Unions face new threat from a familiar foe: Right To Work (for less)

An old labor battle has been renewed, emboldened by President Trump, “adviser” Elon Musk and the agenda favoring billionaires over working people: The revival of a national Right To Work law has returned like a zombie, eyeing a feast on a popular and reinvigorated labor movement.

A month into Donald Trump’s second term in the White House, the president had:

* fired, furloughed or forced thousands of federal employees to quit,

* fired National Labor Relations Board General Counsel Jennifer Abruzzo and Acting General Counsel Jessica Rutter,

* discharged NLRB member Gwynne Wilcox, leaving the NLRB without a quorum and therefore unable to conduct business (which the courts recently found illegal),

* terminated two members of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, also leaving it without a quorum.

* named Elisabeth Messenger, the head of an anti-union group (Americans for Fair Treatment) as director of the Office of Labor-Management Standards,

* appointed controversial safety and health chief at UPS, David Keeling, to head OSHA, and

* nominated ex-Congresswoman Lori Chavez-DeRemer as Labor Secretary.

 

Trump’s supposedly moderate Republican nominee for Secretary of Labor, Chavez-DeRemer once co-sponsored the PRO Act labor reform bill, but last month revealed her true self. In a hearing of the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) asked if Chavez-DeRemer no longer backed the PRO Act language overturning Right To Work, and Chavez-DeRemer replied that she “fully” supported states that “want to protect their Right To Work.”

In the Nation magazine, John Nichols said, “With that exchange, Chavez-DeRemer marked herself as a more ardently anti-union nominee for Secretary of Labor than most previous occupants of the position.”

(The Philadelphia AFL-CIO Council was more direct, tweeting, “How very not pro-worker of you, Lori.”)

On Feb. 12, Sen. Paul and Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) introduced the National Right-to-Work Act (S. 533 and H.R. 1232) “to preserve and protect the free choice of individual employees to form, join or assist labor organizations, or to refrain from such activities.” 

In states with Right-To-Work (RTW), workers in unionized workplaces can opt out of paying union dues while still benefiting from the union's collective bargaining efforts, getting something for nothing since unions have a legal obligation to represent everyone in their bargaining units, whether or not they’re union members

Advocates claim that Right To Work laws attract businesses and create jobs, presumably because blocking unions from collecting dues to cover the costs of representing workers keeps unions weak or prevents workers from organizing – keeping wages low.

But when New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch vetoed a state RTW measure in 2011, the Democrat commented, “In my time as a CEO, in my years spent in the private sector turning around companies, and in my seven years as Governor, I have never seen the so-called Right-To-Work law serve as a valuable economic development tool.”

According to the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), RTW states “have lower unionization rates, wages and benefits compared with non-RTW states.

“RTW laws are designed to diminish workers' collective power by prohibiting unions and employers from negotiating union-security agreements into collective bargaining agreements, making it harder for workers to form, join and sustain unions,” EPI’s 2024 study added. “Consequently, workers in states with RTW laws have lower wages, reduced access to health and retirement benefits, and higher workplace fatality rates. On average, workers in RTW states are paid 3.2% less than workers with similar characteristics in non-RTW states, which translates to $1,670 less per year for a full-time worker.”

The new bill would remove provisions in the National Labor Relations Act and court rulings letting collective bargaining agreements to contain “union security” language requiring workers covered by the contract to pay union dues or “fair-share/agency dues,” which are a fraction of dues covering union representation (not lobbying) for workers who decline to be union members.

 

RIGHT-TO-WORK BACKGROUND

Currently, 26 states have RTW laws, changes that occurred over decades.

In the 1930s, the Great Depression and labor unrest led to reforms in government policy, such as President Roosevelt’s New Deal, part of which eventually included the landmark National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, the Wagner Act). In Capitol Hill debates, the bill’s main sponsor, Sen. Robert Wagner (D-NY) “at no time suggested or contemplated that state legislatures could interfere with federal jurisdiction over union security,” according to Colorado state University researcher Raymond Hogler. Nevertheless, “the resulting corporate opposition to the NLRA was immediate, massive and unstinting.”

In the 1940s, anti-union legislative efforts spread throughout Southern states, using states’ rights and racism (plus support from the Ku Klux Klan) to pressure lawmakers or voters to pass RTW laws or state amendments. Ultimately, Congress in 1947 approved the Taft-Hartley Act, which prohibits contracts requiring employers to fire workers who refuse to join the union.

A key RTW figure was Vance Muse, “an oil lobbyist and outspoken racist and antisemite,” wrote Daryl Newman, Secretary-Treasurer of the Michigan AFL-CIO. “In 1936, he testified in front of a U.S. Senate committee that he was ‘for white supremacy.’ Muse warned via campaign literature that white and Black workers would have to call each other ‘brother’ or lose their jobs.

“What Muse and others realized was that racism in the workplace makes it harder for workers to come together in solidarity,” Newman continued. “By dividing workers along racial lines, CEOs and special interests could succeed in maximizing corporate profits by preventing workers, now infighting over race, from standing together to fight for better working conditions.”

The campaign spread from the Deep South.

“Muse led the efforts of ‘Christian Americans’ to pass state-level legislation to limit the growth and strength of unions,” said William Spriggs, a Howard University economics professor and economist for the AFL-CIO. “The movement went to Kansas in the 1950s, where the Right To Work movement was led by Fred Koch, a co-founder of the John Birch Society and precursor of the Koch brothers. Kansas passed its Right To Work law in 1958.”

Rand’s move is reminiscent of those ties between Southern businesses (promoting division in work forces rather that union solidarity), the Klan, neo-Confederate interests, and Right-wing groups such as the John Birch Society, Tea Party and, arguably, the MAGA GOP. (Past Republican leaders opposed RTW, including Presidents Eisenhower, Nixon and Reagan.)

 

4a1      “Right-To-Work basically allows workers to use union services – including contracts which improve living and working conditions and defense against corporate greed, favoritism, exploitation and unfair discipline – without paying one red cent for them, in either union dues or fair-share fees,” explained Press Associates Inc. editor Mark Gruenberg.

4a2      “Right to work does have one policy consequence that can be confirmed by empirical analysis,” Hogler said. “Right to work causes union decline. Right To Work laws reduce the ability of unions to organize workers and to develop workplace institutions conducive to collective bargaining.”

 

 

ILLINOIS DOUBTFUL ‘SAFE HAVEN’

Despite Illinois’ Workers Rights Amendment, approved by voters in 2022, and state laws supporting workers’ rights, Illinois probably won’t be a refuge for Illinois unions.

“Under the Collective Bargaining Freedom Act (820 ILCS 12/15), Illinois has allowed private employers to enter into contracts with unions that require all covered employees to be union members,” said Peoria attorney Andrew McCall. “If Congress passes the National Right-to-Work Act, its supporters will contend that federal law displaces contrary state laws under the Supremacy Clause in Article VI, section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. In addition, the Illinois law expressly references the scope of its compelled union membership as being to the ‘full extent authorized’ by the National Labor Relations Act, the very law that the National Right-to-Work Act would amend.”

“Right To Work does have one policy consequence that can be confirmed by empirical analysis,” Hogler said. “Right To Work causes union decline. [Such laws] reduce the ability of unions to organize workers and to develop workplace institutions conducive to collective bargaining.”

McCall sees legal challenges ahead.

“If the National Right-to-Work Act is enacted, we should expect lawsuits from unions that may raise a number of arguments, including that Congress exceeded its authority. Such arguments against the new law, however, will face their own challenges. In addition to the Supremacy Clause – which has federal law displace contrary state laws – the Contract Clause in Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution bars states, not the federal government, from passing laws that alter existing contracts. While this contested issue may well end up in front of the U.S. Supreme Court, for private-sector employers and private-sector employees, it seems more likely than not that the Court would find this issue as a political one to be resolved by Congress rather than the courts.”