"Right" Is Wrong

That state up north is about to pass a "Right to Work" law.  Like so many Republican euphemisms, it sounds harmless enough, but has the opposite effect.

Everyone has the "right" to work.  Right-to-work has nothing to do with that -- it's code for slowly bleeding labor unions to death by reducing their membership and financial resources.

In this country, union membership cannot be required.  Yet there are many employers whose workers are unionized, meaning that management and labor have agreed to certain pay scales, work conditions, benefits, etc.  As an employee at these workplaces, you can't be forced to join the union, yet you will still enjoy those union-negotiated benefits and protections.  If you choose to be non-union at such a company, you won't pay union dues but state labor law usually makes you pay a "fair share" equivalent.  Fair share payments are not technically union dues, but in a practical sense, yes they are.  You may not be a union member, but one way or another, you'll pay for union benefits.

Unless you're in one of the 23 right-to-work states.  Right-to-work laws prohibit fair share payments from non-union workers.  So you can get the wages and the goodies without paying for them.  And if you're not a hardcore, Samuel Gompers true believer, why join the union if you get the advantages anyway?  Why pay the dues if you don't have to? 

Right-to-work laws flip the financial motivations.  More and more workers see a disincentive to paying union dues, so they don't.  Fewer and fewer members means less and less money in the union's coffers, which means, eventually, less union leverage and reduced bargaining power.  And once a union is viewed as weak and ineffective by the majority of employees, that union is pretty much toast.

Then, just watch what happens to wages, benefits and work conditions.  It's suddenly the "right-to-work for less."  If you don't believe it works that way, you're a poor student of history.

The governor of that state up north is a sneaky bastard.  He often said in the past that he felt right-to-work laws were divisive and dangerous.  But some hefty campaign contributions from the nefarious Koch brothers have persuaded him to see it differently now.  In a heavily unionized state, he'll sign it into law.

Will he pay a political price?  I hope so.
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"In our fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans such as 'right to work' ".  -- Martin Luther King, Jr.