Are City Unions Democratic?

Are City Unions Democratic?
Unions-Democratic-FEATURED.jpg

Are City Unions Democratic?

As four cities around the state consider local initiatives to allow city employees to opt out of paying forced union dues, unions are getting creative in coming up with arguments against increasing employee choice.

A common argument from labor activists seeking to justify their compulsory dues scheme is that employees democratically voted to have a union in the workplace. One union employee at a recent Shelton City Commission meeting put it this way:

“It is an individual’s choice whether they want to work a union job. But at one point it’s that individual’s choice in our democracy where we voted on that and we said ‘Yes, we want to do that.’ So you have the ‘ayes’ and you have the ‘nays,’ and if there are not enough ‘nays’ to overcome the ‘ayes,’ then that’s just the way it goes. That’s the way our democracy was put together.”

Even setting aside the problems of the obvious tyranny of the majority that occurs under even the best of circumstances in union “democracy,” the claim that workers voted for the union is at best misleading.

Under state law, there are two ways for a union to get a monopoly franchise providing workplace representation to a bargaining unit of public employees. One method, known as “card check” or “cross-check,” allows union organizers to individually confront workers and coerce or deceive them into signing authorization cards. Once the union collects cards from more than half the workers in the bargaining unit, it turns them into the Public Employment Relations Commission (PERC) and is certified to indefinitely represent all employees. No election ever takes place. 

The other method is for PERC to hold a secret ballot election in which a majority vote determines whether the bargaining unit will be represented by a union.

Once a union is certified to represent a bargaining unit, though either card check or a PERC election, it never again has to seek the approval of the workers it represents. Dan Disalvo, senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, recently noted that “Roughly 93 percent of union members belong to unions that were organized before they were hired” and have never had the opportunity to vote in a union representation election.

PERC records indicate that, in many cases, unions representing city employees in the four cities considering collective bargaining reforms—Shelton, Sequim, Blaine and Chelan—have conducted secret ballot elections only very rarely.

Shelton:

  1. Public Works Department employees:
    1. 1977: IAM Local 3-38 certified by cross-check. 
    2. 2012: Shelton Employees Guild replaces IAM in a PERC election.
  2. Clerical employees:
    1. 2000: IAM Local W536 certified by cross-check.
  3. Accountants:
    1. 1998: IAM Local W38 certified by cross-check.
  4. Police Department:
    1. 1977: Teamsters Local 461 certified by cross-check.
    2. 1988: Shelton Police Guild replaces Teamsters in a PERC election.
  5. Communications officers:
    1. 1997: IAM Local W38 certified by cross-check.

Sequim:

  1. The only document on PERC’s website about the representation of Sequim city employees notes that Teamsters Local 589 represents the “city wide non-uniformed bargaining unit that has been in existence since about 1980.”

Blaine:

  1. Supervisory law enforcement personnel:
    1. 1999: IAM Lodge 160 certified by cross-check.
  2. Fire Department:
    1. 1998: IAFF Local 3867 certified by cross-check.
  3. Supervisory, professional and technical employees:
    1. 1999: IAM Lodge 160 certified by cross-check.
  4. Public Works Electrical Services Department:
    1. 2012: Blaine City Light certified by cross-check.
  5. Office-clerical, finance, and Public Works employees:
    1. 1981: Teamsters Local 231 recognized by city without election.
  6. Non-supervisory law enforcement officers:
    1. Represented by Teamsters Local 231 since at least 1976.
  7. Non-supervisory, non-uniformed employees:
    1.  Represented by Teamsters Local 231 since at least 1981.
  8. Electric linemen:
    1. 1996: IBEW Local 77 recognized by city without election.

Chelan: 

  1. Commissioned police officers:
    1. 2001: Chelan Police Officer’s Association certified in a PERC election.
  2. Police dispatchers:
    1. 2001: Chelan Police Officer’s Association certified in a PERC election.
  3. Non-uniformed city employees:
    1. Represented by WSCCCE Local 846 since at least 1994.

If the experience of unionized public employees of these four cities is representative of the state as a whole, certification elections are indeed a rare phenomenon. Even when a union wins a secret ballot certification election, it need never again seek the consent of the workers it represents.

Despite Washington unions’ rhetoric about workplace democracy, Disalvo appears correct in his assessment that unions are often just “oligarchies with a democratic veneer.”

Director of Research and Government Affairs
mnelsen@freedomfoundation.com
As the Freedom Foundation’s Director of Research and Government Affairs, Maxford Nelsen leads the team working to advance the Freedom Foundation’s mission through strategic research, public policy advocacy, and labor relations. Max regularly testifies on labor issues before legislative bodies and his research has formed the basis of several briefs submitted to the U.S. Supreme Court. Max’s work has been published in local newspapers around the country and in national outlets like the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, The Hill, National Review, and the American Spectator. His work on labor policy issues has been featured in media outlets like the New York Times, Fox News, and PBS News Hour. He is a frequent guest on local radio stations like 770 KTTH and 570 KVI. From 2019-21, Max was a presidential appointee to the Federal Service Impasses Panel within the Federal Labor Relations Authority, which resolves contract negotiation disputes between federal agencies and labor unions. Prior to joining the Freedom Foundation in 2013, Max worked for WashingtonVotes.org and the Washington Policy Center and interned with the Heritage Foundation. Max holds a labor relations certificate from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and graduated magna cum laude from Whitworth University with a bachelor’s degree in political science. A Washington native, he lives in Olympia with his wife and sons.