Right-to-work laws drain union coffers.

In America, working people have the freedom to band together with their co-workers to negotiate for a fair return on our work. We have the freedom to act together so can we speak with a more powerful voice. We have the freedom to join and form unions. Yet today, powerful interests want to take away that freedom. Corporate lobbyists have pushed federal and state-level policies deceptively named “Right to Work” laws that strip away the freedom to negotiate for a fair return on our work. These laws are designed to drain workers’ collective resources by requiring unions to provide representation to people who make no contribution to sustain the union. In essence, so-called “right to work” laws aim to silence working Americans, which causes their wages and working conditions to deteriorate, making it more difficult to sustain a family. Economists find that in states that have adopted these laws, the typical full-time worker is paid $1,500 a year less than their counterpart in a state that has not undermined workers’ rights.1

This Demos Explainer clarifies what misleadingly named “right to work” laws do, how they silence workers’ collective voice, and what their impact has been in states that adopt them. We also explore the roots of this anti-worker policy in efforts to cut wages and solidify racial divisions among workers in the Jim Crow South. Today, as “right to work” laws are promoted in a growing number of states and in the U.S. Congress, Demos aims to ensure that elected leaders, the media, and ordinary Americans understand the true nature of this policy.

What do “right to work” laws do?

So-called “right to work” laws undermine workers’ freedom to band together and form unions with the resources workers need to speak with a powerful voice. These laws are designed to drain resources from workers’ organizations by allowing people to benefit from union representation without paying for it.

Under “right to work,” unions are required to represent all employees, but are not allowed to require any type of payment in return. Over time, this weakens unions: people who pay nothing drain the union’s resources, jeopardizing its ability to advocate for employees’ interests as effectively. While it is not impossible for unions to exist and even thrive in states with “right to work” laws, the absence of a steady income from all represented employees places a significant limit on workers’ ability to speak out.

Can workers be required to join unions?

The Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 states that no one is required to join a union to be employed anywhere in the United States. However, when workers form a union to negotiate with their employer over wages, benefits, and conditions on the job, the union must represent everyone employed in the workplace, even workers who choose not to become union members. As a result, workers who don’t join the union still receive all the advantages of higher wages and better benefits that the union achieves through negotiation. What’s more, if a worker in a union workplace has a dispute with management, the union must use its resources to represent the worker’s case, even if that worker has decided not to join the union.

In return for the services which the union is obligated by law to provide, workers who decide not to join the union in their workplace may be required to pay a fee for union representation. These fees cannot be used for political purposes or to organize new groups of workers—they simply reimburse the union for the cost of representing a non-member. At their core, what “right to work” laws do is allow workers to avoid paying their share of the cost of representation by the union.