Unions Forget Half of the 1st Amendment

Nathan Paul Mehrens

Unions like to throw around the 1st Amendment as justification for both their existence and political activities. Using the Amendment’s “association” protections unions argue that anyone should be free to decide to join a union. Using the Amendment’s “free speech” protections unions similarly argue that unions like any other organization have the right to speak on issues of concern to their membership, including political speech in the form of financial support for political candidates, campaigns, and ideologies.

The 1st Amendment rights of freedom of association and freedom of speech are fundamental rights not capable of governmental restriction absent a compelling state interest that uses the least restrictive means possible. In short, restricting one of these rights is difficult absent extraordinary circumstances, such as yelling “I have a bomb” while flying.

While championing association rights under the Amendment, unions conveniently overlook that most persons who are union members are not members by choice but rather by force of law - required to pay either member dues or a fees as a condition of employment. Like the other 1st Amendment rights, the right of association also comes with a flip side, the right to not associate with or be a member of an organization. Somehow the right to refuse membership or association with a union is ignored as if there is no possible way anyone in their right mind would make that choice.

In the last two decades union membership has steadily declined from 20.1% of the workforce in 1983 to 13.3% in 2002. Several factors including the changing nature of jobs in the U.S. have contributed to this change, but the activities of labor unions themselves have likely been very instrumental in the decline as well. Unions realizing that they will shrink out of existence unless this trend is reversed are attempting to make it easier to force a union on employees. Their chosen vehicle is the “Employee Free Choice Act,” S.1925 and H.R. 3619. The bill’s stated objective is allowing employees to “freely” choose whether to join a union. This “freedom” is to be accomplished by taking away the democratic right of employees to vote in a secret ballot election administered by the National Labor Relations Board. In place of elections a union is to be legally forced on employees if enough of them sign petitions in what is known as a “card check” process. Experience has shown that these petition processes are ripe for fraud and coercion making their integrity significantly less trustworthy than a formal election process administered by a federal agency.

Unions point to constitutional “free speech” protections as justification for their political expenditures. The problem with unions pretending that they have a right to spend money on politics is the fact that they are not in most cases spending voluntary contributions, but rather are taking coerced dues to pay these expenses. It’s akin to a local government taxing you so that they can lobby the state for more power to keep you under their thumb. If all political expenditures by unions came from voluntary sources then their activities would be not only legitimate but constitutionally protected. Just like persons have a 1st Amendment right to be free from coerced association or membership in an organization they also have a right to be free from coerced speech. The practice of unions taking money from members in order to fund political ideologies and candidates is just that – coerced speech. The AFL-CIO this week announced that it would increase dues in order to raise $44 million to elect John Kerry. This would be acceptable if the money was contributed voluntarily. However, every dollar of this $44 million is one less dollar that individual members could have used themselves to support the candidate, campaign, or political ideology in which they truly believe.

Unfortunately unions these days are more concerned with winning elections than taking care of or respecting the rights of their members. Members realize this making it more difficult for unions to maintain their membership. Perhaps if unions stopped playing politics and started paying attention to their members the downward drift in union membership would reverse. However, this would require fundamental changes in the ideologies of many in the unions’ leadership; changes which are unlikely to happen anytime soon.


Nathan Paul Mehrens, Esq. is General Counsel for Stop Union Political Abuse, a grassroots organization dedicated to rolling back the power of labor unions to force workers to finance unions’ political agendas as a condition of employment.