America needs the National Right to Work Act

OPINION:

Can you imagine being forced to join a union or pay dues to a union just to get or keep your job? This is the unfortunate reality for millions of Americans who want to work and bring home a paycheck for their loved ones and themselves.

That’s because millions of Americans lack the right-to-work protections that make union dues payments voluntary.

The right-to-work principle is simple: No worker should be forced to join or pay dues to a union to get or keep a job.

Fortunately, more and more Americans have such a choice.

In 2018, the Supreme Court’s Janus decision declared that the First Amendment protects every teacher, police officer, firefighter and other public sector worker from compulsory union payments.

For private sector workers in the 27 states with right-to-work laws on the books, most are protected from union officials’ “pay up or be fired” threats. That’s because the National Labor Relations Act, which covers most private sector employees, was reformed in 1947 to allow states to pass Right to Work laws.

But this leaves millions of private sector workers trapped under forced unionism where states haven’t passed right-to-work protections or where right-to-work laws don’t apply. The vast majority of such employees are in the 23 states without active right-to-work laws.

The next largest group of workers subjected to forced dues are those in the railway and airline industries. They are covered by the Railway Labor Act, which authorizes forced dues, even in right-to-work states.

Still, other employees who work on designated “exclusive federal enclaves,” including some military bases, are subject to forced dues because state right-to-work laws don’t apply there either.

To ensure that each and every worker in the nation gets to decide whether or not to pay money to union officials, Sen. Rand Paul and Rep. Joe Wilson have respectively sponsored Senate and House versions of the National Right to Work Act. This simple, one-page bill doesn’t add a single word to current federal law; it simply repeals the forced dues authorization language in the National Labor Relations Act and Railway Labor Act.

Ending the union bosses’ federally authorized power to force workers to pay up or be fired would be a win-win for the economy and for worker freedom. Polls show that about 80% of union members agree that workers “should never be forced or coerced to join or pay dues as a condition of employment.”

Americans overall agree, with polling consistently showing 70% or higher support among voters for right-to-work protections. In addition, right-to-work laws have a proven track record of stimulating economic growth.

For example, total employment growth in right-to-work states is nearly double (15.7% vs. 8.6%) that of forced-dues states, according to Labor Department statistics.

Of course, right-to-work protections also allow independent-minded workers to hold union bosses accountable. Given the option to stop paying dues to a union they do not support, workers can refuse to contribute financially to a union that does not benefit them. Union bosses should be forced to earn workers’ dues rather than rely on compulsion.

While today’s union officials zealously protect — and seek to expand — the power to coerce workers to pay up, it wasn’t always that way.

In fact, Samuel Gompers, who founded the American Federation of Labor, advocated voluntary, not coercive, unionism, saying: “I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty — the principles of voluntarism. No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.”

At a time when multi-thousand-page bills are sometimes voted on before they can even be read, the National Right to Work Act should be a welcome change: a straightforward, popular law that empowers American workers with more choice.

That’s why America needs the National Right to Work Act.

• Mark Mix is president of the National Right to Work Committee.