Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone. Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.” —Martin Luther King, speaking about right-to-work laws in 1961

Right-To-Work was passed in Michigan passed on December 11, 2012.  There was little to  no input from the public.  There was very little time for debate.  The Republican majority and its billionaire benefactors had bamboozled Michigan, the home of the United Auto Workers and the cradle of the modern labor movement.  The state had now become the 24th state to enact the union-killing legislation.  

Just a year earlier, Indiana passed a right to work law with the full endorsement of then governor Mitch Daniels.  Despite having pledged on video to oppose right to work, Daniels made no haste in putting ink to paper to enact the law.  In fact, after researching Daniels Aim Higher PAC fund, Teamsters Local 89 found he had been funneling money to anti-worker politicians and candidates at least two years prior to the passage of the law.  This was not cheap.  Some candidates received hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy their seats in the state legislature and thus deliver Daniel’s crowning legislation.  

Deceit.  All  anti-workers laws are born of it.  Right-to-work, in it’s very branding and name, is designed to mislead.  It has nothing to do with rights, and it certainly has nothing do with work, unless of course it in respect to a state’s dive toward low wages, poor benefits, and little to no retirement.   It brings no improvement the socio-economic status of working families. What it does bring is highly repressive and deadlier workplaces with low wages and substandard (if any) benefits.  Such also bring decline in the overall well-being and stability of the state, including poor outcomes in health and education for working families.  

So let’s shuck the pretty packaging.  Right-To-Work is nothing more than a mechanism to destroy unions.  By ending unions, the enemies of working families will have not only unlimited access to create laws to benefit themselves, but will create states where financial security, stability and prosperity are extremely rare if not an impossibility.  In essence, RTW is intended to create a new feudalism where a class of working poor are subjected to lives where options in both employment are upward movement cease to exist.  This is the scam of Right-To-Work.  

While billionaires, corporations and their puppets in government are certainly to blame for the continued attack on working families, we as workers bear much of the responsibility for the proliferation of these laws.
Continually, middle class voters are led to vote against their interests by electing politicians who have zero intent or motivation to protect working families.  Through the use of “wedge issues”, workers have been fragmented and separated losing focus of the issues of importance to their livelihoods.  These wedge issues designed to distract and divide working people.  Only through these scams, can political puppets and anti-worker news sources such as Fox News, convince workers to vote to support the billionaire 1% in its quest to make the US a third world nation where there are only two classes: rich and poor.  

This is why we fight.  Our nation’s future depends on it.  The middle class built this nation and continues to be its lifeblood.   Right-To-Work is wrong for this great nation and the Commonwealth of Kentucky. We as workers must mobilize to ensure billionaire outsiders will not destroy this state.  

NO RIGHTS AT WORK:

• RTW eliminates workers rights by hampering collective bargaining-
• Does not promote industries that favor long-term local ecomomic development-The Right-To-Work South is the poorest region in the US
• Reduces worker benefits and work-place safety reguations--Workplace deaths 52.9% higher in RTW states
• Has lead to a reduction in long-term good paying jobs and early dismissals
• Attracts companies that desire labor that can be transferred to other states and countries
• Favors employer interests only--NO WORKERS RIGHTS
• Right-To-Work states continue to have high unemployment and poor local economic development
• RTW states account for 8 of the 10 weakest states in quality of life
• Poor ecomomic and social outcomes for families--The infant mortality rate is 16 percent higer in RTW states with families far less likely to have employer sponsored health insurance.  
• RTW states spend $2671 less on average per pupil in the public school systems resulting in lowered eduational outcomes.

Sources: Kentucky Labor Institute
(www.kentuckylaborinstitute.org); Economic Policy Institute (www.epi.org)

The Downward Spiral of Right-To-Work
     By Jeffboat Teamster Rick Stevens

What do you know about the purpose of Right To Work laws? You may know that these laws are designed to weaken unions, but why would Corporate institutions spend millions to weaken less than 10 percent of the work force? Let’s look at exactly what happens in Right To Work states and the long term effects.

Right-To-Work laws really do only one thing directly: They allow employees to choose not to pay their dues. Doesn’t sound like a lot, does it? But the long-term effects are devastating to everyone.

You see, non-paying members still get all the union protections and most of the benefits, which means the union has to spend money on grievance investigations, hearings and even arbitrations defending the jobs of people who haven’t contributed anything. The union is forced, by law, to provide a valuable service for free.

But this crooked piece of legislation is even more devious. What non-paying members do NOT get is a vote on any union business or strike funds.  In other words, they have no voice in whether to strike and no compensatory money if the union does strike. This automatically creates a level of employee almost guaranteed to “scab” across a strike line if it occurs.

With this knowledge, and since the company is aware of the percentage and identities of non-paying employees, they now have the ability to force a union to accept a lower value contract. The union now has to negotiate under the threat of a higher than normal scab percentage, lowering its strike leverage. This results is a slowing of wage growth and continuing losses of benefit values.

As years, and contracts pass, this causes a downward spiral as contracts decrease in value and more people stop paying dues. Eventually, either equilibrium—at a lower rate of wage and benefit value—or decertification results. The union members’ leverage is decreased. But this is only the beginning. As I asked above, why would these Corporate schemers spend so much money to attack less than 10% of the workforce?

Here is the real benefit for them:

Non-union shops, seeing the union shops’ slowing of wage advances and the decreases in benefits, likewise lower their wages and benefits, and the effect reaches non-union workers. Remember, union wages set the pace for all the workers in their respective crafts. In Kentucky, Toyota offers good wages and benefits because it has to compete for qualified workers with two Ford plants and a Corvette Plant. If those strong union jobs didn’t exist, the Toyota plant wouldn’t offer nearly what it does. The same thing applies to ALL industries with a Union segment.

The long term effect is lower wages and benefits for the work force of an entire state. Corporations in these states save tens to hundreds of millions of dollars in those lower wages and benefits and that money goes straight into their profit margin. The 1% takes that money straight from the hard working families who earned it. Right-To-Work is a Corporate scam to take your money, and any politician who supports this sort of legislation is already bought and paid for by those same Corporate heads.

Who’s Behind Right To Work?!

Vance Muse
This white supremacist and anti-Semite saw equality and higher standard of living as a threat to the Southern Aristocracy. Muse then created the idea of Right-To-Work, to establish a system which would continue to repress the upward mobility of the working majority.  

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC)
A billionaire and corporate funded group that writes anti-worker laws to be pushed by government puppets.  

The Koch Brothers
Two billionaire brothers who have funded and bought anti-worker politicians to water down labor laws to increase their wealth.  You lose; they gain.

The Walton Family Foundation
The Walton family is trying to remake America in its own image.  Unfortunately that image is based on the low wage, no benefits or pension model they have enforced on their Walmart “associates”.  They make billions while their employees have to survive on government assistances.  

National Right-to-Work Committee
The group’s stated mission is to “end unionism in Kentucky”.  In a hearing last year, the head of the organization in Kentucky admitted it had no office in the Commonwealth but still claimed to be a “home grown” movement.  

Dick Devos
Founder of Amway, which was under investigation by the Federal Government as a “pyramid scheme”.  Devos was the primary force behind Michigan’s “thief in the night” passage of Right-to-Work.  

Senator Rand Paul
The senator has been a major supporter of right-to-work both in the state of Kentucky and the entire United States.  This should come as no surprise as the same billionaires and organizations that have pushed right-to-work in other states fund him. Some of Paul’s largest contributors are Club for Growth, a anti-worker group pushing anti-worker legislations, Koch Industries and the National Right to Work Committee.  It is also worth noting that United Parcel Service has also become one of Paul’s biggest donors.  Not to mention, his partner in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, consistently votes against working families.  

KY State Representative Jim DeCeasare
This representative from Bowling Green is the perennial face of right-to-work and its backers’ “go-to” lackey.  Since his election, he has consistently pushed right-to-work bills, among other anti-worker laws, in a number of legislative session.  He acts as a puppet for the National Right-To-Work Committee and has no shame in his harmful acts against the people of the Commonwealth.