The “fair share” proposal to dismantle Iowa’s long-standing right-to-work law that is currently making its way through the Legislature would put Iowa on a wrongheaded, backward course.

It’s not entirely without merit. In a perfect world where the candy bar could always be divided exactly in half, asking non-union members to pay a fee to enjoy the fatter paychecks and more fringe benefits negotiated in a union shop doesn’t seem out of line. Fair’s fair. Right?

Yes, but what’s fair is a matter of interpretation. Is it fair, for example, to force a factory worker, teacher, sheriff’s deputy or any of dozens of other workers subject to collective bargaining rules to join an organization whose philosophies they might not support?

As sensible as the pay-to-play scenario might seem, it’s not a compelling enough reason to close the book on Iowa’s 60-year-old right-to-work law. Indeed, the genesis of the proposal appears to be more opportunistic, as the the pro-union Democratic Party controls the Statehouse, than a groundswell of support among ordinary Iowans for a fair-share law.

This isn’t a case of John L. Lewis rallying coal miners around the cause of improved worker safety and higher wages. Unions haven’t had that singularity of purpose for a long time. They’re political beasts, and they exist as much today to influence elections as they do to protect workers. Witness the split from the AFL-CIO a couple of years ago by two of the nation’s largest and most powerful unions, the 1.7 million-member Service Employees International Union and the 1.3 million-member International Brotherhood of Teamsters. Both unions blamed their insurgency on ineffectual representation by the AFL-CIO, which they said was more interested in flexing political muscle than improving working conditions for union members.

That’s not to say that unions are obsolete. They play an important watchdog role. It would be catastrophic for American labor for them to disappear entirely, just as it would be a tragedy for Iowa to repeal the right-to-work law.