Right to Work

“Right to work” is the name for a policy designed to take away rights from working people. Backers of right to work laws claim that these laws protect workers against being forced to join a union. The reality is that federal law already makes it illegal to force someone to join a union.

The real purpose of right to work laws is to tilt the balance toward big corporations and further rig the system at the expense of working families. These laws make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.

 

36%

Percent higher the average number of discrimination charges the EEOC receives from right to work states.

In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and collective bargaining...”

  • Martin Luther King Jr.
Did You Know

In “right to work" states, 24% of jobs in 2019 were in low-wage occupations, compared to 14.5% of jobs in other states without right to work laws.

3.1

The percent a worker's pay drops on average when right to work laws are passed.

What We’re Doing

Speech

Trumka to Railroad Signalmen: American Dream Built Through Solidarity

Working people are writing a comeback story unlike any I’ve seen in my 50 years in the labor movement. And the fact that we are rising up in the face of unprecedented attacks from corporations and those in power makes this moment all the more powerful.
Blog

What You Need to Know About the Vote on Missouri's Prop. A Today

With one day left before Missourians go to the polls, working people are mobilizing across the Show-Me State in a massive final push to defeat Prop. A.
Media Hit

Liz Shuler Says the Labor Movement Is Fighting Back in the Associated Press

Blog

Trumka: True Patriotism in Missouri

AFL‑CIO President Richard Trumka (UMWA) spoke at the Missouri AFL‑CIO’s 29th Biennial Convention yesterday, rallying a packed audience of local union leaders and working Missourians in the fight against Prop. A. He recalled the charge that President Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered to Americans in the midst of the Great Depression: “True patriotism urges us to build an even more substantial America where the good things of life may be shared by more of us.”
Speech

Trumka Rallies Missouri AFL-CIO Convention to Defeat Proposition A

When we win here on August 7, it’s going to be the shot heard round the world. It’ll make waves in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and Ohio and Washington D.C. And it will provide a powerful rebuke of the Supreme Court’s disgraceful ruling in Janus.
Blog

If You Live in Missouri, Vote 'No' on Proposition A

On August 7, Missouri voters will have the chance to vote against a divisive attack on working people funded by big corporations and their wealthy allies, Proposition A. The misleading measure is a direct attack on the rights of the working people of Missouri.