Color me surprised – I thought business would be in favor of Right To Work:
Hoffman said Monday night that the reason is twofold: he believes the right-to-work law will ultimately cost his company money, and he sees Minnesota’s proposal to increase transportation funding as offering greater business opportunities.
Right to Work boils down banning laws that force workers to join the union in force at a workplace. The general idea behind making people join a union is that if they don’t join the union, they will benefit from any gains negotiated (or gained through other means) by the union without paying for them. Such laws make the unions a little richer, and a little stronger. In general, American businesses often do not like unions, as they can disrupt the workplace and demand higher wages.
But as this article makes clear, unions can also help make the workplace a better place, from strengthening workplace safety to training to anything else they can find. This sort of development makes sense, so I think what really surprises me is seeing someone going beyond the traditional business view of a union to embrace them as a positive. Perhaps the union at Hoffman (International Union of Operating Engineers) is less disruptive and more interested in making the process at Hoffman run well.
