Many states are hostage to the powerful public sector unions they employ. These unions are the largest, most organized group of voters in many forced-union states. They wield their massive power to lobby for higher wages. Paying those wages demands higher taxation, which can cripple private industry in the states. State governments that have been captured by union interests are powerless to fight back.
Some states have seen the damage unionized public sector employees can cause, and have set into place Right to Work laws, protecting employees from forced unionism. The laws don’t end unions, but instead allow employees to opt out of the organizations if they don’t wish to become members.
It turns out, many employees don’t want to be union members. From the time Right to Work (known as Act 10) was passed in Wisconsin in 2011, to 2017, union membership in the state had dropped by 40%.
Now, Senator Rand Paul has introduced a National Right to Work bill in the Senate to end forced unionization across the country. If passed, the plan could help lower the burden of taxation on many Americans, and allow businesses that are considering leaving their home state for Right to Work states to remain in place. The National Right to Work Committee reports:
Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) has introduced the National Right to Work Act (S. 525) in the U.S. Senate.
The one-page bill would end Big Labor’s federally authorized power to force workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee (NRTWC), issued the following statement praising the introduction of the bill:
“We’re extremely pleased that Senator Paul has once again introduced the National Right to Work Act, intensifying a growing debate about Big Labor’s coercive power to keep American workers in chains. This legislation would enshrine the common-sense principle – already enforced in more than half of U.S. states – that no worker should be compelled to join or pay dues to a union just to get or keep a job.
“In an age of legislative overreach, this is one of the shortest bills ever introduced. The National Right to Work Act does not add a single word to federal law, instead simply removing existing language in the National Labor Relations Act and Railway Labor Act that gives union officials the power to extract dues from nonunion workers as a condition of employment.”
The bill introduced by Senator Rand is part of a two-pronged strategy which consists of building support in Washington for the National Right to Work Act, while at the same time mobilizing opponents of forced unionism to pass their own state Right to Work laws.
At the federal level, although 27 states have enacted their own Right to Work laws, and the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act explicitly allows them to do so, the authorization for forcing workers to pay union dues actually comes from two federal laws – the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Railway Labor Act (RLA). The RLA even blocks Right to Work laws from protecting workers in the railroad and airline industry, meaning thousands of workers can be fired for refusing to pay union dues or fees despite working in a Right to Work state.
The National Right to Work Act amends both laws, removing the forced-dues provisions and thereby restoring employees’ absolute right to refrain from participating in and funding a union they don’t want.
Read more here.
