The five Catholic bishops of Indiana recently made an important contribution to the passionate and ongoing debate about the “right-to-work” legislation being introduced in the Indiana legislature. That legislation would eliminate requirements that non-union employees pay fees to a union recognized in their workplace.
As a long-time union supporter, I have opposed the proposed law, fearing that unions would become weaker as employees became tempted by economic hardship, especially in these tough times, into disaffiliating in order not to pay their fair share of bargaining costs.
The Catholic bishops have brought up a new issue: employee conscience. They point out that some unions “use their resources to support politicians or political parties that clearly devalue the sanctity of human life or the institution of marriage.” President Obama and the national Democratic Party come readily to mind (even though there are a quite few “Democrats for Life,” like myself, at the grassroots level of the Party). Without right-to-work legislation, some employees are forced to violate their consciences, since the required fees indirectly enable mothers and fathers to turn tragically against their own children, dismembering them in the womb.
My own position has thus changed. If the national Democratic Party became neutral on abortion, or if Indiana unions ceased to support that party, I would oppose right-to-work laws. Until one of those things happens, I reluctantly support the proposed legislation.
Richard Stith
Richard Stith is a research professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Having received both his law degree and a doctorate in ethics from Yale University, he taught legal philosophy and comparative law at Valpo Law for 41 years. From Harvard and from the University of California, Berkeley, he holds degrees in political theory. He was for a year director of the Program in Biomedical Ethics at St. Louis University School of Medicine. He served for many years on the Advisory Council of the National Lawyers Association and on the Board of Editors of the AMERICAN JOURNAL OF COMPARATIVE LAW and has taught and published on comparative law and legal philosophy in Spain, India, China, Ukraine, Chile and Mexico. In 2001, he became the first U.S. professor to be designated by the European Commission as teacher of a Jean Monnet Module (on the law of the European Union) and shortly thereafter was named the first Swygert Research Fellow in recognition of his scholarship. He is a consultant on the Academic Council for the doctoral program in law at the Universidad de Los Andes in Chile, where he has directed doctoral seminars. Professor Stith has served as a member of the national boards of University Faculty for Life and of the Consistent Life Network. He has been a speaker at national, state, and international right-to-life gatherings and has presented pro-life testimony by invitation before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on the Constitution and to state and foreign legislative committees. Among his significant publications: “The Priority of Respect: How Our Common Humanity Can Ground Our Individual Dignity,” International Philosophical Quarterly 44 (2004): 165. Other works can be found at http://works.bepress.com/richard_stith/ Email: [email protected]
