Unions are suing to revoke the Indiana "right to work" law. As I've explained before, so-called "right to work" states have laws on the books that allow people to work in unionized industries without being forced to join the union. Sane people ask why there needs to be a law to say a person cannot be forced by another person to join a union. The union says that they are enslaved by these laws. Confused? You should be. Unions are arguing in the lawsuit that, because they negotiate wages on behalf of the workers, the people who aren't forced into the union are getting those services for free, which means that the unions are slaves under the 13th Amendment. Let that soak in. The union is arguing that if they cannot force employees to join their organization and give them the fruits of their labor in dues, that the union is being enslaved.
If you're not laughing yet, you're like me, still stunned at the pure illogic of the argument. I mean, if someone argued that they were being enslaved because they were forced to work for a union, I could kind of see that argument, because they are having their labor taken in the form of dues without any choice in the matter. But that's still a stretch. The union argument is like the slave owner claiming that his slaves force him to own a plantation against his will. Unions had a purpose once, and it was good. Now they are just a quasi-governmental organization that thinks other people's money belongs to them simply so that they can perpetuate their own existence. After all, Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO, makes eight times what the average worker does ($200,000-$300,000 a year since 2003 according to a union watchdog) all while making a living complaining about CEO salaries. I strongly suspect that salary is not his sole source of income either.
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