Having just recently testified in an arbitration between a union and an employer (in the grocery store sector,) I was thinking about the “right to work” and the current trend for states to introduce right to work laws. According to Wikipedia (the oracle,) the right to work refers to laws in states that effectively prevent a union from collecting a fee from employees working in businesses in which the union has a collective bargaining agreement. Presumably, if a union is present, it is negotiating on behalf of all employees, and should be allowed to levy a fee from each in return for that representation. In Right to Work states, a worker should have the “right to work, free of coercion to join the union, or at least pay the union fees.” As noted in the Wikipedia entry, a right to work law does nothing to ensure workers have any rights to work…

Unlike the right to life, or the right to choose, or the right to be wrong, the right to work doesn’t seem to be self-explanatory. Here’s a great Slate article on the origins of right to work laws.