'Right to Work' Laws

Labor Studies Journal 2015, Vol. 40(4) 297 –318

© 2015 UALE Reprints and permissions:

sagepub.com/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/0160449X15622702

lsj.sagepub.com

Introduction

Right-to-Work Laws, the Southernization of U.S. Labor Relations and the U.S. Trade Union Movement’s Decline

Victor G. Devinatz1

Abstract This article provides a framework for explaining why the right-to-work (RTW) movement is thriving in the twenty-first century’s second decade while outlining how RTW has negatively impacted the U.S. trade union movement. I argue that the recent growth of the RTW movement is due to the Southernization of U.S. labor relations that has led to not only an assault on private sector unionism but on public employee unionism as well. After presenting recent developments concerning RTW legislation, the roots of the Southernization of U.S. labor relations are discussed followed by sections outlining the historical development of the Southernization of both the U.S. working class and U.S. politics before presenting the effects of the Southernization of U.S. labor relations. The article’s penultimate section reports on the major economic effects of RTW legislation, primarily through outlining three RTW hypotheses and the associated empirical evidence. The final section proposes a methodology for potentially dealing with the RTW movement given the Southernization of U.S. labor relations.

Keywords compulsory unionism, labor law, collective bargaining

The history of right-to-work (RTW) laws spans more than 70 years with Arkansas and Florida being the first two states to implement RTW legislation in 1944. By 1976, all of the former states of the Confederacy had adopted a RTW law (Holmes 1998) with Louisiana being the last one to join this group. Although RTW legislation was

1Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA

Corresponding Author: Victor G. Devinatz, Department of Management and Quantitative Methods, College of Business, Illinois State University, Normal, IL 61790-5580, USA. Email: vgdevin@ilstu.edu

622702LSJXXX10.1177/0160449X15622702Labor Studies JournalDevinatz research-article2015

298 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

implemented in Arkansas and Florida by state statute, Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act (1947), which amended the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA, 1935), allowed states to pass RTW laws that prohibited compulsory unionism. This legislation pre- vents unions and employers from including union security clauses in labor contracts such as union shop provisions that require all employees to join the union after con- cluding a mandatory probationary period if they wish to retain their employment with the company. Agency shop clauses, which require nonmembers to tender a fee to the labor organization for collective bargaining coverage, is another form of union secu- rity disallowed under RTW legislation.

The changing political climate at the end of the twenty-first century’s first decade, specifically after the 2010 elections brought Republican-dominated legislatures and Republican governors to power, has given new life to the RTW movement. In 2011, some eighteen state legislatures, including those of Maine, New Hampshire, and Missouri, introduced RTW legislation (Schaper 2011). At this time, with high unem- ployment persisting nearly three years after the beginning of the 2008 Financial Crisis, the proponents of such laws argued that RTW legislation was beneficial for workers because it stimulated economic growth. In a similar spirit, in March 2011, there was the introduction of a National Right-to-Work Act before the U.S. Congress (Needham 2011). Although no additional states adopted RTW laws in 2011, two states passed such legislation in 2012 after being considered by nineteen states that year (Chokshi 2015).

On February 1, 2012, Governor Mitch Daniels signed a RTW bill that had passed Indiana’s Senate by a twenty-eight vote to twenty-two vote margin after winning pas- sage in the House by a fifty-four to forty-four vote, making it the first “rust belt” state to adopt such a law (Schneider and Sikich 2012). Despite the presence of large-scale protests in early 2012, this was the second time that Indiana has passed RTW legisla- tion; the first time occurred in 1957 with the original law being repealed in 1965 (Varga 2014, 28-32). In spite of massive protests against implementing such legisla- tion, the second state to pass RTW legislation in 2012 was Michigan on December 11, becoming the nation’s twenty-fourth state to adopt such a law. Rushed through a lame- duck legislature, which refused to study the bill in committee combined with a debate lasting not even a week (Egan and Gray 2012), this represented a severe blow to a struggling U.S. trade union movement. Michigan had given birth to the United Auto Workers (UAW) whose historic Flint sit-down strike at General Motors from December 1936 to February 1937 helped build the nascent Congress of Industrial Organizations. Piercing what had been one of labor’s industrial strongholds, leaders feared that this action would only embolden other conservative politicians in nearby states to pass similar legislation.

Although RTW legislation was introduced in twenty-one states in 2013 and in twenty states in 2014, no additional states adopted such laws during these two years (Chokshi 2015; National Conference of State Legislatures 2015). However, early in 2015, another Midwestern state succumbed to RTW legislation. Leaders of the Wisconsin state legislature announced on February 20, 2015, that it would hold a leg- islative session for quickly considering and voting on a RTW law. While the states’

Devinatz 299

unions mobilized for the fight by running television advertisements and organizing rallies in Madison, the state Senate approved the measure in a seventeen to fifteen vote on February 25 (O’Brien 2015). On February 28, a protest of two thousand people was held. Less than one week later on March 6, the state assembly voted, along party lines, sixty-two to thirty-five in favor of RTW legislation with Governor Scott Walker sign- ing the bill into law on March 9 (Stein and Kissinger 2015).

While RTW legislation was introduced in sixteen state legislatures in 2015 (Szal 2015), a different strategy for promoting such laws emerged in two states, at the end of 2014 and the beginning of 2015. With RTW proponents in Kentucky realizing that it would be virtually impossible to implement statewide legislation as long as Democrats dominated the state’s House of Representatives, five counties in the state passed RTW ordinances beginning in December 2014 (Gerth 2015). Warren County was the first of these counties to pass the ordinance with Simpson, Fulton, Todd, and Hardin counties following shortly thereafter (Gerth 2015; Sherk 2014). In Illinois, Governor Bruce Rauner faced the same predicament as his gubernatorial counterpart from Kentucky; he is a Republican governor confronting a Democratic-controlled state legislature. While touring the state, Rauner called for the implementation of “employment opportunity zones” that would grant cities and counties the right to pro- vide workers with the opportunity to not have to pay either union dues or agency shop fees even if they were represented by unions (Glawe 2015).

Besides individual states considering the passage of RTW legislation, the threat exists that a RTW regime will be extended to cover all U.S. public sector workers with the U.S. Supreme Court deciding to hear Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association during its 2015-2016 term. Assuming that a majority of the Supreme Court justices side with the plaintiff in this case, the 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education deci- sion will be reversed. In Abood, the Supreme Court determined that when a public sector union delivers services such as negotiating contracts and processing grievances that benefits both union members and nonmembers, the nonmembers could be required to pay the union a “fair share” or “agency shop” fee in exchange for these services. Therefore, if the Supreme Court decides in Friedrich’s favor, this would legally allow public employees to become “free riders” meaning that these workers would receive benefits without paying for them (Moberg 2015).

The petitioners’ argument in Friedrichs is that school districts in California violate public school teachers’ First Amendment rights because they have negotiated con- tracts with teachers’ unions that require that all teachers in the bargaining unit pay “fair share” fees for the collective bargaining representation that they receive whether the teachers are union members or not (Fisk 2015). The crux of the argument is that all costs associated with public sector bargaining are “political” because taxes cover the salaries, benefits, and pensions of public employees. Thus, requiring bargaining unit members who do not support the union to financially back any union interactions with the government means that they are paying for “ideological speech” (Epps 2015).

Labor law scholars have speculated whether a fifth vote exists in support of the plaintiffs in Friedrichs. Ultimately, the case may hinge on Justice Antonin Scalia. In Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association, Justice Scalia noted that if the union cannot

300 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

require union objectors to pay fees, then the duty of fair representation forces union members to subsidize these costs (Fisk 2015). Of course, even if “fair share” fees are maintained, it also is possible that the U.S. Supreme Court could rule that employees are required to opt in for these fees to be collected (Marvit 2015).

What were the factors that led to many states throughout the country proposing RTW legislation during the period after 2010? I argue that this development was the result of the “Southernization” of U.S. labor relations. The Southernization of U.S. labor relations has not only resulted in an attack on private section unionism through the spread of RTW (and proposed RTW) legislation in states that used to be considered union strongholds but represents an antipathy to public employee unionism as well. It is not merely a coincidence that the appearance of RTW legislation in more states dur- ing the last several years occurred at a time when public sector unions as a whole have come under their biggest assault since achieving collective bargaining rights from the 1960s through the 1980s. It is my belief that the growth of the RTW movement is due to the Southernization of U.S. labor relations. I further argue that the Southernization of labor relations is ultimately the result of the Southernization of U.S. politics and the country’s working class. RTW is part of the whole package of anti-union policies that has occurred due to the Southernization of U.S. politics.

In the essay that follows, the roots of the Southernization of U.S. labor relations are discussed followed by sections outlining the historical development of the Southernization of both the U.S. working class and U.S. politics. After these sections, the effects of the Southernization of U.S. labor relations will be examined. The essay also reports on the major economic effects of RTW legislation, primarily by outlining three hypotheses for the existence of RTW laws and the associated empirical evidence. Additionally, I propose a methodology for trade unions in potentially dealing with the RTW movement given the Southernization of U.S. labor relations. In closing, a brief introduction of the articles featured in this special issue of the Labor Studies Journal on the spread of RTW in the Midwest is presented.

The Roots of the Southernization of U.S. Labor Relations

In order to understand why RTW laws emerged and historically have been more preva- lent in the Southern states, one must examine the origins of the South’s political econ- omy. The most distinguishing attribute in this regard is the predominance of slavery as the foundation for an economic system that survived for 250 years until the Civil War’s conclusion in 1865. Besides being based on “exploitation of people and natural resources,” the South’s relatively closed society was controlled initially by a “planta- tion oligarchy,” later replaced by an “industrial oligarchy,” which not only restricted the economy’s dynamism but the region’s industrial variation as well (Cummings 1998, 14).

Hogler (2015, 15) has argued that culture, through various mechanisms, has been a decisive factor in the support for and the passage of RTW laws in many states. Specifically, he contends that “slavery and its underlying social structures” instilled viewpoints that created the basis of “hierarchical individualism as a worldview.” This

Devinatz 301

is seen more prominently in the former Confederate states, which as stated earlier in the paper are all RTW states, as opposed to the “non-slave states” that results in differ- ences in “measures of social characteristics.” The former slave-holding states of the South possess, according to Hogler, decreased levels of union density, lower degrees of generalized trust, higher amounts of religiosity, a much greater likelihood of having RTW laws, and the propensity to violate labor law in opposing unions when compared with non-slave states.

In the comparison of the slave and the non-slave states, the measures that explicitly pertain to labor relations are the reduced levels of union density, the greater chance of possessing RTW laws, and the tendency to engage in unfair labor practices when oppos- ing unions. I would argue that these measures, although still more likely to appear in the former Confederate states, have spread beyond these borders and are increasingly becoming characteristics that essentially describe many more states in this nation.

In order to understand the roots of these developments, we need to examine the role of the South in the passage of New Deal legislation during the 1930s. Because Abraham Lincoln had been a Republican, the Democratic Party came to dominate Southern poli- tics. In order for Franklin Delano Roosevelt (FDR) to get his New Deal legislation implemented, he depended upon the support of Southern Democrats in both the U.S. Senate and the House. To do this, however, FDR had to make sure that New Deal leg- islation did not threaten to overturn the racial hierarchy existing in the then-Jim Crow South. The key piece of labor legislation, the NLRA (or the Wagner Act), which pro- vided the vast majority of private sector employees with the legal right to unionize and to collectively bargain with employers, excluded agricultural and domestic employ- ees. These two groups of employees were not provided with protection under the Wagner Act because these industries were prominent in the South and were composed primarily of African-American employees. Thus, the Southern Democratic politicians feared that the unionization of these industries would potentially undermine the South’s racial hierarchy (Katznelson 2013, 259-60; 2015, 235).

A similar type of reasoning led to Southern states being the first ones to implement RTW laws less than a decade after the passage of the NLRA. Dixon (2007, 314) has argued that RTW legislation in the South during the 1940s emerged out of an anti- union climate in response to the revival of the U.S. trade union movement that threat- ened to overturn the region’s racial status quo. Similarly, Shermer (2012, 115) contends that the RTW referenda held in the Southern states in the years after World War II were not motivated by economics per se but were about the maintenance “of the political power of the agricultural elite and the Jim Crow order.” According to Shermer (2012, 120), the growth of a multiracial industrial unionism, as represented through the Congress of Industrial Organizations, which advocated for racial equality, threatened to overturn the white supremacist nature of Southern society and its political economy. One of the founders of the movement, Vance Muse, expressed concern that the dra- matic rise of industrial unionism in the 1930s would lead to multiracial labor organiza- tions. According to Muse, “From now on, white women and white men will be forced into organizations with black African apes whom they will have to call ‘brother’ or lose their jobs” (Ames 2012).

302 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

In the early 1940s, the first organization to promote RTW legislation was the Houston-based Christian American Association (CAA), which had strong ties to the Texas Ku Klux Klan and the American Legion (Ames 2012). After reading a 1941 Labor Day editorial appearing in the Dallas Morning News that advocated for a con- stitutional amendment allowing for the open shop, Muse became an inspired propo- nent of RTW laws resulting in the CAA promoting the passage of this legislation as its major cause. The organization proceeded to push for the adoption of such laws not only in Texas but throughout the nation as well (Dixon 2007, 314, 321). Working with the CAA on RTW legislation was not Muse’s first, and only, political involvement. He worked against women’s suffrage, the child-labor amendment, the eight-hour workday in addition to successfully dividing the Democratic Party in the South by winning segregationists and racists away from New Deal policies (Ames 2012).

While the passage of RTW legislation in the South was connected to the mainte- nance of white supremacy in the region, the strategies adopted by proponents of the RTW laws in the 1940s and 1950s in the western portion of the Sunbelt states, specifi- cally Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, and California, were substan- tially different (Shermer 2012, 115). In Nevada’s 1952 RTW campaign, which passed with 51 percent of voters supporting the initiative, for example, advocates stressed the un-American nature of the union shop (Shermer 2012, 130). In 1958 in California, the RTW law’s proponents argued that implementation would enable workers to remove corrupt union officials from leadership positions. The concern over union corruption was a major issue in the late 1950s with the McClellan Committee’s investigation of racketeering within the unions. Additionally, as voting approached in the RTW refer- endum, supporters reached out to African-American communities contending that the legislation’s passage could be used to fight racial discrimination found in labor orga- nizations. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People vigor- ously opposed RTW laws and published pamphlets such as one titled “Keep Mississippi out of California!” which sought to refute this argument by connecting RTW forces with those of Southern racism. Moreover, the pamphlet contended that those groups who favored RTW laws were the same ones that opposed implementation of fair employment practice laws. While RTW went down to defeat in California, voting results from primarily African-American precincts indicated that opposition to the measure was significantly greater in these areas (e.g., South Central Los Angeles) than from all voters as a whole within the state (Schiller 2012).

The Southernization of the U.S. Working Class and of U.S. Politics

The origins of the Southernization of the U.S. working class began with World War II’s onset. While more has been written about the Great Migration of the nearly 3.7 million African-American workers from the South to large metropolises in the Northeast and North Central states, much less attention has been focused on the exo- dus of white Southern workers to the North Central and Western states during this same period. Most of these Southerners departed during and after World War II

Devinatz 303

(Gregory 1998, 137) and we need to consider the effect that these white Southern migrants had on the Northern working class.

The majority of white Southerners left from the border South and Appalachia obtain- ing jobs as industrial workers in generally smaller cities, moving when they could to suburban enclaves. By 1970, these white Southern-transplanted workers were dispro- portionately found in skilled blue-collar occupations in industries that were unionized, stable, and well compensated. In Michigan’s auto industry, for example, more than fifty thousand Southern-born white workers labored, representing approximately one-quar- ter (24%) of all Southern men in the state’s labor force (Gregory 1998, 137, 139, 142).

The medium through which the Southernization of the U.S. working class helped to set the stage for the Southernization of U.S. politics was through the three presidential campaigns of arch-segregationist George Wallace (1964, 1968, and 1972) that contrib- uted to an increase in conservatism among the unionized Northern working class. Gregory (1998, 145) states that these transplanted southerners “played a critical role” in serving as the “start-up audience and campaign cadre” (146) for Wallace’s 1968 campaign that was the major foray of his three presidential efforts.

Wallace’s support among the white working class and white union members was significant. Wallace appealed to these workers, who had “been hard-core Democrats backing liberal social legislation” that promoted their “economic self-interests” (Lesher 1994, 412), because they believed that Wallace would effectively deal with the break- down of “law and order” that they perceived the Democrats had not dealt with effec- tively. Although Wallace did not employ “ideological racism” and rarely referenced African Americans in his election rhetoric (Lipset and Raab 1970, 344), his campaign did play upon the fears generated by race at the time. On September 10, 1968, one of the UAW’s largest locals—Local 326 in Flint, Michigan—endorsed Wallace by a huge mar- gin. In UAW locals in New Jersey and Illinois, polls discovered that Wallace achieved membership support of 80 percent and 90 percent, respectively (Lesher 1994, 412).

Moreover, a clandestine poll conducted by the American Federation of Labor– Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) in the middle of September indicated that one-third of union members backed Wallace while a Chicago Sun Times survey occurring at the same time found that 44 percent of Chicago’s white steel workers sup- ported Wallace with labor-endorsed Hubert Humphrey garnering under 30 percent in second place. In response, the AFL-CIO’s Committee on Political Education launched a massive mailing campaign to union members arguing that Wallace was enticing Northern jobs to relocate in Alabama, a RTW state with low wages and regressive taxes (Carter 1995, 351-52). While these tactics were successful in peeling off white unionists’ support for Wallace as the election approached, he still received 22 percent of white union members’ votes in 1968 (Greenberg 2005, 47). It is unclear what por- tion of this percentage is composed of Southern migrants.

What is clear, however, is that those who were less economically well off and pos- sessed lower levels of education had more favorable views of Wallace than those from higher income groups with more formal education. As such, “manual workers” were more pro-Wallace than those from the “nonmanual middle class” (Lipset and Raab 1970, 359, 361).

304 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

Driven by internal patterns of migration and white Northern fears of eroding civil order, the Southernization of the U.S. working class emerged. The working class, com- posed of second-generation “new immigrant(s),” that had built the CIO in the mid to the late 1930s was replaced by a working class consisting of these workers’ offspring mixed together with the Southern migrant workers and their progeny (van Elteren 2006, 98). This remaking of the working class would ultimately reshape politics at both the national and state levels, severely hampering the three-decade labor-liberal coalition that first emerged to support FDR in the 1936 presidential election.

Using a portion of Wallace’s tactics during his presidential campaign, Richard Nixon developed his “Southern Strategy” that led to his election in 1968. Nixon opposed the use of busing to end school desegregation, took a strong stand in favor of “law and order,” and called for the nomination of conservatives to the U.S. Supreme Court (Cummings 1998, 12). Nixon’s victory resulted from combining the “conserva- tive Republican North with conservative Sunbelt States, with the Deep South at its core” (van Elteren 2006, 99). With Wallace forced out of the 1972 presidential race due to an attempted assassination, Nixon perfected his presidential election strategy by focusing his campaign on “crime, busing, drugs, welfare and inflation.” In November, Nixon achieved an overwhelming electoral victory by not only winning every Southern state but all other states as well except Massachusetts (Cummings 1998, 13-14).

Nixon’s “Southern Strategy” prepared the way for the Southernization of U.S. poli- tics and the dominance of “Sunbelt Republicans” over the past several decades. Although Democrat Jimmy Carter attained the U.S. presidency in 1976, he was from the Deep South and carried six of the eleven former Confederate states with the sup- port of Christian Evangelicals. In 1980 and 1984, Sunbelt Republicans such as Ronald Reagan was elected twice with George Bush, Sr. winning in 1988 and George Bush, Jr. achieving the presidency twice in 2000 and 2004. Even though Bill Clinton was elected twice in 1992 and 1996, he was also a white Southerner and a “New Democrat” who governed as an “Eisenhower Republican” restricted by a largely Republican Congress (Cummings 1998, 14; van Elteren 2006, 99).

Although Obama attained the presidency twice in 2008 and 2012, the Southernization of U.S. politics had spread to non-Southern states as indicated by the election results in November 2010. During the 2010, 2012, and 2014 votes, the Republicans added a total of 913 state legislative seats to their ranks. As of November 2014, Republicans now have complete control of thirty state legislatures while achieving total control of the state government (the governorship and the state legislature) in twenty-three states. By comparison, the Democrats, exert full control of just eleven state legislatures and total control of state government in only seven states (Cillizza 2015). This Republican domination of state-level government has led not only to the introduction of RTW legislation but to the vigorous attack on public employee unionism as well.

Other Effects of the Southernization of U.S. Labor Relations

The Southernization of U.S. labor relations has not just resulted in proposed, and the passage of, RTW legislation in more states but also has led to an attack on unionism as

Devinatz 305

a whole. The recent assault on public sector unionism occurred as a result of the Great Recession of 2007 to 2009, which was worsened by the fall 2008 financial crisis. Plummeting tax revenues, high levels of unemployment, and also the perception that government spending had become exorbitant led radio and television commentators, magazines, and newspapers to denounce public employee unions as the cause for this alleged uncontrolled government spending. The title of an article, supporting public employees, which appeared in The New Republic, summed up this negative attitude toward governmental workers: “Why Public Employees Are the New Welfare Queens” (Cohn 2010).

Upon Republicans achieving major electoral gains in the 2010 midterm elections, warning shots were fired by Rick Snyder, Michigan’s newly elected Republican gov- ernor, who commented in December 2010 that he would halt “public-sector over- spending” through the reduction of the “excessive compensation for public-sector employees, including schoolteachers.” Moreover, he contended that, because of the precarious nature of the national economy, private sector employers and employees “have made many sacrifices” so it was now appropriate for public employees to do likewise (Bell 2010).

Beginning in February 2011, things heated up with state governments, such as Wisconsin and Ohio, initiating unprecedented attacks on public sector unionism (Davey and Greenhouse 2011; Edwards and Brennan 2011) leading to a spirited defense by public and private sector unionists in support of public sector collective bargaining and the rebirth of a rank and file militancy that has not been seen for more than two decades. For several weeks in the winter of 2011, rallies in Madison attracted crowds of up to one hundred thousand people at the same time that thousands of sup- porters occupied the state capitol in an attempt to force Governor Scott Walker and the Republican-dominated legislature to jettison proposed legislation (Sewell 2011) that would severely restrict state employees’ collective bargaining rights.

Although the most vicious assaults against public employee unions took place in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Indiana, these attacks were not limited to only these three states in 2011. As reported by the National Conference of State Legislatures, bills were intro- duced in forty-three states that sought to restrict public sector bargaining in some kind of meaningful way (Hendee 2011). The proposed legislation in these states sought to accomplish one or more of the following objectives: (1) terminate public employee collective bargaining, (2) restrict the issues over which public employee unions would be allowed to negotiate, (3) raise the pension contributions and/or health insurance premiums of state employees, and (4) increase the retirement age for government workers.

Economic Research on the Effects of RTW Legislation

There has been much economic research that has been conducted concerning the effects of RTW laws, a good portion of which has been summarized in two compre- hensive reviews of the literature written by Moore and Newman (1985) and by Moore (1998). While most of this material will not be presented here, I will outline three hypotheses— the taste hypothesis, the free rider hypothesis, and the bargaining power

306 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

hypothesis—presented by Moore and Newman (1985), in an attempt to provide a framework for guiding empirical research in explaining the economic effects of the implementation of RTW laws. I will then use research conducted on RTW legislation to demonstrate how such laws have weakened unions and contributed to their decline in the United States.

The taste hypothesis argues that RTW laws are found in states where employees, residents, and employers possess strong anti-union sentiments. Because the existence of such legislation indicates all of the state’s actors’ opposition to unionism, this hypothesis postulates that RTW laws do not independently affect either the demand or the supply of union representation and subsequently does not decrease the number of union members per se. Thus, enmity toward unionism, rather than a RTW law’s pres- ence, results in less employee demand for union representation. The free rider hypoth- esis contends that a RTW law elevates the costs of forming and running a labor organization because provisions for requiring the payment of union dues or fees can no longer be negotiated in contracts. Because of the existence of free riders, all else being equal, the outcome will lead to a reduction in the supply of union services and a lower union density in RTW states vis-à-vis non-RTW states. Finally, the bargaining power hypothesis postulates that RTW laws undermine the unions’ collective bargain- ing power because with fewer union members, the ability to conduct strikes is weak- ened. The lack of a viable strike threat reduces the labor organization’s ability to provide its union members with maximum benefits that leads to employees having lower motivation levels to affiliate with the union. This then results in a decreased demand for union services (Moore and Newman 1985).

The results from research concerning the effects of RTW legislation demonstrates that there is mixed evidence with regard to the taste hypothesis while there is empirical support for the free rider and bargaining power hypotheses. Examining state-level union densities, Collins (2014, 8) points out that when Michigan’s RTW law was implemented in 2012, the state’s unionization rate was 16.6 percent, which was much higher than the 11.2 percent national average at the time. However, when he examines the three states in which RTW legislation was passed between 1976 and 2001, he finds that they all possessed union densities below the national average: “Oklahoma (6.9% vs. 13.0% in 2000), Idaho (12.2% vs. 18.2% in 1985), and Louisiana (16.9% vs. 24.6% in 1975)” (Collins 2014, 8-9). Moreover, a number of studies have used variables, such as U.S. Congressional voting records concerning union legislation or the exis- tence of state public sector collective bargaining laws, and discovered that RTW leg- islation had little effect on state-level union densities. This finding provides additional backing for the taste hypothesis (Moore and Newman 1985).

One might inquire why historically there have been much lower levels of union preference, or taste for unions, in RTW states, which until fairly recently have been concentrated in the South. One reason, as already mentioned in this article, is Hogler’s (2015, 15) argument that the culture in the states of the former Confederacy is one of “hierarchical individualism as a worldview.” Another reason, however, might be related to the fact that there has been much less union exposure in the South than in other regions in the country. After the tremendous growth of industrial unionism in the

Devinatz 307

United States from 1935 to 1945, the only geographic region in the country that remained largely nonunion after the end of World War II was the South. The CIO rec- ognized this problem and launched the largely unsuccessful Operation Dixie in the spring of 1946 in an attempt to unionize Southern industry.

The organizing drive failed for primarily three reasons. Due to Jim Crow laws and the pervasive racism among white workers, it was extremely difficult for white and African-American workers to achieve the unity required to organize unions. Additionally, the implementation of the anti-labor Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 made it easier for employers to oppose union organizing campaigns. Finally, the presence of the Cold War and the anti-Communism it encouraged harmed not only the Left but unions as well (Boswell et al. 2006, 167-72, 176-78; Griffith 1988, 140, 145, 173).

Freeman and Rogers (2006) have demonstrated that membership in a union actu- ally leads to positive feelings concerning labor organizations. For example, based on data from their Worker Representation and Participation Survey, they discovered that 90 percent of existing union members would cast a ballot in favor of being represented by a union if a National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) certification election was conducted the following day at their place of employment.

One explanation for this finding is based on the “to know them is to love them” hypothesis. Unions often win certification elections, by only a slim margin, and sub- sequently, the support of employees who voted against the union is only attained after the union has gained employer recognition and has been involved in negotiating and administering collective bargaining agreements. In most cases, workers are willing to support a union in a decertification election; this means that they must be at least mini- mally satisfied with how the union is carrying out its primary functions in representing them (Freeman and Rogers 2006). Thus, one can conclude that if employees had a greater degree of union exposure, they would have a greater preference, or taste, for unionism.

Gallup polls results indicate, however, that taste for unionism is not necessarily the same thing as opposition to RTW legislation. According to an August 2014 Gallup poll, 71 percent of Americans would vote in favor of RTW legislation if given the chance while 22 percent would cast ballots against such a law if allowed. However, results from the same August 2014 poll indicate that 53 percent of Americans approve of unions while 38 percent disapprove (Jones 2014).

The 2014 approval rate of unions, unsurprisingly, is down from the high of 75 per- cent attained in the late 1950s (when U.S. union density had reached its apex) based on the eighty-year history of this Gallup poll question. However, compared to the polls’ results regarding support for RTW legislation in 1957, the outcome is not, sur- prisingly, much different. In that year, 62 percent would cast ballots in favor of RTW legislation while 27 percent would vote against implementing such a law (Jones 2014).

One would expect, however, that feelings concerning the approval of unions and support for RTW legislation would be related to political party affiliation. For Democrats, 77 percent approve of unions while 19 percent are opposed; for indepen- dents, the corresponding figures are 47 and 40 percent, respectively, while 32 percent of Republicans approve of unions while 57 percent disapprove of them. This

308 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

relationship, nevertheless, does not hold up with regard to whether one would vote for or against RTW legislation if given the choice. For Democrats, 65 percent support RTW laws while 30 percent are opposed; Independents are in favor of RTW legislation by a margin of 77 percent to 17 percent while for Republicans, the figures are 74 per- cent and 18 percent, respectively (Jones 2014).

The latter results demonstrating that a majority of Democrats who support unions are also in favor of RTW laws appear to be compatible with one of the major conten- tions of RTW advocates. Their argument is that any form of required financial support in exchange for union-derived benefits should be viewed as “compulsory unionism” and an unfair limitation on employee free choice. On the surface this appears to be consistent with U.S. labor legislation. According to Greer and Baird (2003), the NLRA, which allows employees the right to democratically vote in a union, also pro- vides them with the opportunity to choose to not engage in any type of union activity if they so desire. Thus, the requirements to either join a union or to pay even some portion of union dues interferes with employee free choice that may lead employees to believe that a labor relations system allegedly established to serve their interests is inherently undemocratic (Delaney 1998).

With regard to the free rider hypothesis, much evidence exists that free riders are much more prevalent in RTW states than in compulsory union states throughout the years. Moore (1998, 453-54) cites the percentages of free riders, defined as nonmem- bers, from specific studies conducted in the 1980s and 1990s. During the 1970s, RTW states had 13.3 percent free riders while the comparable figure for non-RTW states was 7.5 percent (Katz 1985); in 1985, the corresponding amounts were 15.5 percent and 6.4 percent (Davis and Huston 1995) while from 1989-1991, the percentages were 17.3 and 7.4, respectively (Sobel 1995). Additionally, according to Davis and Huston’s (1993) research, if RTW legislation was abolished, the percentages of free riders in RTW states would dramatically decrease from 15.5 percent to 7.2 percent.

Considerable variation also exists in free riding within RTW states and among groups of employees who possess different demographic characteristics. According to Sobel (1995), South Dakota had the greatest amount at 38.9 percent while the lowest level was found in Georgia at 9.1 percent. Women, public, and white-collar workers have a greater predilection to free ride while older employees with more years of work experience or job tenure are less likely to free ride (Moore 1998).

A major assumption of all of the research cited above is that if bargaining unit members are unwilling to join unions, they are automatically considered to be free riders (Moore 1998). Sobel (1995) argues that this is not necessarily the case and that one must distinguished between what he labels “true free riders” and “induced free riders.” The first group is defined as employees who would join the union if they were prevented from obtaining union benefits; these free riders value union services more than the cost of becoming a union member. The second group is defined as employees who would refuse to join a union if forced and would seek nonunion employment opportunities because they value union services less than the cost of having to become a union member. Therefore, if RTW laws were abolished and union shops were formed, within the free rider population only the “true free riders” would become new union

Devinatz 309

members. Sobel (1995) has calculated that, at most, just 30 percent of nonmembers can be classified as “true free riders” while the remaining 70 percent of nonmembers categorized as “induced free riders.” Based on this analysis, Sobel (1995) argues that eliminating RTW laws would increase union membership by a small amount. While Sobel (1995) does not specifically define “covered nonmembers” in non-RTW states, we can assume that these individuals would be those present in work places where neither a union shop nor an agency shop security clause is contained in the collective bargaining agreement.

There is also empirical support for the bargaining power hypothesis. Despite the variation across labor organizations with respect to union dues and fees, as cited by Delaney (1998, 431), Bennett (1991) calculates annual per-capita dues and fees to be $444 while Masters (1997) provides a significantly lower estimation of only $105. Assuming that there were approximately two million free riders in 1995, this means that union revenue would be reduced anywhere between $209 million and $882 mil- lion compared with the amount of money that would be collected if all the covered nonmembers were required to tender their dues and fees to the unions (Delaney 1998). This lower level of union funding negatively impacts the unions’ capacity to engage in strikes thus reducing the labor organizations’ bargaining power in RTW states.

Besides these three hypotheses, proponents of RTW legislation have made the more recent argument that such laws result in attracting jobs ultimately leading to economic growth. Holmes (1998) has empirically investigated this contention by categorizing states as being pro-business if a RTW law is present and anti-business if one is absent. He determined that the proportion of total jobs dedicated to manufacturing rose by approximately one-third when crossing “the border from an anti-business state to a pro-business state” (Holmes 1998, 669). Lafer and Allegretto (2011) have offered two criticisms of Holmes’ (1998) finding. First, they contend that in states where service sector jobs are increasing, the manufacturing share of total jobs will necessarily decrease regardless of state policy. Second, Lafer and Allegretto (2011) point out that Holmes (1998) did not actually claim that the presence or absence of a RTW law led to these differences. These two researchers argue, as Holmes (1998) has conceded, that states adopt numerous policies to entice manufacturers that include lower taxes, sub- stantial subsidies and lenient environmental regulations. Thus, whether RTW legisla- tion is present might be irrelevant with the determinative factor being the overall pro-business orientation of the state’s policies as a whole.

In an attempt to deal with potential issues of concern in Holmes’ (1998) study, Stevans (2009) controlled for a state’s general business climate. When doing this, Stevans (2009) discovered that the existence of RTW legislation did not significantly affect either a state’s employment growth or whether new companies relocated to the state.

The reasons for implementing RTW legislation, however, may go beyond the ideol- ogy or the belief that having such laws will be good for the regional economy by increasing the number of jobs within a state. With such laws, there will be more free riders and subsequently a reduced amount of union dues and fees collected. Because it will still cost the union the same amount of money to engage in collective bargaining

310 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

and contract administration (while still representing the free riders), there will be less money available to the union to devote to political activities. Since unions provide the basis of organizational support to the Democratic Party and have achieved gains through policy making as well as through collective bargaining, passing RTW laws will undoubtedly hinder the unions’ ability to devote the same amount of money to the Democratic Party as has been done in the past. Thus, the ultimate goal of Republican- dominated legislatures to implement RTW legislation might be aimed at crippling the Democratic Party that would make it substantially easier for these legislatures to implement their agendas. Political motives would also help to explain the simultane- ous attacks on the public sector unions at the state level who are strong supporters of the Democratic Party as well.

Conclusion: What Can Be Done about RTW Legislation?

In a recent book concerning RTW legislation, Raymond Hogler (2015, 170-71) argues that RTW laws should be combated by altering the NLRA, much as it was by the Taft- Hartley Act (1947) that permitted states to pass laws allowing the existence of RTW legislation. Hogler (2015) calls for the elimination of Section 14(b) that permits states prohibiting union security clauses. In its place, he advocates that two specific amend- ments should be added to the NLRA. The first change would be the addition of lan- guage in the law that would allow unions to only collect dues in the amount that cover the actual costs of collective bargaining that has been in effect for more than five decades since Machinists Union v. Street. This proposed amendment, however, would circumvent problems associated with the 2012 Knox v. SEIU decision that will neces- sitate an opt-in, rather than an opt-out, procedure with regard to dues payment under the NLRA by explicitly restricting mandatory dues to costs associated with collective bargaining. Under such conditions, no situations would exist in which individuals can object to dues being used for political activity. Second, Hogler (2015) argues that before a union security clause could be negotiated in a contract, a vote would be held where employees would indicate whether or not they wanted to include such a provi- sion in the collective bargaining agreement. A simple majority of bargaining unit members would have to vote for such a clause before union officials could attempt to negotiate a union security provision. Such a vote is similar in spirit to the union shop authorization polls that took place and were mandated by the Taft-Hartley Act from 1947 to 1951 that demonstrated overwhelming support for the union shop (Devinatz 1991).

In criticizing Hogler’s (2015) second proposal, one can argue that it is unnecessary to conduct a version of the union shop authorization poll given the democratic nature of unions. Since union members vote on the tentative contract, if they do not desire a union security clause in their collective bargaining agreements, the membership could always reject the contact.

While such proposals are certainly interesting, based on the current political makeup and ideology of the U.S. Congress, in the near future, I do not see the possibility for the modification of labor law in any ways that would potentially benefit unions. Additionally,

Devinatz 311

based on the overall support of Americans for RTW legislation as indicated by the 2014 Gallup poll, labor unions would have to launch an extensive education campaign pub- licizing the negative effects of RTW legislation on unions and workers prior to engag- ing in any type of political action at the federal level concerning this issue.

I propose another potential methodology for dealing with RTW laws that is referred to as minority unionism. Under this model of unionism, employees would neither be required to join unions nor to pay dues. From an historical perspective, minority unionism thrived in the United States from 1935 to 1938 where half of the initial col- lective bargaining agreements negotiated in 1936 to 1937 in the steel industry were members-only contracts. Morris (2005) argues that minority unionism can be imple- mented early in the twenty-first century as a strategy for overcoming labor’s organiza- tional difficulties. Although the NLRA indicates that employers are legally required to bargain with a labor organization after it has attained the backing of a majority of bargaining unit employees, usually through conducting a union certification election, Morris (2005) contends that the NLRA also obliges employers to bargain with minor- ity unions if no single union has achieved the support of a majority of bargaining unit employees. Once, however, a single union gains majority status it would be granted “exclusive representation” over the bargaining unit and, according to Morris (2005), be free to negotiate and extend a security clause to all employees.

While significantly modifying union organizing, minority unionism would provide employees with a number of benefits. This type of unionism would allow employees to form labor organizations at their place of employment as soon as they like as opposed to conducting a union organizing campaign that might last for months due to vehement employer opposition. Since unions would not be required to obtain majority support in union certification elections to negotiate with employers, the latter group probably would be less likely to thwart union formation through using union-busting consultants. Another benefit to minority unionism is that if the labor organization does not initially achieve a majority in the certification election, it would still remain in the work place, being able to represent and bargain for its membership. Finally, members- only unionism could reduce the hostility expressed between pro- and anti-union employees that might be exacerbated during union organizing drives. Those support- ing labor organizations could join and possess union representation while those opposed would neither have to become members nor have the union negotiate on their behalf (Fisk and Tashlitsky 2011, 11)

Minority unionism also would transform the union’s work place activities. The focus of the union will be on acquiring members, not just obtaining signed authoriza- tion cards for holding certification elections. Those who do choose to join the unions will have to tender union dues and fees while becoming active in union governance. Furthermore, because members-only unions will not have attained exclusive represen- tation, it is possible to have more than one labor organization at the work site vying for membership. This competition among unions would necessitate that each labor orga- nization negotiate the best collective bargaining agreements that it can while effec- tively administering them in order to preserve its membership while trying to recruit employees who are not members (Fisk and Tashlitsky 2011, 14).

312 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

In July 2014, a major AFL-CIO affiliate established two minority unions at work sites located in two RTW states. Upon the UAW losing a close certification election vote at Volkswagen’s (VW) plant in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in February 2014, the union reported in July 2014 that a minority union—UAW Local 42—would be launched at the facility with those employees choosing to join the union not having to pay dues at this time. Upon establishing Local 42, VW and IG Metall approved the seating of UAW on the VW’s work council. Additionally, in July 2014, the UAW stated that it would form a second minority union at the Mercedes-Benz plant in Vance, Alabama, where a union organizing campaign is in progress. Establishing this mem- bers-only union would permit the UAW to sit on the company’s work council, the Daimler World Employee Committee (Bradbury 2014; Kinzer 2014; Ramsey 2014).

VW’s new labor policy at the Chattanooga facility permits any organization that has the backing of at least 15 percent of the plant’s workers to post flyers and hold meetings with the human resources department. Upon attaining support from a mini- mum of 45 percent of the workers, a group has the right to biweekly meetings with the company’s human resource management department. The UAW has met the latter requirement while another organization, the American Council of Employees achieved 15 percent support as of February 16, 2015, although it opposes both the UAW and collective bargaining for the Chattanooga workers (“ACE Recognized” 2015; Wolf 2015).

The UAW’s primary objective is to become the exclusive bargaining representative of the Chattanooga employees by acquiring the support of a simple majority of the factory’s workers. Assuming that the UAW can demonstrate this, VW will then negoti- ate collective bargaining agreements with the union that will cover the whole work- force (Pare 2015). Thus, if minority unions are able to obtain tangible gains, many employees residing in Southern RTW states might join unions in a geographic area that, historically, has been hostile toward unionism based on Freeman and Rogers (2006) to “know them is to love them” hypothesis as discussed earlier in this article.

How successful members-only unionism might be could be contingent on its imple- mentation. An activist minority unionism might generate more employee support than a bureaucratic members-only unionism. One example of a successful, activist minority union is the one created by the United Electrical Workers union at the Rocky Mount Cummins Engine plant in the RTW state of North Carolina where union density is a dismal 1.9 percent. This members-only union energized the workforce at the factory in its fight to attain large increases for all employees in the plant (Winslow 2014).

This issue of the Labor Studies Journal contains articles concerning RTW and attacks on public employee unionism for the Midwestern states of Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, and Indiana. The authors’ approaches to the subject matter vary although each one provides important information with regards to how RTW legisla- tion has impacted, or might affect if it is implemented potentially, workers and their unions.

In the article on Wisconsin, Don Taylor focuses on how the initial assaults on public sector unionism within the state in 2011 paved the way for the passage of RTW legisla- tion in March 2015. He argues that the Wisconsin labor movement must revitalize

Devinatz 313

itself through the “organizing model” that historically has been characterized by “internal organizing.” However, Taylor contends that internal organizing has to be resuscitated, revised, and applied if unions are to advance—not only in Wisconsin but throughout the United States as well—as opposed to sinking into irrelevancy. Such an approach, he argues, is also important for private sector unions that have to function under RTW legislation.

In her article on Michigan, Michelle Kaminski discusses the rapidity with which a RTW law was passed in December 2012 in a state that had a relatively strong union density. She describes the events that preceded the passage of the RTW law in Michigan before focusing on the role the 2010 and 2012 elections played in the outcome. Upon the implementation of RTW legislation in Michigan, Kaminski discusses the legal and political aftermath after the passage of the law while comparing the Michigan case to that of Wisconsin. Finally, she concludes her article by informing the readers of the lessons learned that include the necessity of the U.S. trade union movement adopting what she calls “a clear vision and strategy for the long run” while pointing out the significance of gerrymandering and single-party Republican rule in leading to the pas- sage of a RTW law in Michigan.

In the remaining two articles, Frank Manzo (Indiana) and Robert Bruno, Roland Zullo, Frank Manzo, and Alison Dickson (Illinois) take a quantitative approach in their state-level analyses. In Indiana, Manzo demonstrates that RTW legislation has had no real “positive economic impact” on the state. He points out that while private sector job growth still outpaces that found in Indiana’s neighboring states, such growth has remained sluggish since the passage of the state’s RTW law. Moreover, Manzo reveals that increases in private sector wages in Indiana are not due to RTW legislation but rather the result of other “trends and policy changes” with the state. Finally, he calculates that the RTW law has decreased wages in the state, on average, between 1.1 percent and 1.5 percent.

Although Illinois does not currently have a RTW law, in their article, Bruno et al. calculate the effect that such legislation would have on earnings, employment, union- ization, and wage inequality through the estimation of various statistical models. With regard to earnings, the authors argue that collective bargaining increased wages since the end of the Great Recession and that the passage of a state RTW law would lead to lower lifetime earnings in the state. They also contend that while the implementation of such a law might, at best, lead to a slight increase in employment, this rise would be temporary while, at worst, such legislation would lead to negative job growth. Bruno et al. also conclude that an Illinois RTW law would decrease union membership and that such legislation may contribute to future wage inequality. Finally, the presence of a RTW law in Illinois would lead to a reduction in labor income that would result in decreased state income tax revenues.

In conclusion, Hogler (2011, 303) has stated that he “believe(s) that right to work laws constitute the single most important cause of modern union decline.” If one exam- ines the research literature in aggregate, RTW legislation has detrimentally impacted unions. Moore (1998) determines that such legislation appears to decrease the number of union members between 5 percent and 8 percent while pointing out that there are 6

314 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

percent to 10 percent more free riders in RTW states when compared with their non- RTW counterparts. Additionally, for a minimum of ten years, RTW legislation reduces both union organizing activity and union success in NLRB certification elections (Moore 1998). While there are myriad factors that explain labor’s decline over the last three decades, the Southernization of U.S. labor relations, which has resulted in the spread of RTW laws along with the attacks on public employee unionism, is a trend that threatens to continue to undermine an already debilitated U.S. trade union movement.

Author’s Note

This is a revised version of a paper delivered for the Annual Hinderliter Endowed Lecture at Illinois State University on December 4, 2015.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

References

“ACE Recognized as Representative of Employees at Volkswagen.” 2015. The Chattanoogan. com, February 16. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.chattanoogan .com/2015/2/16/294249/ACE-Recognized-As-Representative-Of.aspx.

Ames, Mark. 2012. “You Hate “Right to Work” Laws More Than You Know. Here’s Why.” nsfwcorp, December 12. Accessed June 23, 2015. https://www.nsfwcorp.com/dispatch/ right-to-work/.

Bell, Dawson. 2010. “Snyder to Start with Attack on Public-Sector Spending.” Detroit Free Press, December 22. Accessed January 21, 2011. http://www.freep.com/article/20101222/ NEWS06/12220402/Snyder-to-start-with-attack-on-public-sector-spending.html.

Bennett, James T. 1991. “Private Sector Unions: The Myth of Decline.” Journal of Labor Research 12 (1): 1-12.

Boswell, Terry, Cliff Brown, John Brueggemann, and T. Ralph Peters Jr. 2006. Racial Competition and Class Solidarity. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Bradbury, Alexandra. 2014. “Minority Union at Volkswagen, for Now.” Labor Notes, July 23. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://labornotes.org/2014/07/minority-union-volkswagen-now.

Carter, Dan. 1995. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Chokshi, Niraj. 2015. “Could One of These States Be the Next to Pass a Right-to-Work Law?” The Washington Post, March 9. Accessed June 7, 2015. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/03/09/could-one-of-these-states-be-the-next-to-pass-a-right-to- work-law/.

Cillizza, Chris. 2015. “Republicans Have Gained More Than 900 Legislative Seats since 2010.” The Washington Post, January 14. Accessed September 1, 2015. http://www.washington- post.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/01/14/republicans-have-gained-more-than-900-state-leg- islative-seats-since-2010/.

Devinatz 315

Cohn, Jonathan. 2010. “Why Public Employees Are the New Welfare Queens.” The New Republic, August 8. Accessed December 13, 2011. https://newrepublic.com/article/76884/ why-your-fireman-has-better-pension-you.

Collins, Benjamin. 2014. “Right to Work Laws: Legislative Background and Empirical Research.” Congressional Research Service. January 6. Accessed October 12, 2015. https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42575.pdf.

Cummings, Stephen D. 1998. The Dixification of America. Westport: Praeger. Davey, Monica, and Steven Greenhouse. 2011. “Wisconsin May Take an Ax to State Workers’

Benefits and Their Unions.” The New York Times, February 11. Accessed November 27, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/12/us/12unions.html.

Davis, Joe C., and John H. Huston. 1995. “Right to Work Laws and Union Density: New Evidence from Micro Data.” Journal of Labor Research 16 (2): 223-29.

Delaney, John T. 1998. “Redefining the Right-to-Work Debate: Unions and the Dilemma of Free Choice.” Journal of Labor Research 19 (3): 425-43.

Devinatz, Victor G. 1991. “Union Shop Authorization Polls: An Historical Re-examination.” Labor Law Journal 42 (12): 821-26.

Dixon, Marc. 2007. “Limiting Labor: Business Political Mobilization and Union Setback in the States.” The Journal of Policy History 19 (3): 313-44.

Edwards, Julia, and Kevin Brennan. 2011. “Union Protests Spread across the U.S.” National Journal, March 7. Accessed November 27, 2011. http://nationaljournal.com/union-pro- tests-spread-across-the-u-s–20110408.

Egan, Paul, and Kathleen Gray. 2012. “Right-to-Work: It’s the Law, But It’s Not Over.” Detroit Free Press, December 13. Accessed October 7, 2015. http://archive.freep.com/ article/20121212/NEWS15/312120130/Right-to-work-It-s-the-law-but-it-s-not-over.

Epps, Garrett. 2015. “The End of Public-Employee Unions?” The Atlantic, February 20. Accessed October 22, 2015. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/02/the-end- of-public-employee-unions/385690/.

Fisk, Catherine. 2015. “Guest Post: Scalia May Be Critical Vote in Friedrichs v. California Teachers’ Ass’n.” On Labor, June 30. Accessed October 22, 2015. http://onlabor.org/2015/06/30/guest- post-scalia-may-be-critical-vote-in-friedrichs-v-california-teachers-assn/.

Fisk, Catherine, and Xenia Tashlitsky. 2011. “Imagine a World Where Employers Are Required to Bargain with Minority Unions.” ABA Journal of Labor & Employment Law 27:1-22.

Freeman, Richard B., and Joel Rogers. 2006. What Do Workers Want. Updated ed. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.

Gerth, Joseph. 2015. “Ky Counties Take Up Own ‘Right-to-Work’ Laws.” The Courier- Journal, January 17. Accessed June 7, 2015. http://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/ local/2015/01/16/right-work-movement-kentucky-elsewhere/21890143/.

Glawe, Justin. 2015. “Illinois Governor Takes a Local Approach to Right-to-Work.” Al Jazeera America, February 22. Accessed June 22, 2015. http://america.aljazeera.com/ articles/2015/2/22/illinois-governor-right-to-work-zones.html.

Greenberg, Stanley B. 2005. The Two Americas: Our Current Political Deadlock and How to Break It. New York: Thomas Dunne Books.

Greer, Stan, and Charles W. Baird. 2003. “Reply to Hogler and LaJeunesse’s ‘Oklahoma’s Right to Work Initiative: Labor Policy and Political Ideology.’” Labor Law Journal 54 (2): 214-24.

Gregory, James. 1998. “Southernizing the American Working Class: Post-war Episodes of Regional and Class Transformation.” Labor History 39 (2): 135-54.

Griffith, Barbara S. 1988. The Crisis of American Labor: Operation Dixie and the Defeat of the CIO. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

316 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

Hendee, David. 2011. “Nebraska Lawmakers Pass Compromise Bill on Public Unions.” Reuters, May 25. Accessed November 27, 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/26/us- unions-nebraska-idUSTRE74P02320110526.

Hogler, Raymond L. 2011. “How Right to Work Is Destroying the American Labor Movement: From the Ku Klux Klan to the Tea Party.” Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal 23 (4): 295-304.

Hogler, Raymond L. 2015. The End of American Labor Unions: The Right-to-Work Movement and the Erosion of Collective Bargaining. Santa Barbara: Praeger.

Holmes, Thomas J. 1998. “The Effects of State Policies on the Location of Industry: Evidence from State Borders.” Journal of Political Economy 106 (4): 667-87.

Jones, Jeffrey M. 2014. “Americans Approve of Unions but Support ‘Right to Work.’” Gallup, August 28. Accessed September 28, 2015. http://www.gallup.com/poll/175556/americans- approve-unions-support-right-work.aspx.

Katz, Lawrence F. 1985. “Union Status Determination and the Free Rider Problem in Right-to- Work States.” OBIR-7. University of California at Berkeley.

Katznelson, Ira. 2013. Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time. New York: W.W. Norton.

Katznelson, Ira. 2015. “On Reading Fear Itself.” Labor History 56 (2): 232-36. Kinzer, Allen. 2014. “The UAW Forms Local Unions to Represent Workers at VW and

Mercedes.” Vorys on Labor: Insights for the Labor Relations Professional, July 11. Accessed September 30, 2015. http://www.vorysonlabor.com/2014/07/articles/union- organizing/the-uaw-forms-local-unions-to-represent-workers-at-vw-and-mercedes/.

Lafer, Gordon, and Sylvia A. Allegretto. 2011. “Does ‘Right-to-Work’ Create Jobs? Answers from Oklahoma.” Economic Policy Institute Briefing Paper, February 28. Accessed August 4, 2011. http://www.epi.org/page/-/BriefingPaper300.pdf?nocdn=1.

Lesher, Stephan. 1994. George Wallace: American Populist. Reading: Addison-Wesley. Lipset, Seymour Martin, and Earl Raab. 1970. The Politics of Unreason: Right-Wing Extremism

in America. New York: Harper & Row. Marvit, Moshe Z. 2015. “The Supreme Court Case that Could Decimate American Public Sector

Unionism.” In These Times, February 3. Accessed October 16, 2015. http://inthesetimes. com/working/entry/17595/friedrichs_v_california_teachers_association.

Masters, Marick. 1997. Unions at the Crossroads: Strategic Membership, Financial, and Political Perspectives. Westport: Greenwood Press.

Moberg, David. 2015. “Calm Down: SCOTUS’s ‘Friedrichs’ Case Won’t Mean the End of the American Labor Movement.” In These Times, July 15. Accessed October 22, 2015. http://inthesetimes.com/working/entry/18204/calm_down_friedrichs_v._california_teach- ers_association_wont_mean_the_end_o.

Moore, William J. 1998. “The Determinants and Effects of Right-to-Work Laws: A Review of the Recent Literature.” Journal of Labor Research 19 (3): 445-69.

Moore, William J., and Robert J. Newman. 1985. “The Effects of Right-to-Work Laws: A Review of the Literature.” Industrial and Labor Relations Review 38 (4): 571-85.

Morris, Charles. 2005. The Blue Eagle at Work: Reclaiming Democratic Rights in the American Workplace. Ithaca, NY: ILR Press.

National Conference of State Legislatures. 2015. “Right-to-Work Resources.” Accessed June 7, 2015. http://www.ncsl.org/research/labor-and-employment/right-to-work-laws-and-bills. aspx.

Needham, Vicki. 2011. “Republicans Introduce Bill to Give Workers a Choice on Joining Unions.” The Hill, March 8. Accessed September 4, 2011. https://itk.thehill.com/policy/ finance/148101-republicans-introduce-bill-to-give-workers-a-choice-on-joining-unions.

Devinatz 317

O’Brien, Brendan. 2015. “Wisconsin Senate Approves Right-to-Work Bill, Sends to State Assembly.” Reuters, February 26. Accessed October 7, 2015. http://www.reuters.com/ article/us-usa-wisconsin-unions-passage-idUSKBN0LU08K20150226.

Pare, Mike. 2015. “State of the Union: Labor Groups Seek Breakthrough at Chattanooga’s VW Plant.” Chattanooga Times Free Press, September 6. Accessed September 30, 2015. http:// www.timesfreepress.com/news/business/aroundregion/story/2015/sep/06/labor-groups- seek-breakthrough-vw/323390/.

Ramsey, Mike. 2014. “UAW to form Local at Mercedes-Benz Factory in Alabama.” The Wall Street Journal, July 10. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.wsj.com/articles/uaw- to-form-local-at-mercedes-benz-factory-in-alabama-1405028649.

Schaper, David. 2011. “Collective Bargaining Curbs Spread Across the U.S.” NPR, May 24. Accessed September 3, 2011. http://www.npr.org/2011/05/24/136610879/collective-bar- gaining-curbs-spread-across-the-u-s?ps=cprs.

Schiller, Reuel. 2012. “Singing ‘The Right-to-Work Blues’: The Politics of Race in the Campaign for ‘Voluntary Unionism’ in Postwar California.” In The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology and Imagination, edited by Nelson Lichtenstein and Elizabeth T. Shermer, 139-59. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Schneider, Mary Beth, and Chris Sikich. 2012. “Indiana Becomes Rust Belt’s First Right-to- Work State.” The Indianapolis Star, February 2. Accessed June 7, 2015. http://usatoday30 .usatoday.com/news/nation/story/2012-02-01/indiana-right-to-work-bill/52916356/1.

Sewell, Abby. 2011. “Away From Wisconsin’s Capitol, Less Shouting and More Opinions.” Los Angeles Times, March 6. Accessed November 27, 2011. articles.latimes.com/2011/ mar/06/nation/la-na-wisconsin-20110306.

Sherk, James. 2014. “The Kentucky County that Builds the Corvette Is about to Become Right-to- Work.” National Review, December 12. Accessed June 7, 2015. http://www.nationalreview .com/corner/394600/kentucky-county-builds-corvette-about-become-right-work-james-sherk.

Shermer, Elizabeth Tandy. 2012. “Is Freedom of the Individual Un-American?” Right-to- Work Campaigns and Anti-union Conservatism, 1943-1958.” In The Right and Labor in America: Politics, Ideology and Imagination, edited by Nelson Lichtenstein and Elizabeth T. Shermer, 114-36. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Sobel, Russell S. 1995. “Empirical Evidence on the Union Free-Rider Problem: Do Right-to- Work Laws Matter?” Journal of Labor Research 16 (3): 347-65.

Stein, Jason, and Meg Kissinger. 2015. “Scott Walker Signs Right-to-Work Bill.” Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, March 9. Accessed October 7, 2015. www.jsonline.com/news/statepoli- tics/scott-walker-signs-right-to-work-bill-b99457819z1-295609181.html.

Stevans, Lonnie K. 2009. “The Effect of Endogenous Right-to-Work Laws on Business and Economic Conditions in the United States: A Multivariate Approach.” Review of Law & Economics 5. Accessed August 4, 2011. http://www.bepress.com/rle/vol5/iss1/art25.

Szal, Andy. 2015. “Right-to-Work Bills Introduced in 16 States, but Enacted in Just One.” Manufacturing.Net, July 9. Accessed October 7, 2015. http://www.manufacturing.net/ news/2015/07/right-to-work-bills-introduced-in-16-states-but-enacted-in-just-one.

van Elteren, Mel. 2006. Americanism and Americanization. Jefferson: McFarland. Varga, Joseph. 2014. “Dispossession Is Nine-Tenths of the Law: Right-to-Work and the Making

of the American Precariat.” Labor Studies Journal 39 (1): 25-45. Winslow, Samantha. 2014. “They Don’t Need a Majority to Get Things Done.” Labor Notes,

August 27. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.labornotes.org/2014/08/they-dont- need-majority-get-things-done.

Wolf, Pamela. 2015. American Council of Employees gets a place at the VW table.” Employment Law Daily, February 19. Accessed September 29, 2015. http://www.employmentlawdaily .com/index.php/2015/02/19/american-council-of-employees-gets-a-place-at-the-vw-table/.

318 Labor Studies Journal 40(4)

Author Biography

Victor G. Devinatz is Distinguished Professor of Management and the Hobart and Marian Gardner Hinderliter Endowed Professor (2014-2015) at Illinois State University. He teaches courses in labor relations, employee relations, and human resource management in the Department of Management and Quantitative Methods. He has published articles in a wide range of scholarly journals including Labour/Le Travail, Labor History, Industrial Relations, Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Journal of Labor Research and Labor Studies Journal. His scholarly book, High-Tech Betrayal: Working and Organizing on the Shop Floor (Michigan State University Press, 1999), is an industrial ethnography that chronicles his work as an assembler in a low-wage medical electronics factory. In 2003, he was a recipient of a Merl E. Reed Research Fellowship in Southern Labor History.

Copyright of Labor Studies Journal is the property of Sage Publications Inc. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use.