New Mexico asks union workers to waive First Amendment rights

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

3. If only companies offered better wages and benefits

to those who don't join the union. But they never do. Sometimes when a company is facing a serious threat of a union actually being voted in by the workers, they will make promises that they don't keep, and they'll tell lies about how awful the union will be. I know. I've been there.

I started my working life in Arizona in the mid 1960s, which at the time was one of two "Right to Work" states. I don't know what the other state was. One thing that I was aware of was that we were paid less than our counterparts in other states, precisely because of that. And I worked for Ma Bell, which was a pretty good company to work for back then. I was a member of CWA, Communication Workers of America, although many of my coworkers didn't join. We had a strike, and to this day I remember exactly who crossed the picket line and who honored it.

Then I moved to the east coast and got an airline job. We benefited a lot from the presence of other unions in the industry, but over time those benefits went away. For instance, we got time and a half working Sunday, even if it was our regularly scheduled shift. If we worked a holiday, we got straight pay for the day, and time and a half for the hours worked. If we were called in on a day off, we automatically got a minimum four hours pay, even if we only worked an hour or so. That happened to me once or twice. Contrast that with companies making people work off the clock, and you see the benefit of a union.