Kamala Harris has so far provided only scant and shifting details on her plans in many policy areas, even walking back her extreme and unpopular positions through unattributed statements from her campaign.
Yet on issues of labor, no speculation is needed: Harris has consistently, loudly and unequivocally advocated for policies that grant union officials unprecedented control over both workers and their pocketbooks.
Most notably, the union-label Harris has repeatedly expressed support for the repeal of every state Right to Work law in the country.
These laws don’t stop anyone from joining or paying dues to a union if they voluntarily choose to — they simply prevent union bosses from forcing workers to pay dues as a condition of getting or keeping a job.
The vast majority of Americans back these common-sense protections on workers’ free choice.
Union members agree: A recent poll found 79% of union members support the principle that union membership and dues payment should be strictly voluntary.
Despite Right to Work’s popularity, Harris’ advocacy against voluntary union dues has been steadfast.
In 2016, as attorney general of California, Harris represented the state in briefs at the US Supreme Court in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a case in which a California public schoolteacher challenged union bosses’ legal power to force teachers to pay dues as a violation of the First Amendment.
While the case wound up deadlocked 4-4, Harris’ briefs defended the union’s privileges and spoke volumes about her contempt for worker freedom.
Harris didn’t challenge the schoolteacher plaintiff’s understanding that union bosses’ negotiating demands, such as “layoff and recall based only on seniority,” served to benefit some educators at others’ expense.
In fact, in her merits brief, Harris explicitly conceded: “Unions do have substantial latitude to advance bargaining positions that . . . run counter to the economic interests of some employees.”
Yet, she argued, that shouldn’t stop the government from forcing those employees to pay for that harmful “representation.”
More recently, Harris has embraced labor policy plans that evince a true desire for union-boss domination over both workers and businesses far beyond the destruction of Right to Work.
As a US senator, Harris was a zealous advocate for the so-called “Pro Act,” which would not only wipe out Right to Work but also allow union bosses to sweep independent contractors under their control, destroying the independence that leads many such workers to choose that arrangement.
In Harris’ home state of California, similar state regulations destroyed hundreds of thousands of careers overnight.
The Pro Act would also enshrine in federal law union bosses’ ability to bypass secret-ballot rules when workers vote on whether or not to establish a union in their workplace, instead letting union officials install themselves through the hasty “card check” process.
Other provisions of the bill would block workers from voting out unions they oppose, allow union officials to censor workers’ speech and authorize government bureaucrats to impose forced-dues contracts even if both employers and workers object.
Harris is also on the record as favoring “sectoral bargaining,” a pro-union scheme even more extreme than the Pro Act.
Under sectoral bargaining, union officials would be granted power over entire industries “sector by sector,” based on support for unionization from a tiny minority of workers in that industry — 10% or less, in one prominent proposal supported by longtime pro-Harris unions including the SEIU.
All of Harris’ coercive, top-down ideas make sense if one subscribes to the worldview she put forth in her arguments in the Fredrichs case: Union bosses know better than workers and should have more control over their lives — even if it means that some, perhaps many, workers are harmed in the process.
Harris mentioned in one of her Fredrichs briefs that union bosses should be allowed to make reasonable “tradeoffs” in a workplace to benefit some workers at the expense of others.
But this Labor Day, be aware that Harris’ agenda is really just a bad deal for all American workers: Trade in your workplace freedoms and hand them to power-hungry union bosses.
Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Foundation and National Right to Work Committee.