Right to work laws let employees decide whether they want to join a union on the job
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has joined with seven Republican colleagues in introducing the National Right to Work Act, arguing that right-to-work states are more prosperous than "forced-union" states.
'I think it's a fundamental freedom and fundamental proposition,' Sen. David Vitter said of a national right to work law. "To see the negative impacts of forced unionization, look no further than the struggling businesses in states whose laws allow it," said Vitter. "It can't be a coincidence that right-to-work states have on balance grown in population over the last 10 years, arguably at the expense of heavy union-favoring states."
But Louis Reine, president of the Louisiana AFL-CIO, said Vitter's line of argument left him puzzled.
"Where does Mr. Vitter live?" asked Reine, who said that Louisiana "has had right-to-work since 1976, we're losing a congressional district, we're not growing economically, we can't keep our educated people here."
According to the Census, Louisiana's population grew 1.4 percent in the last decade, ahead of only Michigan and Rhode Island, two heavily unionized states.
Other right-to-work states, like South Carolina, have boomed in the same period of time. Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., who is leading the National Right to Work effort, cited the findings of a study by Ohio University economist Richard Vedder, which appeared in the libertarian Cato Journal. It found that from 2000 to 2008, roughly 4.7 million Americans moved from non right-to-work to right-to-work states, and that between 1977 and 2007, there was a "very strong and highly statistically significant relationship between right-to-work laws and economic growth."
But, a study by the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal research group, touted by American Rights at Work, a coalition opposed to right-to-work laws, "wages in 'right-to-work' states are 3.2 percent less on average than in states without these laws, which have also been shown to drive down overall living standards in communities."
While Louisiana and some its sister right-to-work states remain among the poorest in the nation, Vitter said "that when you consider job growth and economic growth and the cost of living" his home state "provides a very good environment for good jobs and economic growth."
Right to work laws, on the books in 22 states, mostly in the South and West, allow employees to decide whether or not they want to join or pay dues to a union on the job, prohibiting employers form making union membership or dues a condition of employment. It effectively weakens unions, and, said Reine, enables individual employees to benefit from a collective bargaining agreement and union protections without having to pay the dues that helped enable them to gain those benefits.
Reine said he was surprised that Vitter and his conservative allies were seeking to impose right to work nationally. "All of a sudden he's not for states' rights," said Reine.
But Vitter said he felt it was necessary because of how important it was that people be protected from being forced to join a union.
"I think it's a fundamental freedom and fundamental proposition," said the senator.
Vitter said that while he felt public opinion - and the makeup of the House - was more favorably disposed toward enacting the bill than the last time it was introduced in the Congress before last, he recognized that it would be a great "challenge" to get the bill through the Democratic Senate.
In addition to DeMint and Vitter, the original co-sponsors of the bill are Sens. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rand Paul, R-Kentucky., James Risch, R-Idaho, and Pat Toomey, R-Penn.