Listen to union members: Protect right-to-work

OPINION:

Who speaks for workers? 

It’s an urgent question nationwide as federal and state lawmakers debate whether to repeal right-to-work laws – something the Michigan state legislature is doing right now. These laws free workers from being forced to join a union and pay dues, and unions invariably oppose them while claiming to advocate on workers’ behalf. Yet as our two very different states show, when workers – including union members – speak for themselves, they clearly say they want this freedom. Lawmakers should listen to them, not those who claim to speak on their behalf.

Right-to-work laws have been around for just over 75 years, and in that time, 27 states have embraced worker freedom. That includes our home states of Tennessee, which is deep red, and Michigan, which is purple-to-blue. Yet in the past few months, both states have seen coordinated union campaigns to undermine these laws on the grounds that right-to-work is wrong for workers. The same argument is being made by President Biden and D.C. Democrats, who’ve spent the last two years trying to pass a nationwide ban on state right-to-work laws.

There’s just one problem: Workers disagree. 

Consider what happened in Tennessee. Last November, voters got to choose whether to enshrine right-to-work in the state constitution. A staggering 70% of Tennesseans supported this amendment, yet what’s even more important is that it received majority support in every single county – including liberal and blue-collar ones. 

There’s only one way this could have happened: Union members themselves backed worker freedom. Sure enough, one of the state’s leading unions even acknowledged that it had polled its own members ahead of the election, and 58 percent said they planned to vote for the amendment. It’s telling when even union members don’t want to be forced into membership.

Then there’s Michigan. The Great Lakes State went right-to-work in 2012, and since then, union rolls have shrunk by more than 140,000 workers. In the November elections, union-backed Democrats won the governor’s race and majorities in the state house and senate for the first time since the 1980s. They’ve made repealing right-to-work one of their top goals, and with strong union support, they’re now moving legislation along.

But workers don’t want that. Two separate Mackinac Center polls found that voters want to keep right-to-work by a two-to-one margin. Tellingly, that includes 55% of Michigan union members – spot on with the results of the union-backed poll in Tennessee. In other words, the very people unions say they’re fighting for want the unions to stop fighting altogether.

It should come as no surprise that union members support this common-sense policy. They understand that right-to-work protects their right to join a union just as much as it does their decision not to do so. They also understand that if the union is not looking out for their best interests, they should never be forced to continue giving it their hard-earned money. 

And that’s why unions are fighting against their own members’ wishes. They want to keep workers’ money, which they can spend to elect governors and legislators who will protect them – a never-ending cycle where unions and union-backed politicians win. That inevitably means workers lose because no one is actually speaking for them. 

That’s not only unjust, it’s un-American. And whether it’s in our nation’s capital or a state capital, it’s time to acknowledge that workers and union members can speak for themselves – and they’re saying right-to-work is right for them.

• Michael J. Reitz is the executive vice president of the Mackinac Center, which helped lead the effort to pass Michigan’s right-to-work law in 2012. Justin Owen is president of the Beacon Center of Tennessee and recently led the Yes on 1 campaign to place right-to-work in the state’s constitution.