Brett Healy of the MacIver Institute devotes a Daily Caller column to the growing support for right-to-work laws.
Worker freedom is on the march in this country. Indiana and Michigan became right-to-work states in 2012, and Wisconsin passed its worker freedom law earlier this year, becoming the 25th right-to-work state.
Why are right-to-work policies becoming so popular across the country?
Right-to-work states perform better economically than non-right-to-work states. Right-to-work states have higher wages than non-right-to-work states when adjusting for cost of living. And most of all, right-to-work states give workers more freedom.
Imagine that — Americans want more freedom. That may be a hard thing for Big Labor to acknowledge. After all, how will unions survive if their most effective recruiting tool, forced conscription, is taken away from them?
But isn’t that where our focus should be? To protect the rights of the individual, to look out for the plight of the worker. Not what is best for the political animal, the union.
Employees in Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin now have the freedom to choose whether or not they want to join a union and pay costly union dues. If they choose to leave their union completely, they can do so without fear of losing their job or any other penalty.