"Right-to-Work" For Less

Never underestimate the power of a personal conversation. Research shows there’s a way to talk about right to work that gets beyond the clever messaging. 

Since 1955, corporations and millionaires have been trying to confuse and manipulate workers into giving up our rights through something called Right to Work. . As early as 1959, Eleanor Roosevelt stood up against Right to Work because “it does nothing for working people, but instead gives employers the right to exploit labor.”  This is the message: Right to Work isn’t what it seems. Politicians backed by billionaires and anti-worker corporations try to make the issue as complicated and confusing as possible, but we are not fooled.  Right to Work takes away the freedoms – and paychecks – of workers everywhere.

Some facts: 

Just by living in a Right to Work state, the average worker gives up $1,540 in salary every year.  

Across America, states with Right to Work laws have higher unemployment and lower pay.  That’s exactly what the corporate interests want. They want to use Right to Work  to destroy unions that stand up for workers across the country.   They want Right to Work to ship more jobs overseas, rig the tax system and demand more work from employees while treating them with less respect.

Right to Work laws eliminate freedom and flexibility for workers.  Workers lose job security, good-paying jobs and health insurance in Right to Work states. Without serious workplace representation, Right to Work states even face a 15 percent higher chance of infant mortality and have a 36 percent higher rate of workplace deaths.  Right to Work means more pressure on struggling working-class families, not less.

Follow the Money

The National Right to Work committee was founded in 1955 to push this agenda.  Right to Work is pushed by  ALEC, the lobbying organization backed by the Koch brothers, chambers of commerce, and “think tanks” like the Mackinac Institute in Michigan, which are funded by billionaires and which to promote propaganda disguised as nonpartisan or “conservative” studies. 

Don‘t be fooled by the corporations and the billionaires.  Right to Work is an unfair attack on the working class that strips millions of Americans of their freedoms at work.  For more information on what Right to Work has or wants to do in your state, check out this Right to Work impact fact sheet and a FAQ from the Minnesota AFL-CIO.