One of the most treasured rights in America is the right to a secret ballot – the opportunity to vote in privacy, free from harassment. It’s what separates democratic societies and is a right that filters down to even our local Rotary Clubs and Chambers of Commerce.
It is a right that should be guaranteed for public employees, as well. A provision of the Virginia Code currently ensures employees a secret ballot when deciding on labor union representation, although the current General Assembly has made repeated attempts to repeal that guarantee.
Now, the Virginia Department of Labor and Industry (DOLI) has approved regulations reinforcing that right, ensuring that private sector provisions defining the secret ballot also apply to public employees, requiring a written authorization for withholding union dues, and prohibiting union recruitment on the taxpayer’s dime. Bravo to Labor Secretary Bryan Slater.
But even with that guarantee, Virginia’s collective bargaining law – written to apply only to localities once the General Assembly learned how much collective bargaining would cost the state – still permits any number of potential abuses.
Surely both political parties can agree there should be basic protections and procedural safeguards for Virginia’s public servants.
The most obvious of these is eliminating “Hotel California” provisions under most collective bargaining agreements (CBAs) … because when it comes to union membership “you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.”
Like magazine subscriptions, gym memberships and streaming services, public employee unions make it easy for prospective members to sign up, but many make it incredibly difficult to cancel. Dues can involve a thousand dollars or more for each member, representing an important revenue stream that union leaders are loathe to give up.
Instead of treating members like valued partners, those who voluntarily sign up for union membership are often involuntarily trapped into paying dues with limited means of escaping.
While public employees may sign up to join online, by mail, or by completing a form in person, cancelling is a different story. For example, the boilerplate for collective bargaining agreements with the Service Employees International Union or the Teamsters typically reads something along the lines of:
An employee may withdraw such consent in accordance with the terms of the membership and dues deduction agreement (emphasis mine) between the employee and the Union. The Union will notify the City when it is appropriate to stop dues deduction in accordance with the terms of the membership and dues deduction agreement between the employee and the Union.
But read the terms of the typical “membership and dues agreement” and employees will discover that they can only revoke their membership by mail and only within a short window — typically “within 15 days before or after (1) the annual anniversary date of this agreement or (2) the termination of the applicable collective bargaining agreement between my employer and union …” or in the 30 days prior to the CBA’s anniversary date.
Some unions, notably the Teamsters, won’t permit a member to stop paying until 30 days before the expiration of even a three-year CBA – which means public employees can pay $1,000 a year or more for three years … for services they don’t want or need. And frequently, the union can choose a period of irrevocability making it impossible to revoke a membership in the first year.
In other words: If a public employee is dissatisfied with their representation or feels they’re treated unfairly by the people they’re paying — perhaps even if their union engages in gross financial mismanagement — they have to keep shelling out. Is there anyone among us who believes that’s a fair deal?
Other undemocratic provisions also serve to keep the same unions in charge with little opportunity for change. For example, in Alexandria City, it takes a petition of only 30 percent of employees to call an election to certify a union, but it requires a petition of more than half to decertify a union.
In nearby Fairfax County – as well as in nearly all other jurisdictions — a majority of voting public employees is required to form a union but a majority of all employees is required to remove one. In other words, the bar is higher to deunionize. If a bargaining unit with 100 employees had 30 votes for the union and 20 votes against, the union would represent all employees even though only half went to the “polls” … and only 30 percent voted to do so.
If that same vote tally occurred to remove a union, it would require 51 votes to remove.
With public employee collective bargaining now in place in many jurisdictions, too many elected officials have fallen under the sway of organized labor, a source of endorsements, campaign funds and paid volunteers. Republicans may side with police unions and Democrats with teachers unions, but those who get lost in the shuffle are the ordinary civil servants.
Correcting just these two abuses would go a long way towards restoring for public employees a straight deal in their relations with unions.
The “easy call” for candidates is to bemoan the treatment of public servants. The harder call is to actually support measures protecting their rights, instead of gaming the process on behalf of union organizers. In this year’s state election season its worth asking candidates if they’ll restore democracy to collective bargaining and protect public employees.
They deserve the same democratic rights we would demand for ourselves.
Chris Braunlich is Senior Advisor and former President of the Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy and a former member of the New York Civil Service Employees Association. He may be reached at [email protected].