ATU to thwart RTW threat with ‘solidarity training’ The International is developing plans to offer new “solidarity training” to ATU local unions to thwart the growing threat of right-to-work (RTW) legislation spreading throughout the nation.
Many successful ATU locals in RTW states Many ATU locals in RTW states already do this quite successfully. One of the Union’s goals will be to help local officers adopt the best practices that locals in those states use to attract and keep dues-paying members. This is what all unions had to do until the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, and ATU, which was formed in 1892, eventually thrived during that period.
ATU members and leaders learned new strategies to empower members to get involved, make our locals stronger, and prepare for the battles ahead during innovative Solidarity Training at ATU’s Tommy Douglas Conference Center.
The recent passage of an RTW law in West Virginia brings the number of open shop states to 26. With statutes such as these governing workplaces in over half of the country, ATU must be prepared to operate in environments in which unions can’t count on the automatic membership of employees at their property. Increasingly, unions will have to prove their worth to workers on an ongoing basis. ATU solidarity training will teach local officers how to do that.
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January/February 2016 | IN TRANSIT
The Koch brothers, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), The National Right to Work Committee (NRWC), and their political flunkies in state capitals are betting that RTW legislation will force unions to spend so much time and effort maintaining their membership that they simply won’t have the wherewithal to support candidates for political office or fight for pro-worker legislation. They were also hoping that a lawsuit – Friedrichs vs. California Teachers Association (CTA) – that NRWC attorneys “fasttracked” all the way to the Supreme Court, would eventually lead to RTW becoming the law of the land.
Friedrichs vs. CTA Nine teachers who object to union membership claim in Friedrichs that requiring public employees to pay a fee for the nonpolitical work (collective bargaining, grievances,