What Is a Right to Work State, Research Paper Example

The influence of labor unions has long been an important topic in American politics. many people hold the opinion that labor unions pose a threat to individualism and fair politics due to their vast numbers and resources. A great many others believe that unions are not only conducive to fair politics, but that they the necessary and only proven method for securing decent wages and working conditions for American workers. The division in opinion, as the following discussion will show, is almost always along party lines with conservatives opposing the power of unions and liberals finding the unions to be positive and worth supporting. Due to this fact, Republican states are much more likely to enact legislation which limits or strips away the power of unions. One example of this tendency are the so-called “Right to Work” states. In these states, legislation has been passed which is meant to direct limit and challenge the power of workers’ unions.

In their article “ Union Influence and Right-to-Work Law Passage: Evidence from Hazard Model Estimates” (1993), Mixon & Ressler mention that the definition of a right to work state is that is is a state that has enacted right to work laws. The authors of the article define right to work laws as those which which limit the influence of unions. the authors note that “In states without right-to-work laws, unions can negotiate bargains and settlements that require new hires and previous hires to join the union as dues-paying members” (Mixon & Ressler, 1993, p.183). of course, the opposite is also true: in states with right to work laws, unions are unable to require workers to join a union and pay dues.

One of the reasons that right to work laws are so controversial is because many pro-labor advocates view these laws as a direct financial and existential threat to labor unions as a whole. According to those who favor unions, the fact that labor unions have historically successful at winning living-wages from employers and creating safe working environments for laborers is chief among the benefits of the influence that unions have had over American society and the American economy. These same advocates, as Mixon & Ressler point out, are certain of the fact that right to work laws are intended primarily to destroy unions and only secondarily concerned with workers. The authors write that those who oppose right to work laws “point out that right-to-work laws lower the probability that both bargaining unions, and to a lesser degree, nonbargaining unions will form” (Mixon & Ressler, 1993, p185). The absence of string unions means the absence of meaningful representation of workers’ needs and desires.

One of the primary duties of any workers’ union is to secure decent wages for its members. According to Mixon & Ressler, legislation was required in order to give unionized workers the legal ability to demand better wages and conditions. The article notes that “The passage in 1935 of the National Labor Relations Act prohibited employers from dismissing employees who join unions, and provided unions with the power to secure wage gains through collective bargaining” (Mixon & Ressler, 1993). This means that collective bargaining is one of the most important features of worker advocacy that exists in American society and that such a power is reserved by law. The associated reality to this fact is that collective bargaining puts an emphasis on numbers, so that the more workers who are part of a union, the stronger the union acts on behalf of workers.

Obviously, the adoption of right to work laws means that unions are unable to assure that all workers will be unionized. When this happens, many unions will be under-represented by workers in the field over which they are meant to have special influence on behalf of workers. The irony is that the right to work laws, far from extending a helping hand to workers, actually function as tools to diminish the power of the one known effective tool of worker empowerment: the labor union. Mixon & Ressler remark that the present state of unions, due to the use of right to work laws in many states, is much less powerful than the position they once held in the past. According to the authors, the erosion of overall influence by the unions has not yet completely stemmed their primary ability to earn better wages for their members. the article says that “Even with this decline, however, unions appear to have retained much of their former power in gaining wage premiums,” (Mixon & Ressler, 1993). This is important to keep in mind because it reflects the reality that workers’ wages are a primary focus of labor unions and that labor unions have historically been proven to deliver better wages to workers.

A closely related fact is that, as previously mentioned, the support for right to work laws is split along party lines. The fact that those who favor right to work laws are primarily Republican while those who oppose them are Democrat shows that the issue is actually one that persists between the ownership class and the working class. The Republican / owner ship class would like to restrict the wages earned by workers. Conversely, the Democrat /working class that stands against right to work laws would like to see the widespread increase of unions and collective bargaining. The basic fight can therefore accurately said to be based over conflicting economic philosophies and interests.

The reality of the political situation is that ‘a state with a large ratio of Democratic members in its lower house faced a significantly lower probability of right-to-work law presence than other states” (Mixon & Ressler, 1993). Therefore it is accurate to say that Democrats are more likely to support workers’ rights than Republicans. It is also true and accurate to suggest that the Democratic party is the workers’ party in the United States and the Republican party is the party of the owners, rather than the workers. The negative impact of the utilization of right to work laws is almost exclusively felt by unions and individual workers. This means that the right to work laws are laws that greatly favor the betterment and profit of the ownership class of society. The conservative Republicans who back right to work legislation must be considered staunch anti-unionists.

In practice, the use of right to work laws usually brings hardship to workers. As Smith reminds us in his article “Lobbying in a “Right-to-Work” State” (2008). the real threat of right to work laws is that they may shut down unions altogther. The article recounts the impact of right to work laws in the state of Tennessee and concludes that right to work laws “privilege the rights of employers to terminate employees at will and prohibit workers in several sectors from exercising their rights to organize a collective bargaining unit” (Smith, 2008). For this reason it is unrealistic to expect any strong supporter of unions or of labor in general to hold a positive opinion of the influence of right to work laws.

In final analysis, the right to work laws that have been legislated in a number of conservative states indicates an anti-union and anti-labor sentiment that has historically been a part of the conservative political agenda. As the party which represents the ownership class of society, the Republicans have adopted right to work laws as a method by which to seriously hamper and erode the power of labor unions. The basic idea of the right to work laws is to diminish the power of unions with an eye toward gaining lower wages for workers to increase owner profit. Those who campion right to work laws are effectively holding an open stance that puts workers in a less important role than the elite and wealthy few who employ them.

References

Mixon, F. G., Jr., & Ressler, R. W. (1993). Union Influence and Right-to-Work Law Passage:

Evidence from Hazard Model Estimates. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, 52(2), 183+.

Smith, A. W. (2008, November/December). Lobbying in a “Right-to-Work” State. Academe, 94(6), 41+.