The Trojan Horse
Amendment
Union bosses would get new
power to sell workers out if the minimum wage ballot measure
passes this fall
By Steven Miller
BusinessNevada
Unwitting Nevada voters
appear all set to send out an engraved invitation this November —
to the Mob.
“C’mon back,” the invitation would say. “Because
we fell asleep at the switch, we’ve passed a scheme that rolls out
the red carpet for you!”
The scheme in question is buried in the
“minimum-wage” constitutional amendment pushed by the state’s
union bosses. Passed with little discussion in 2004, the ballot
measure goes before voters again this fall. If approved, its
language becomes a permanent part of the Nevada Constitution.
Most people are aware that the measure would
raise the state minimum wage. Some people also know that
the measure requires the Nevada minimum wage to henceforth always
exceed any federal minimum wage — despite the harm that will do to
Nevada’s ability to compete with other states.
Few people, however, are aware of the major
stink-bomb buried in the amendment’s language. Never reported in
the Secretary of State’s official ballot description, the
provision would give unions — in practice, union bosses —
the legal power to exempt their business sweethearts from
paying the minimum wage!
Yes, that’s right: If you voted in 2004 to
raise marginal workers’ salaries, you also, unfortunately,
voted to give unscrupulous union bigwigs the power to let
businesses that manage to please them lower workers’ wages!
Subsection B of this amendment first deprives
workers of their individual rights to work for any wage they
choose: “The provisions of this section may not be waived by
agreement between an individual employee and an employer.”
Then the next sentence, cloaked in posturing but
empty words, gives unions the power to permit businesses to pay
their employees sub-minimum wages:
All or any part of the provisions of this section may be waived in a
bona fide collective bargaining agreement, but only if the waiver
is explicitly set forth in the agreement in clear and unambiguous
terms.
In short, the state minimum wage can be waived
in a company that makes it “worthwhile” for the union boss. Some
lawyer just has to write the deal up right.
Why are union bosses seeking the power to
lower workers’ wages? History would suggest two reasons.
First, it’s a situation rife with possibilities
for kick-backs. In the New York City garment district today (as
for the last 80 years), business owners — with Mob “encouragement”
— pay kick-backs to Mob-associated union bosses.
Second, there’s a big strategic reason.
If Nevada’s Constitution is changed to fit the unions’ agenda,
they’ll have a tainted new way to organize companies and get new
workers paying dues into union coffers.
Unions will now be able tell Silver State
business owners: “If you let us organize your workers, we’ll give
you a cost-advantage over your non-union competitors. While
they’ll have to pay Nevada’s new, higher minimum wage, we’ll write
you a ‘collective bargaining agreement’ that legally
exempts you from the minimum wage!”
Some business owner may answer, “It’s up to my
workers whether or not they want a union. If you guys can win a
secret-ballot election, welcome aboard.”
“No-no-no,” the union guys will answer. “Secret
ballot elections are very bad. They’re a right-wing Reagan-Bush
tool to hurt the working man. What we want is the card-check
process, where our three-man organizing committee can, er,
explain the benefits of union membership face to face with the
prospective member — in some dark stairwell, if necessary. You, as
the business owner, can permit us to do that and avoid those messy
secret ballots.”
The unions believe that some business kingpins,
given the prospect of grabbing a competitive economic advantage
over business rivals, will take the corrupt deal and hand company
workers over to the union’s tender mercies. That means fat slush
funds for union bosses to spend and no practical incentive to
actually represent union members vis-à-vis management.
Workers may bolt from such a corrupted company,
but New York garment district history reveals that the cancer,
once started, can easily spread. After one or two such predatory
labor pacts pop up in highly competitive Nevada industries, other
businesses in those industries may conclude that, economically,
they must “go union” or “go under.”
In New York, the federal government under the
pro-union Clinton administration estimated that 75 percent
of the union (UNITE) garment shops are sweatshops by that union’s
own definition.
Some union members make as little as a dollar an
hour. They're compelled to “buy” their paychecks so that, on
paper, it can appear they’re getting the minimum wage.
Which officially, of course, is much higher than
Nevada's.
<750 words>
Steven Miller is
editor of BusinessNevada and policy director for the Nevada Policy
Research Institute.
