How Right To Work Laws Are Making Inroads Even In Blue States

Posted by Olivia Grady on Monday, November 6th, 2017 at 1:27 pm - Permalink

Patrick Gleason, Director of State Affairs at Americans for Tax Reform, had an article published in Forbes on November 6, 2017, about local Right to Work in Delaware and New Mexico:

“Earlier this year Missouri became the 28th state in the nation to enact a Right to Work law freeing workers from being forced to join a union as a condition of unemployment. Other states to enact Right to Work in recent years include union stronghold states like Michigan and Wisconsin, where the prospect of Right to Work legislation having a chance at passage seemed like a pipe dream only a few years ago.

Right-to-work laws give workers freedom from being forced to join a union and pay dues. Before the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which permitted states to enact Right to Work laws, all American workers could be forced to join a union as a condition of obtaining and maintaining employment.

Kentucky is another state to recently pass Right to Work, with Gov. Matt Bevin (R) signing it into law in January. Prior to statewide passage of Right to Work, 13 county governments across the Bluegrass State had already gone ahead and enacted local Right to Work laws in order to make those localities more attractive to employers, investment, and job creation. It’s a smart move for local governments that have state legislatures whose political composition precludes statewide passage of Right to Work.

Now there is a new effort being launched to pass Right to Work at the local level in a state where the Democrat-controlled legislature refuses to secure worker freedom and make the state more attractive to job creation by passing Right to Work statewide.  On October 31, a local Right to Work ordinance was introduced in Sussex County, Delaware.”

To read the entire article, please click here