The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is working hard to unionize some 6,000 faculty members at the University of Washington. For the union, the motivation behind its efforts isn’t to benefit those workers.
Rather, it’s all about benefiting the big union itself.
SEIU recently admitted, “The existing strength of SEIU in Washington State, with more than 100,000 members, means that we would immediately attain a major voice in state politics and higher education legislation.”
More members means SEIU receives more money via union dues and more influence in politics. The Washington Policy Center points out that the union stands to gains more than $6 million in new annual dues with the addition of 6,000 new union members.
But, SEIU’s path toward an additional $6 million per year is not without obstacles. About 240 UW professors have signed a petition declaring their opposition to being “compelled to pay fees to and be represented by the SEIU.” The Washington Policy Center,
“Noting unionization would amount to ‘$6,000,000 per year in wealth transfer to the SEIU,’ the group of UW professors opposed to the effort says the ‘possible benefits’ of unionization simply do not ‘outweigh the likely drawbacks.’ Among the drawbacks they cite (besides being forced to pay union dues) are the likely adversarial relationship unionization would create between the administration and faculty; the salary caps that union contracts would place on every member; the layer of bureaucracy that would be added; and, the threat of strikes that would disrupt and harm the educational process.”
Professors have also taken issue with SEIU’s singular political affiliation with Democrats. They rightfully state, “Representation by the SEIU would artificially align all 6,000 members of the bargaining unit with just one of the two major political parties, regardless of our individual political preferences. The SEIU is closely associated with just one of the two dominant political parties in our nation. It seems inappropriate to force all 6,000 members of our bargaining group to associate with an organization with a one-sided political affiliation.”
Ladies and gentlemen, the right-to-work argument summed up by a group of UW professors.
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