Virginia Democrats, who at long last have legislative majorities and the governorship, are having second thoughts about repealing the state’s right-to-work law, according to activists on both sides of the labor issue.
“A lot of legislators want to slow-walk their way into repeal while we want to forge ahead,” said Destiny LeVere, communications director for the state branch of the Virginia AFL-CIO. “Some legislators have said, ‘We feel this may not be the right time. There are other things that we can get done, so we shouldn’t be a bull in a china shop.’”
Democratic Gov. Ralph Northam declined to answer last week when reporters asked if he backed repeal. “That’s a hypothetical question. I deal with what’s put on my desk,” he said. “But what I would say is that, while we’re the No. 1 state in the country in which to do business, I want to do everything that I can to support our workers as well.”
Supporters of right-to-work don’t take much comfort in Northam’s hesitancy. They assume that Northam and other Democrats may still end up backing repeal.
“The sense is there are a number of cooler heads among the Dem majorities who know overturning a right-to-work law that has served Virginia very well for over 70 years is bad policy and would be unpopular with their voters,” said Pat Semmens, vice president of the Virginia-based National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. “Of course, they are already under intense pressure from union bosses and will be as well from their more radical colleagues.”
Right-to-work laws prohibit workers from being forced to join a union or pay one a regular fee as a condition of employment. Specifically, they prevent union-management contracts from including “security clauses” that require all workers to support the union. Security clauses are common in non-right-to-work states, where they guarantee a steady stream of dues revenue for the unions.
States with right-to-work laws tend to have poorer and weaker unions. Only 4.6% of Virginia’s workers are unionized, according to the Labor Department, well below the national rate of 10.5%. Proponents of the laws say that it should be up to the individual worker whether they are in a union. Critics argue that nonunion workers are “free riders” on the ones who do belong, since unions must bargain on behalf of all employees in a workplace.
Virginia is one of 27 states that currently have a right-to-work law. It was also one of the first, having adopted the law in 1947. A renewed surge in states adopting the law began in 2012, when Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, and West Virginia adopted versions over the next four years. The surge appeared to stall in 2018 when Missouri voters approved a ballot initiative that scrapped a right-to-work law their legislature had passed the year before. A rollback in a state that has had a law as long as Virginia would be a major symbolic victory to the labor movement.
Once a cornerstone of the Republican Party, Virginia has become steadily more Democratic in the last decade. Earlier this month, Democrats gained a majority in the state legislature and control of the governor’s office for the first time in 26 years. Democrats have a 55-45 seat advantage in the lower chamber and a slimmer 21-19 edge in the state Senate. Topping the wish list for many is the repeal of right-to-work. Democratic Del. Lee Carter of Manassas introduced a repeal bill in the 2019 legislative session. It received no co-sponsors.
The state branch of the Chamber of Commerce polled candidates prior to the election and found that 42% overall favored repeal, a result Chamber President Barry Duvall called “very troubling” last month. The Chamber and others view the law as crucial to the state’s business climate. Without the law, they argue, entrepreneurs won’t choose to locate there, and existing businesses may move to states that do have the law.
The earliest the state legislature could take up the repeal would be in the second week of January, when the next session begins. There would be a short window to get it enacted since the session ends in March. One advantage right-to-work fans have is that the legislative schedule will likely be crowded next year. Having gained unified control of the state, Democrats have a lot of things on their wish list, such as passing the Equal Rights Amendment as well as gun control and climate change legislation. Right-to-work repeal could end up getting buried by other business. Another issue is that many of the newly elected legislators are activists themselves with their own particular issues that will further clog the agenda that the Democrats want to get done.
Northam throws another random variable into the mix. He’s refused to endorse the repeal but hasn’t ruled it out, either. Virginia’s governors are barred from running for reelection and are therefore often harder to sway by outside groups. Northam’s career in politics at any other level may be over thanks to this year’s scandal surrounding the resurfacing of pictures of him wearing blackface decades ago. He resisted calls at the time from his own party to resign. Unions are calling on him to think of repeal as part of his legacy.
