Letters

<< Previous   of   Next >>   ADVERTISEMENT   HAVE YOUR SAY Feel strongly about something? Share it with the community by writing a letter to the editor. You’ll need to include your name, address and daytime phone number. (We’ll only publish your name and hometown.) We reserve the right to edit letters, but if you keep yours to 250 words or less, we won’t ask you to shorten it. If your letter is published, please wait 30 days before submitting another. Send it to: E-mail: letters@heraldnet.com Mail: Letters section The Herald P.O. Box 930 Everett, WA 98206 Fax: 425-339-3458 Have a question about letters? Contact Carol MacPherson (cmacpherson@heraldnet.com or 425-339-3472).   Published: Wednesday, July 2, 2008 UNIONS Inquire about rules before taking job Regarding the June 19 letter, "Union dues made job unaffordable": I am a union member, and I take offense at these types of anti-union attacks by new employees who elect to work at union shops. The writer implies that the union at QFC is an evil anti-worker organization that does not represent the best interests of its employees, and that he was unfairly forced to belong to the union at QFC. The issue here is that Washington state is not a "right to work" state, and as such, the QFC employees had the right to elect the union to be their exclusive representative in labor matters. This has been a right afforded groups of employees under federal labor laws since Franklin Roosevelt was president. Now comes the writer, who accepts a union job at QFC, and proceeds to complain in the press about the fairness of what the rest of the employees at QFC have agreed to, prior to his arrival on the scene. Why did the writer apply to work at a union shop? I suggest he refrain from applying for union jobs if he dislikes unions, or move to some "right to work" state like Alabama where there are state laws that have crippled the rights of employees to decide such workplace matters. I think he will find wages and benefits for similar jobs in such "right to work" states to be considerably less than in Washington -- something nonunion types like the writer typically fail to acknowledge. Richard Morvan Mill Creek

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