Misconceptions About Right to Work Laws and Unionization Rates

Patrick Semmens — Mon, 07 Apr 2008 15:25:47 -0400

The Rocky Mountain News had an article this weekend on various proposed ballot initiatives in Colorado. The otherwise informative article concluded with this strange (and unsupported) sentence:

For the most part, states without right-to-work laws have higher levels of union participation, a statistic that some observers attribute to the popularity of unions rather than right-to-work laws.

The idea that the "popularity of unions" accounts for lower rates of union participation in Right to Work states, gets it entirely backwards and fails to understand just what a Right to Work law does.

Right to work laws do nothing to change the process through which a workplace becomes a union shop: a place where union officials have the power to forcibly represent every employee in the bargaining unit). Rather, they simply ensure that once a union is installed, no worker is forced to pay union dues as a condition of keeping or getting a job.

There are at least two ways that these Right to Work protections affect "union participation" rates:

Voluntary Participation. The most obvious reason is that in Right to Work states unions can't force employees to pay dues or be fired. This lets employees decide for themselves if they think the union is worth the dues they are being charged. So it should come as no surprise that when employees are actually given a choice, it drives down union participation.
Big Labor's Bottom Line. A second way in which Right to Work laws lower participation in unions is that they discourage (though not completely) Top Down union organizing. More and more drives for unionization are instigated by outside professional union organizers, as opposed to employee-led demands for unionization. But like the companies they try to organize, union officials are very aware of the bottom line, and they are always looking to maximize their revenue. Since for union bosses revenue means union dues, they realize that by targeting employers in states without Right to Work laws, they can maximize their haul because every worker - not just those who support the union - will be forced to pay up.

So contrary to what "some observers" say, there are at least two ways that protecting employees' freedom to choose impacts union participation rates.

"Informational" Picketing

Justin Hakes — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 11:12:04 -0500

A new buzz word paid union operatives throw around when they decide to strike against a facility they have absolutely nothing to do with is that they're simply holding an "informational" picket. As in this instance in Tennessee, union officials hold such pickets for pretty much any reason under the sun, but usually for simply being non-union.

This, no doubt, leaves employees forced to foot the bill for this activity scratching their heads. Why are they forced to pay the salaries of paid union professionals to picket facilities that they don't even work at?

National Right to Work Foundation Launches Online Video Updates

Justin Hakes — Mon, 07 Jan 2008 11:17:58 -0500

Here's a new video from National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation President Mark Mix thanking supporters for helping the Foundation fight compulsory unionism online by creating cutting edge video content in its new in-house production studio.