By Adam Bitely – Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC) has introduced the Empower Employees Act, a bill that would stop labor unions from automatically deducting union dues from federal government employees’ paychecks. For far too long, Big Labor has relied on the government forcing its employees to automatically have their union dues taken directly out of their paychecks and put straight in the labor union’s bank account.
Big Labor will fight to the last person standing on this issue, and that is because of what this would do to the labor union organizations.
As Rep. Scott noted in his “Dear Colleague” letter, the legislation would lead to a decrease in dues paying members of public sector unions. Rep. Scott wrote, “Time and again, when the automatic deduction of union dues has been stopped, there have been dramatic decreases in the amount of dues collected.”
It is well known that public sector unions will be eviscerated if their members aren’t forced to pay. This is one of the many reasons that Big Labor has put up such vicious fights in states around the country as legislatures have tried to get their budgets under control, and against right-to-work legislation.
Rep. Scott went on to further note two prominent moments when unions were barred from automatically collecting dues. The first was when Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels ended the automatic collection of dues in 2005. Dues paying membership dropped off by roughly 90 percent in Indiana. This is just more evidence that once forced-to-unionize workers are free of having their paycheck shanghaied by Big Labor they chose to spend their money elsewhere rather than pay the union.
The second instance was when the New York City Transit Authority lost its ability to collect dues automatically. In this case, dues paying members dropped by a third.
History has shown time and again that people would rather keep their hard-earned money rather than pay Big Labor.
Standing for an end to Big Labor’s income source alongside Rep. Scott is Rep. Jeff Duncan, Rep. Paul Broun, Rep. John Culberson, Rep. Cynthia Lummis, Rep. Doug Lamborn, Rep. Pete Olson, Rep. Trent Franks, Rep. Stevan Pearce, Rep. Steve King, Rep. Patrick McHenry, Rep. Ron Paul, Rep. Randy Neugebauer, and Rep. Dennis Ross.
Big Labor and their supporters will undoubtedly oppose this legislation. But they should provide America an honest answer to the following question: Why shouldn’t federal employees have the right to determine how they spend their own money? If federal government employees want to continue paying the union, no one is barring them from doing so and neither will this new legislation. If they choose to spend it elsewhere, no one is stopping them.
Rep. Scott’s bill is the “pro-choice” legislation that will allow federal government employees to decide where they spend their money. They can continue paying for lousy representation provided by bloated public sector employee unions or they can put that money towards their family’s well being. It isn’t surprising that an overwhelming majority would choose to do the latter.
Adam Bitely is the Editor-in-Chief of NetRightDaily.com. You can follow him on Twitter at @AdamBitely.
