Union Muscle.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)

Labor: Unions can indeed collect dues from nonmembers at union shops that will be used to organize workers at nonunion companies. Where's the fairness?

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco ruled 11-0 last week that unions are free to assess nonmembers for organizing activity when the nonmembers, who had taken advantage of their right not to join, work for companies under contract with the union. The case was at the appellate court because a three-judge panel from the circuit ruled in May that nonmembers at union shops could withhold that part of their union dues that is used for organizing.

Charging nonmembers with dues used for collective bargaining seems fair; it's possible they benefit from the process. But to force them to support organizing efforts for a union they didn't want to join clearly isn't. Giving the unions everything they want anytime they want it violates a worker's right to benefit fully from his labor.

From the beginning, the case looked like a fix-it job for the unions. In the original lawsuit, the United Food and Commercial Workers claimed that if only a single supermarket in a city of three were unionized, that store's management could suppress wages to compete with the nonunion competition. But if the union organizes all three, it will have a stronger hand in ...