alt Hacker NewsYou both have it mostly backwards. The Taft-Hartley act mostly bans closed shops and allows states to pass “right to work” laws making payment of any agency fees to unions optional.
In no state are any employees compelled to formally join a union. In an American-style “closed shops” in a non-right-to-work state, if you don’t join the union the bargaining agreement can charge nonmembers an agency fee representing most of the dues they would pay as members. Not to mention pressure tactics to join.
Also especially in the trades in major markets unions control apprenticeship programs and hiring halls and make it virtually impossible for nonmembers to get union work, as well as gatekeeping access to apprenticeship programs in the first place.
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It just struck me how dystopian the phrase "right to work" is. Like, you have the right to go down the coal mine for 16 hours a day and get lung cancer! No right to get paid, though...
Right to freeload laws work as I describe. Although no employees are forced to "join a union" in the sense of signing a piece of paper joining the union, in all cases they are union employees in practice. That is, the union collectively bargains their working conditions, the union supports them via grievance if the employer doesn't follow the contract, and so on. The right to freeload allows for such a person to get by without paying dues - that is, the cost of providing these collective bargaining and legal representation services.