Michigan has just passed a right to work bill, allowing workers (both private and public sector) who don’t want to pay union dues to keep their jobs if they don’t pay up. Previously, unions could and almost always did insist on “union security” clauses requiring that non-paying workers be fired.
Naturally, Big Labor is trying to portray itself as being martyred (even as its thugs engage in violence against individuals in Lansing who supported the legislation). It claims that workers who stop paying their dues will be freeloading on the payments of others. This Heritage post has the refutation. Unions do not have to spend money to represent non-payers and in any event, remarkably small percentages of union revenues are actually devoted to that purpose.
