Happy Labor Day and congratulations! If you are reading this, chances are you are one of the millions of Americans living in one of 27 Right to Work states. You wouldn’t guess it from Right to Work opponents’ unsupported claims, but Right to Work laws are simple and straightforward, not to mention popular.
A Right to Work law ensures that no employee can be forced to join or pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment. This leaves the decision of union membership and union financial support exactly where it belongs: with each individual worker.
While public sector employees nationwide now enjoy Right to Work protections under the First Amendment due to last year’s National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation-won Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court decision, private sector workers in the 23 forced-unionism states may still be required to fund a union just to keep their jobs.
Right to Work protects each worker’s freedom of association, but the advantages of Right to Work hardly stop there. Enshrining workplace freedom also brings significant economic benefits to the 27 states that have passed Right to Work laws.
Between 2008 and 2018, Right to Work states saw the total percent of people employed grow at a rate of 10.8%. That’s more than double the rate from non-Right to Work states, according to a reading of federal government statistics compiled by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR).
The NILRR study also found that, further, after adjusting for the cost of living, the 2017 mean after-tax household income in Right to Work states was about $4,500 higher than those households from forced unionism states. Right to Work states have substantially faster growth in real household consumption over the past decade compared to their forced unionism counterparts.
The connection between Right to Work laws and better economic performance is not a surprise. Business experts consistently rank the presence of Right to Work laws as one of the most important factors companies consider when deciding where to expand or relocate their facilities, where they will create new jobs and new opportunities.
The newest Right to Work state, Kentucky, passed its Right to Work law in January 2017, and ever since it has seen a bevy of economic development: 2017 is the state’s best-on-record year for pledged investments by businesses in expansions and new facility locations. And 2018 was the state’s second highest-ever investment performance.
Right to Work laws also encourage union officials to be more flexible and responsive in the workplace. When workers cannot be forced to join or pay dues, union officials must work harder to retain employee support. This accountability makes union officials put workers’ interests first, rather than promoting their own power or pushing a political agenda that is out of step with the rank-and-file.
Right to Work laws make economic sense, but protecting employee freedom has always been their most important feature.
No worker should be forced to join or pay money to an organization he or she has no interest in supporting. Right to Work laws do nothing to impede employees from voluntarily joining or paying dues to a union; they simply ensure that no worker can be forced to hand over a portion of their hard-earned paycheck to union officials just to keep a job.
A labor union that genuinely enjoys employee endorsement will continue to thrive with members’ voluntary support. A union that has alienated the rank-and-file or outlived its usefulness will need to adapt in order to survive.
Churches, civic associations, and thousands of other private organizations across the country thrive on voluntary association. Despite the protests of union officials, there is no reason a union – made up of individual workers who freely choose to band together – cannot do the same.
Workplace choice, employee freedom, and better economic performance are part and parcel of the Right to Work package. What’s not to like? This Labor Day, citizens of Right to Work states have much more to celebrate than a three-day weekend.
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Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and National Right to Work Committee.
