The following was written for IBEW Local 48 (of which I am a member) in which I define and present some arguments against, Right-to-Work legislation. The article is also posted at the IBEW 48 Facebook page. It appears here with minor corrections.
Even if Republicans hadn’t maintained control of the House, won the Senate, captured the White House, and earned a chance to pick the next Supreme Court Justice, opponents of Right to Work (RTW) would have cause for concern. Missouri became the 28th state to make RTW the law of the land. The turn of once-stalwarts of union strength, such as Michigan and Indiana, herald the strength of the anti-union movement, which is even targeting Illinois. RTW marches on - what’s next, California?
In 1935, Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act (a.k.a. the Wagner Act). The NLRA established the right of unions to collectively bargain for wages, benefits and workplace conditions; it also made unions the sole collective bargaining agent in collective bargaining negotiations. Under the law, employers and employees could agree to make union membership a condition of employment. No dues, no union membership, no job. For its part, the union provided representation, which included advocating for better compensation as well as protecting workers against employer abuses.
Enter RTW, enacted in 1947 as part of the Taft-Hartley Act. In legal terms, RTW grants states the right to ban those contracts between employee and employer that make union membership a condition of employment. That is, under RTW, workers can refuse union representation without jeopardizing their jobs. But in addition to "freeing" workers, RTW forces unions to represent all workers in a workplace; not only its members, but those who refuse to pay union dues. Negotiating higher wages and better benefit packages; offering legal services; advocating for safer working conditions - services that require money - are to be handed out by unions, free of charge, to even its most strident detractors.
Obviously, once people are given the chance to improve their lives, for free, they’ll take it. It's hard to believe that proponents of RTW are in the dark when it comes to the handouts unions are forced to dole out. Whether RTW advocates know it or not, the financial burden of their legislation affects more than just unions. Unions have long been stalwarts of workplace justice and advocates of higher living standards. If a union has less to offer its own members, it will have even less to offer non-members. The overall effect is the slow death of one of workers’ most fiercest advocates.
But proponents of RTW say it’s not about money. They argue that workers should be free to choose or reject union membership, and that the requirement to pay dues violates freedom of choice.
While we all value freedom, several things can be said in response. Central to free market ideology - used so often as the basis of RTW law - is freedom from government in the affairs of private business. Under RTW, the state injects itself into the relation between employer and employee by nullifying contracts these parties reach voluntarily. Recall that these contracts make union membership a condition of employment. In a stunning display of willful blindness, RTW proponents gloss over the government overstep inherit in their own legislation.
If employers want to hire union members only, by what stretch of logic do proponents of limited government base their objection? The absence of a reasonable answer leads many free market capitalists - most famously, the late Milton Friedman - to reject RTW as government meddling.
The oft-cited economic benefits of RTW remain illusory. Mountains of data and exhaustive studies don’t show that manufacturing jobs and individuals’ wages increase in states that adopt RTW (in some cases, the opposite is true). The recent economic boom of some southern states, such as Texas, is bandied about as evidence of the positive affect RTW has on an economy. However, most southern states passed RTW around 1950. If RTW really accounts for their economic success, wouldn’t it make sense for them to have experienced growth forty years ago? Or, are we to trust that the benefits of RTW exist but take several decades to kick in?
Relying on economic data should remind us that correlation is not causation. It’s one thing to show that two things happen simultaneously (correlation); it’s all together different to show that something explains another (causation). We shouldn’t deny the economic growth of the south, but we should recognize that its growth isn’t best explained by a single, silver bullet (for example, Right-to-Work), but a complex web of variables. As anyone who’s so much as glanced at studies will tell you, isolating a single cause of economic growth is as easy and straightforward as orbital mechanics.
Finally, if RTW apologists cite the presence of RTW as spurring economic growth now, then we can just as easily cite the absence of RTW as causing the explosion of manufacturing in the heavily unionized north, following WWII. After all, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.
Defenders of RTW tout individual freedom but invite the state to meddle in the relation between employers and employees; they champion limited government but enlist the strong arm of the state to force unions to give away something for nothing. RTW appears to be less about economic gain and personal freedom than about weakening unions.