There’s a federal bill to eliminate Right to Work laws in North Carolina and other states. It wouldn’t stop there, however. It would force many other changes in law that would be favorable to unions and harmful to people’s rights.

A ‘Frankenstein-esque’ bill

The bill, called the “Protect the Right to Organize” Act, recently passed the U.S. House under Democratic control. It’s been described as “Frankenstein-esque” because it stitches together many things very destructive of individual rights of freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and freedom to enjoy the fruits of one’s own labor.

Who could support such a measure, and why? My research brief on it offers some facts:

  • The Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in Janus vs. the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) that public employees unions could not charge nonmembers “agency fees” for the union’s representation on their behalf.
  • Since then, 98 percent of the nonmembers forced to pay fees to AFSCME dropped out.
  • Also, 94 percent of nonmembers to another public employees union, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), stopped paying fees.
  • Union membership (public and private employees unions) has been cut in half since 1983, down to only 10.7 percent of workers in 2017.
  • Right to Work states protect workers from being (a) required to join a union as a condition of employment and (b) made to pay union fees if they aren’t members.
  • Over half the states (28 including North Carolina) are Right to Work states.
  • Eliminating Right to Work and forcing other changes in laws (such as making it hard for independent contractors not to be legally counted as employees) would force a massive wealth transfer from honest, hard-working families to unions.
  • Unions are big campaign donors, giving nearly exclusively (over 90 percent) to Democrats.

Read here to learn more about a terrible, freedom-wrecker of an idea.