WHO LOSES WITH RIGHT TO WORK?

So, you think Right to Work is just a union issue? You’ll be worse than sorry if you do.

Misnamed as “Right to Work”, these laws are indeed anti-union. But they do not create a positive right to anything. Instead, they allow those who choose to not pay for the services provided by the union while allowing those people to receive the benefits of a union representation–safety, health care, decent wages, job security, and a pension to name but a few. If this is such a great idea, let’s expand it–I don’t want my tax dollars paying for golfing trips to Mar-a-Lago.  Or, I like what my local Chamber of Commerce does for businesses in Lee’s Summit.  But I don’t want to pay its dues–I just want to reap the rewards of that organization’s efforts.

Here’s what an in depth investigation by reporters with the New York Times has revealed.  Jobs are lost, incomes drop, and political representation is diminished for men, women, minorities–the entirety of the Middle Class, irrespective of membership in a union!

Between 1980 through 2016, the Times compared “pairs of counties, one in a state that passed a right-to-work law and the other just across the border in a state that didn’t. Even if right-to-work and non-right-to-work states are quite different, bordering counties in many states tend to have similar economic, demographic and political trends.”(1)

That last comment is noteworthy particularly for Missourians, as our state borders eight others. According to a ranking of the states’ economic stability and potential as reported by US News & World Report (2), Missouri is 33rd. Five of our neighboring states are worse, and three are better. Why do wealthy out-of-state interests want us to be worse?

“With a weaker labor movement, it’s not just Democratic electoral prospects that suffer. The working class loses, too. We find that the number of state legislators who had previously worked in blue-collar jobs drops sharply after right-to-work goes into effect. These politicians tend to strongly support economic policies preferred by working-class Americans, like a higher minimum wage and a stronger safety net. Right-to-work laws thus undercut political representation for working-class people, a group that is disproportionately nonwhite, and reduce the legislative voice for progressive economic policies.” (3)

So why then do large out-state donors heap millions of dollars into “Right to Work”? When enacted, those policies drive down, not upward, Missouri’s economic stability and potential. Families lose. Missourians lose. Who prospers? The New York Times reporters lay it out clearly, and it isn’t us.

Proposition A = Right To Work
Right To Work is bad for Missouri
Vote NO on Proposition A.

(1), (3)  https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/08/opinion/conor-lamb-unions-pennsylvania.html

(2) https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/rankings/economy