Right-to-work law

This article is about the U.S. laws prohibiting mandated union membership and dues. For the human-rights concept, see Right to work. For the Indian law, see National Rural Employment Guarantee Act.
Not to be confused with At-will employment.

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In the context of labor law in the United States, the term right-to-work laws refers to state laws that prohibit union security agreements between employers and labor unions. Such agreements can be incorporated into union contracts to require employees who are not union members to contribute to the costs of union representation. Unlike the right to work definition as a human right in international law, U.S. right-to-work laws do not aim to provide a general guarantee of employment to people seeking work but rather guarantee an employee's right to refrain from being a member of a labor union.

The 1947 federal Taft–Hartley Act governing private sector employment prohibits the "closed shop" in which employees are required to be members of a union as a condition of employment, but allows the union shop or "agency shop" in which employees pay a fee for the cost of representation without joining the union.[1] Individual U.S. states set their own policies for state and local government employees (i.e. public sector employees). Twenty-eight states have right-to-work policies (either by statutes or by constitutional provision).[2][3] In 2018, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that agency shop arrangements for public sector employees were unconstitutional in the case Janus v. AFSCME.

  1. ^ Baird, Charles W. (June 1998). "Right to work before and after 14(b)". Journal of Labor Research. 19 (3): 471–493. doi:10.1007/s12122-998-1042-y. S2CID 153369005. ProQuest 214005215.
  2. ^ Cite error: The named reference Botsch_SCGP was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  3. ^ Miller, Berkeley; Canak, William (1991). "From 'Porkchoppers' to 'Lambchoppers': The Passage of Florida's Public Employee Relations Act". Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 44 (2): 349–66. doi:10.2307/2524814. JSTOR 2524814.
    Partridge, Dane M. (1997). "Virginia's New Ban on Public Employee Bargaining: A Case Study of Unions, Business, and Political Competition". Employee Responsibilities and Rights Journal. 10 (2): 127–39. doi:10.1023/A:1025657412651. S2CID 151081867.
    Canak, William; Miller, Berkeley (1990). "Gumbo Politics: Unions, Business, and Louisiana Right-to-Work Legislation". Industrial and Labor Relations Review. 43 (2): 258–71. doi:10.2307/2523703. JSTOR 2523703.