The bill, HB 418
by Rep. Stuart
Bishop, replicates laws in many other states by simply removes a unique advantage given to unions that no other
entity in Louisiana that is not a charity, financial institution with
government employees as members, or government agency has: the ability to have
siphoned money from employees’ paychecks directly to their own coffers, not
using their resources to do so but governments’. Unions also have the
unique advantage in that for school districts this
is the only kind of deduction permitted under state law, and the union dues
collected do not even have to go to organizations recognized as bargaining
units with the local authority in question. At present, the bill
appears to lack a majority in the House of Representative to move forward.
Argumentation
in favor of retaining the practice typically involves heaping servings of
red herrings and straw men. For state employees,
payroll deduction at taxpayer expense in addition to union dues includes mandated
federal or state income withholdings, credit unions, garnishments, liens, savings
bonds programs, qualified United Way entities, health and life insurance
products offered through the Office of Group Benefits, and products having
state participating contributions, sponsored by the Office of Group
Benefits, as part of a cafeteria plan.
All of these
destinations differ from unions dues in different conceptual ways. Tax
withholding is obvious as a legitimate use of government power. Benefit
plans voluntarily chosen as a part of state employment are part of
compensation. That law enforcement/judicial agencies should be able to
impose wage garnishment and liens as a result of court orders serves a
public purpose. Employees voluntarily join into ownership in credit unions
where their status working for government makes them eligible. Savings
bonds give ownership of a federal government-backed asset that funds public
purposes. The United Way operates as a charity in which donors have no
personal financial stake or ownership.
By contrast,
having money sent to a labor union directly from a paycheck transfers funds
due a private individual to a non-public organization that operates for
non-public, not charitable, purposes. The amount does not become or fund an
asset for the individual but instead becomes the property of the
organization. Further, the money can be used to fund a purpose of
pressuring government to transfer more taxpayer resources to non-charitable
purposes – in fact, to the specific and discrete financial interests of
those who represent the group and group members, in the hopes of enriching
these. Only in the case of union dues do payers not retain the amount docked
as their property, absent it being a forced payment as determined by legal
obligation, or to apportion it as a charitable donation.
One could
argue whether, for example, the United Way should be the one charity that
may take advantage of this, or whether credit unions should get this
preferential treatment among all financial institutions, but all do differ
conceptually from labor unions in what they are and their purposes. Thus,
an argument, for example, that to excise union dues also should mean United
Way donations must go or else there’s some kind of inconsistency or political
favoritism involved fails, as even if both could use the money, for
example, for lobbying government, because the one is a public charity lobbying
for charitable purposes while the other works for a private self-interest
that does not lobby, as is part of the definition of a public charity, for
a public purpose.
Nor does this mean
that public sector unions would not have the legal right to exist. If they
truly provide value to their members, then these individuals gladly and
willingly would take a minute to fill out a single-page form authorizing by
their financial institutions direct periodic withdrawals of dues from their
demand deposit accounts or dues in cash, as all other organizations that
charge dues not granted the favoritism currently afforded unions can do. The
only difference would be taxpayer resources would not be used in securing
these.
Why should
taxpayer resources, small as they are, be devoted to transfer private
dollars to aid a non-charitable organization with its own non-public
interests that may use that money to directly benefit itself? There’s no
intellectual argument that can justify this exception, and for that reason legislators
oddly enthralled with allowing this special privileging for unions to
continue need to come to a better understanding of what serves the public
good and pass the bill.
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