Likely to end up with their fair share of earnings
Compensation is lower in these states because right-to-work laws weaken workers’ voices by limiting their ability to financially sustain unions. When workers have fewer opportunities to band together, they are less likely to end up with their fair share of earnings.
And it’s not just union workers who have lower wages and benefits in right-to-work states, but non-union workers as well. That’s because non-union employers must provide better wages in states where unions are more common in order to compete for the workers they need.
Proponents promise these laws will open the floodgates to new employment, but states that are right-to-work are not more effective at growing and attracting jobs. In fact, seven of the 11 states with the highest unemployment rates are right-to-work states, and 12 of the 15 states with the highest poverty rates. After Oklahoma passed right-to-work in 2001, its trend of growing manufacturing employment in the decade prior to the law was reversed.
What drives the creation of good jobs in states and localities is not a race to the bottom on wages, but completely different factors including the presence of a skilled workforce, a high quality of life and a modern infrastructure. Also, jobs are created when workers have money in their pockets to spend because of decent wages, which right-to-work inhibits.
While right-to-work laws won’t make businesses flock to the state, limiting workers’ voices will worsen the job quality challenges so many Kentuckians—and Americans—are facing. Real workers’ wages have barely grown for decades even as incomes soar at the top. Half of all income gains since 1979 have gone to the richest one percent. That’s not because of a lack of economic growth, but because the gains from growth are not being shared.
The plan to create so-called right-to-work laws is being orchestrated nationally by big corporate interests that are spending millions to make it happen. Leading the charge are organizations like the American Legislative Exchange Council and the Heritage Foundation that are funded by the Koch brothers and other billionaire elites. When unions are weaker, it’s easier for the wealthy and powerful to have their way at work sites and on a range of public policy issues affecting their bottom line.