Debate Nirvana

Right-to-work laws are about increasing the power of corporations while restricting the power of workers to join together in unions, rather than worker freedom or job creation. Right to work laws reduce workers' voices, drive down wages, and reduce the economic well being of workers. Right to work laws make it so that when big corporations are successful, all of the money goes to the county's wealthiest people and none of it gets shared with the workers. These laws make it possible for wealthy corporations to silence the voices of average americans by weakening their ability to join together in unions. According to The Economic Policy Institute “Right to work laws are designed to strip average american workers of their voices and keep wealthy corporations in power. These laws make it extremely difficult for workers to form unions to fight for better working conditions and better wages. Right to work laws give large corporations enormous power and leave workers with no ability to argue for better conditions”. According to the washington post, “So-called right-to-work laws have always been sold as all-American protections of individual freedoms. But they are in fact dangerous, confusing restrictions on Americans’ basic rights on the job. These statutes empower employers by undermining workers’ right to organize and rolling back the gains — better wages, working conditions and hours — that unions fought to secure”. For more than 70 years, supposedly nonpartisan groups, big businesses, wealthy donors and small firms have been devoting time and money to guarantee that Americans would have the right to work — for less. According to Forbes, “research shows that when governments support workers’ right to freely organize and advocate for themselves, the playing field between workers and corporations evens. Workers share in the profits they help create by bargaining for better wages and benefits. Workers and companies collaborate more, investing in training and other mutually beneficial improvements. And workers are better represented in the government and can advocate for policies that benefit everyday Americans”. According to the economist “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.

Right to work laws are very harmful to citizens in many ways. It makes it much more difficult to get employed, and even when they do they will make much less money than they would without RTW laws. These laws create a limit on the viability of the unions financially. Decreasing the ability to get good contracts and higher incomes with good benefits. These laws are very harmful to citizens and workers.  Wages in right-to-work states are 4.2% lower than those in non-RTW states, after controlling for a full complement of individual demographic and socioeconomic variables as well as state macroeconomic indicators. Using the average wage in non-RTW states as the base ($22.11), the average full-time, full-year worker in an RTW state makes about $3,500 less annually than a similar worker in a non-RTW state.The rate of employer-sponsored pensions is 4.8 percentage points lower in RTW states, using the full complement of control variables in our regression model. If workers in non-RTW states were to receive pensions at this lower rate, 3.8 million fewer workers nationally would have pensions. This would make it so much harder for employees, that would already make less, to retire .The biggest difference between workers in RTW and non-RTW states is the fact that workers in non-RTW states are more than twice as likely to be in a union or protected by a union contract. Average hourly wages, the prime variable of interest, are 16% higher in non-RTW states ($22.11 in non-RTW vs. $19.06 in RTW states). Median wages (not shown) are 14.4% higher in non- RTW states ($17.16 vs. $15.00). RTW laws have a statistically negative effect on the wages of nonunion workers. An analysis found by the washington post, nonunion workers in RTW states have wages that are 4% lower on average compared to that of non- RTW states. Seven of the 11 states with the highest unemployment rates have right-to-work laws on the books. According to a report from Ohio University, these laws actually led to a decrease in employment in certain industries.

The whole purpose of RTW laws are to provide employees freedom to stay out of a union, but this will be done even without the RTW laws, there is no purpose for them. These laws are damaging to citizens in many ways, while they aren't even doing anything good. If these laws are not even doing what they were intended to do, then there is no purpose of having them. According to American Progress Action, “The name “right to work” is a lie. The federal government already protects workers’ freedom not to join a union. Workers can decide to opt out of membership at a unionized workplace and pay a reduced fee that covers the costs the union pays to negotiate for wages and benefits and represent an employee if they have a problem at work. Opponents of unions frequently claim that workers who decline to join a union are still legally required to support that union’s political activities. In reality, however, these fees exclude the costs of political activities”. Also, regardless of where you live, the Supreme Court has ruled that you can resign union membership at any time. This means that even if you aren’t protected by right to work laws, you can still opt out of a union, further proving that RTW laws don’t resolve anything. Workers have the right, under the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), to refuse to join a union. Right-to-work laws undermined unions by outlawing seemingly obscure, often confusing contract clauses governing union negotiations. U.S. labor law dictates that nonunion members are covered by the contract that members negotiated and are also represented by the union during managerial disputes. But union negotiations require time and resources, which necessitate dues. “Union-shop” rules ensure everyone who benefits from the union helps pay for it (rather than free-ride on the contributions from others as happens without such membership provisos). Right-to-work laws effectively ban these rules, regardless of what management agrees to and what the majority of a union wants. Workplace Fairness says that “In states without Right-to-Work laws, the workers covered by a union contract can refuse to join the union and then pay the fees associated with the workplace bargaining.” “right to work” laws do not provide a general guarantee of employment to people seeking work, but rather they are a government ban on contractual agreements between employers and union employees, requiring workers to pay for the costs of union representation.