) - that needed to be organized. The workers there were asked to do crazy things by management, sometimes even illegal, and weren't really paid as well as they should have been.
The concept of "right to work" is in the news a lot these days, because of unions trying to block Boeing's move to South Carolina or Gov. Mitch Daniels trying to make Indiana a 'right to work' state. Counting Indiana, there are 23 "Right to Work'' states in the union, basically in the South and Midwest. The northeast and far west are almost all "Non-Right to Work" states.
I've always worked in the South, which means in "Right to Work" states. That doesn't mean there were no unions, but that being in a union was not required to hold a job.
And when you get right down to it, "right to work" laws are all about whether workers in certain industries can be required to pay union dues or not. Simply put, "right to work" laws outlaw a union’s ability to require employees to pay union dues as a condition of employment. In states without "right to work" laws it is legal for a company and a union to agree that every employee in the bargaining unit pays union dues - whether he/she wants to be in the union or not - or gets fired.
This is important for unions, because the ability to collect union dues is how unions function, how unions are able to exist. Therefore, when workers don't pay dues, the union faces the very real possibility of ceasing to exist.
Now, I have worked in a job where a union did negotiate the contract for my group and I was treated accordingly, even thought I was not a member of the union and didn't pay union dues (this was a 'right to work' state). From the union's perspective, this was a legitimate problem: I paid nothing into the union but was entitled to both union representation in a dispute and the benefits (such as they were) of union-negotiated wages and care.
That's one of the negatives of "right to work" states: the union that has the monopoly bargaining power is required to represent non-members as well as dues-paying members. That makes the non-member a "free loader," who can expect the union representative work for him without, in essence, getting paid.
The flip side of this is - and this actually happened - I once tried to negotiate my own employment deal outside of the union agreement, figuring I was not a union-member and maybe I could cut myself a better deal. Unfortunately, the law doesn't allow for that because the union was granted the monopoly in negotiating my job position with management.
Much good has been accomplished by unions. But at the same time, despite what the unions would have you believe, there is a positive economic impact to "right to work'' laws for the workers. Those states do attract more business and incomes do, typically, rise. Unions are right that 'Right to Work'' laws entice companies to leave "Non-Right To Work" states.  But in Indiana, according to one study:

…if Indiana had adopted such a law in 1977, by 2008 per ca pita income would have been $2,925 higher—equating to $11,700 higher for a family of four.  Another way to put it: Indiana’s personal income in 2008 would have been $241.9 billion, 8.4 percent more than the actual $223.2 billion. Nearly $19 billion in annual income was lost because of Indiana’s lack of a right to work law.

It should also be pointed out that unions in "Non-Right-to-Work" states tend to back anti-free market politicians who tend to chase businesses away by creating more regulations and restrictions and increasing taxes on those companies. They make “union states” less attractive to business and, as a result, jobs - potential or real - are lost.

I know that unions have had and in some cases continue to have real value. But forcing people to pay union dues to have a job isn't what this country believes in, either.
I admired the loyalty of my friend who, upon learning I was a 'scab,' stood up for his commitment to his union and led a strike - however momentary it was. But I also feel everyone should have the right to associate or not-associate, whether work or politics or religion.
There was a good side to my union experience, however. I used those last two weeks of paid vacation to go to the beach where  ... well, that's another story for another day.