by Jon Styf
The committee advocating for a right-to-work constitutional amendment said a recent poll shows 64% of Tennesseans will vote “yes” to add the amendment to the state constitution.
The Vote Yes on 1 poll, conducted by Cygnal between Jan. 24-26, surveyed 500 likely general election voters. The poll had a margin of error of 4.34%.
Eighteen percent of those polled said they would vote against the amendment.
“We aren’t surprised that Tennesseans overwhelmingly support making right-to-work a fundamental constitutional right,” said Justin Owen, executive committee member of Yes on 1 and the president and CEO of think tank Beacon Center of Tennessee. “Tennesseans understand that voting yes on 1 will protect their First Amendment freedom of association.”
Tennessee’s right-to-work law, in place since 1947, allows workers across the state to elect whether they would like to join a union. Without a right-to-work law, unions can require membership as a condition of employment.
Tennessee is one of 27 states with right-to-work laws, but state Republican leaders are looking to take that further by making right to work a constitutional amendment via a ballot initiative.
“The poll results prove what Tennesseans already know: that right-to-work is critical to jobs and opportunity in our state,” said Yes on 1 executive committee member Bradley Jackson, who also is the president and CEO of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce. “Amendment 1 will help keep our foot on the gas when it comes to job creation in Tennessee.”
Brandon Puttbrese, press secretary for the Tennessee Senate Democratic Caucus, said amendment opponents believe it would unfairly require unions to represent all workers, even those who do not pay dues, creating a free-rider issue by getting all the benefits of being in the union without paying dues.
“The anti-worker ballot initiative to amend Tennessee’s constitution will further destroy the freedom workers have to negotiate for better pay and benefits,” Puttbrese said. “Policies like this tip the scales of power toward big corporations. That’s not a free market – that’s market manipulation against workers, union and non-union. Tennesseans already earn $10,000 less a year than the average American worker. This amendment will only make our low-wage, no-benefit economy worse. We strongly encourage every Tennessean to vote for better wages and benefits by voting NO on Amendment 1.”
The Vote Yes on 1 survey also showed the top two issues for Tennessee voters were fighting back against federal overreach (34%) and jobs/economy (26%).
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Jon Styf is an award-winning editor and reporter who has worked in Illinois, Texas, Wisconsin, Florida and Michigan in local newsrooms over the past 20 years, working for The Center Square, Shaw Media, Hearst and several other companies.
Photo “Freight Workers” by Metropolitan Transportation Authority of the State of New York. CC BY 2.0.
How does the Fraternal Order of Police feel about the “right”-to-work-for-less law? Do most Tennesseans want the “right” to work for substandard wages for long hours in hazardous working conditions without any benefits for themselves and their children? I once worked in a sweat-shop like warehouse in Knoxville, TN, almost forty years ago near the World’s Fair grounds during the 1982 World’s Fair. The place was a fire trap with one narrow exit inside a huge stairwell that a fire could easily spread through. The door had no safety-bar and had a skeleton-key lock that could have locked all of us in during a fire. The shop-room where I worked standing up at a table on a hard concrete floor for hours had almost no ventilation with toxic smelling substances. The hard floor hurt my feet even with special shoes. The employers could make last-minute decisions to force us to work overtime in these extreme conditions. I lasted less than a week there. Fortunately, I didn’t need the money as desperately as other workers there did. I eventually found a more decent and safer job. It was good that I left, because I fear that if I stayed, I either would have succumbed to the fumes, injured my back, or, worst of all, lost my temper with one of the forepersons and would have wound up in trouble with the law as a result. Thus, I saved myself a lot of grief when I left that fire-trap.
A post-script: a few years later, I learned that that particular ware-house did indeed burn down due to lack of safety measures. It’s a good thing I left when I did because, who knows, I might have been one of the people killed in its fire had I stayed.
William,
So, you exercised your individual rights and found another job. Good for you. That is the idea of right-to-work. You just proved my point.
I am in favor of making this a constitutional right. I hear all of the arguments about bad bosses running people off for no reason but why would anyone work under those conditions to start with? There are only a jillion (slight exaggeration) open jobs in Tennessee. Go find a better job or quit complaining,
Rags, while you are obviously free to have an opinion, it is wrong. This happened in 2000. Do you realize how difficult it was to find a job in 2000? And no one is complaining. It’s a rather obvious oversight that needs to be addressed. Jobs aren’t always as plentiful as they are now.
So don’t assume things you have no knowledge of. You know what they say about people who make assumptions……..
Hey, John. I lived through the 80’s. In fact, I started a small business when people told me I was crazy to do so. I sold that business in 2001 to a competitor. Therefore, my “assumptions” are based on personal experience. I believe that many Americans have decided that they are owed a job and not just any job but one that pays them a premium with great perks whether or not their contribution justifies it. Anyway, we could argue this ’til the cows come home. So, I will just stick with my original commentary. I appreciate tour comments as well.
The Chamber of Commerce, one of the biggest unions around is for this?? Then I am against it.
I understand the politics of all this but it goes so much further than left vs right philosophies.
As it stands right now, the employee has no recourse if they are ‘singled out’ for whatever petty reason the boss/supervisor comes up with. For example, you might be a God fearing Christian and your supervisor is a militant atheist, bent on canceling anyone who doesn’t agree with them. While they cannot terminate you based on religion, they can and will make up a reason that falls inline with company policy. As an employee, you have no way to fight this. HR isn’t there to help you. HR exists to protect the company. As a right to work state, you can be fired for stepping on a crack in the sidewalk.
I hate unions more than anybody. They promote longevity over productivity. They have outlived their usefulness and are nothing more than a slush fund for the Democrat party. But making this Right to Work a Constitutional Amendment doesn’t sit well with me either.