Mich. Unions to Ex-Members: How Dare You Leave, Freeloaders

Michigan lawmakers are considering bills that
would make it illegal for union officials to release the names of
members who left under the state’s Right to Work law. Republican
Rep. Kevin Daley’s bill has not yet been released, but according to

The Lansing State Journal, it would allow both public and
private employers to decide whether the unions representing their
employees have the right to publish names of defectors.

Why is such legislation necessary? Well, ever since Right to
Work gave employees the right to opt-out, some unions have been
publishing their names on public “freeloaders” lists. The Mackinac
Center for Public Policy first reported that story last year;
since
then, the union that made the list has continued to lose
members. Bullying ex-members who don’t think the union was
committed to their needs isn’t the best way to win them back, it
seems.

Nancy Strachan, vice president of the Michigan Education
Association—the state’s main teachers union—told
WILX that her organization doesn’t label ex-members as
freeloaders. But as the Mackinac Center points out, her boss MEA
President Steven Cook,
used the term repeatedly in a warning to members.

According to Mackinac spokesperson Ted O’Neil:

Now that employees are not forced to financially support a
union as a condition of employment, unions will have to realize
that they need to convince members of their value, rather than
attacking and bullying those who simply choose to exercise their
rights under Michigan law.

As for Daley’s bill to ban union bullying, it’s tricky to
separate the privacy concerns from the free speech issues at
play—especially since the actual text of the bill isn’t public yet.
Private unions should be allowed to say whatever nasty things they
want about ex-members, and private companies should be within their
rights to retaliate. But public unions are a different matter, and
it seems to me the legislature has the right to shut them up if it
wants.