My Turn: In Arizona, right-to-work laws mean you don't have to join unions

Do you understand your rights in the workplace?

This week, Arizona will be celebrating National Employee Freedom Week, a nationwide effort to help familiarize employees with their workplace freedoms, particularly their rights when it comes to unions.

Whether you love your union or you’re unsatisfied with your current representation, it is important for everyone to know that they have rights, as well as to understand how to exercise these rights.

Many unions have lost their way

Although many labor unions were created with a noble purpose, over the past few decades some unions have done less to protect their members and more to enrich themselves.

Unions increasingly spend less time bargaining, and fall victim to increasing amounts of corruption. Many unions are spending more and more time (and worker dues) lobbying for political causes that their members may disagree with.

For many Arizonans, it is getting increasingly difficult to justify the often-significant costs of union membership.

If you feel this way, you’re not alone. The decreasing popularity of labor unions is clearly apparent in the numbers – over the past 40 years, union membership has been drastically shrinking.

Hardly anyone joins unions in Arizona

In Arizona, only 6.1 percent of workers are members of a labor union. Almost half of these remaining union members are not even in the private sector, but rather are members of public-sector unions for government employees.

These negative trends are reflected in the U.S. Hispanic community: Only 9.4 percent of Hispanics are union members, the lowest representation out of all ethnic groups.

Hispanics understand just as well as everybody else that many unions are simply no longer providing cost-effective, valuable services. For the Hispanic community, the availability of bilingual services is crucial.

Yet despite a stated effort by labor unions to increase Hispanic membership, many unions are failing to take such simple steps as providing translators for Limited English Proficiency members. This shows a lack of engagement with a community these unions purport to help.

You can opt out without penalties

All Americans deserve better than that. For those unsatisfied with your union representation, know that you aren’t necessarily stuck with it.

National Employee Freedom Week aims to educate all union members of their rights in the workplace.

In Arizona, a shocking 28.4 percent of union households answered that they were not aware that they could opt out of union membership without losing their job or facing a penalty. This is unacceptable, and indicative of labor unions’ attempts to intimidate their members into membership.

In reality, Arizona employees have a whole range of options open to them.

Why right-to-work laws are so popular

In Arizona, the single biggest policy that can help protect worker’s freedom to choose whether a union works for them is already here — Right to Work laws. Right to Work laws guarantee that no person can be penalized or compelled as a condition of employment to join a labor union.

Tellingly, the laws are supported by 71 percent of all Americans and by 76 percent of union members.

Right to Work laws hold unions accountable, encouraging them to work hard to represent the interests of their members. They benefit employees, businesses, and even unions themselves.

Studies show that right-to-work states have higher levels of economic growth, attract more new businesses, and increased job and wage growth, too. Nationally, the top states for new manufacturing jobs are right-to-work states.

Arizonans should learn about the freedoms that they have to opt out of union membership, and events like National Employee Freedom Week give them the opportunity to do so.

Hispanics have a rich history of valuing and seeking out work, and they deserve the right to join a union if they so choose. But that should be their choice, and their choice alone.

Ariel Gordon is a policy analyst at the LIBRE Initiative, a non-profit free-market advocacy group dedicated to economic and social empowerment for the Hispanic community. Follow her on Twitter, @ariel_h_gordon.