politician to be called anything but an enthusiastic supporter

politician to be called anything but an enthusiastic supporter of the right-to-work law is the political equivalent of being labeled a heretic in medieval Europe. If the charge can be made to stick, a burning at the electoral stake is assured.

Since Baliles has always been outspoken in his support of the law, Durrette’s charge hangs on a rather slender reed. It had its genesis in a compact among Virginia, Maryland and the District of Columbia. The compact was approved by the Congress and established the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, the purpose of which was to build the national capital’s Metro subway system. According to Durrette, Baliles has been dragging his feet in attacking features of the compact which, indeed, clearly fly in the face of the state’s right-to-work law.

The compact was signed in 1966 and amended in 1972. The amendment was approved by Virginia in House Bill 597 which set up the labor management terms from which a union shop ultimately resulted. Interestingly, Durrette was one of the Northern Virginia legislators who voted for the bill and the amendment.

Under the compact, an agreement was entered into between Metro and the Amalgamated Transit Union Local 689 which provided that “all of the employees of the authority include in the bargaining unit . . . (must) become and remain members in good standing of the union as a condition precedent to continued employment.”

Early in the present administration, Baliles came under pressure to enforce the right-to-work law in Metro’s Virginia work areas. In 1984 the General Assembly adopted another amendment to the compact which would have allowed the Commonwealth to do this. Maryland and the District, however, refused to go along and because the congressional approval gave the compact