Kentucky lawmakers are set to pass a bill making the Blue Grass State the 27th to adopt a right-to-work law, which would prohibit workers from being forced to join a union or otherwise financially support one as a condition of employment. A vote in the Republican-led General Assembly could come as early as Saturday.
A committee approved the legislation Wednesday, and Republican Gov. Matt Bevin has called signing a right-to-work bill one of his “top priorities.” The Republicans want to get the law passed quickly, and the state legislature is scheduled to adjourn for a month beginning at the end of the week, so Saturday would be the last opportunity to pass it before then. Lawmakers also are considering legislation to repeal the state’s prevailing wage law, which sets hourly rates for state public works projects.
Senate President Robert Stivers told the Louisville Courier-Journal Thursday that lawmakers had not decided as to what they would do. “There are a number of factors involved, including what the weather will be like,” Stivers said.
House Speaker Jeff Hoover said they wanted to “make a statement” by getting substantial legislation passed early in the session. The GOP has super-majorities in both chambers of the legislature, so it is expected to pass easily when it’s put to a vote.
Right-to-work laws prohibit union-management contracts that require all employees to either join the union or pay it a regular fee to keep their job. Unions argue the provisions, called “security clauses,” are necessary to ensure that they get compensated for collective bargaining on behalf of non-members. Union leaders hate right-to-work laws because they typically have a harder time retaining members under them and have depleted treasuries as a result.
Unions are fighting the legislature’s effort. A group of labor members briefly cornered Bevins in a state capitol hallway Wednesday, chanting slogans like “no justice, no peace” and calling the legislation “new jim crow.”
“You’re supposed to fucking represent us!” one union member shouted at Bevin.
Bevin has repeatedly argued that not having a right-to-work law has hurt Kentucky’s economy. Four of its neighboring states have them which has made it hard to attract businesses, which usually prefer right-to-work states.
“Union jobs grow in RTW states because they attract more jobs,” Bevin tweeted Wednesday. Challenged by a critic to name three states where that happened, he responded Thursday: “Indiana, Tennessee, Michigan (to name just three).”
That is true in terms of total members in Indiana but not in Michigan, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Indiana had 246,000 union members when the state passed its version of right-to-work in 2012, and that number rose to 283,000 in 2015. The unionization rate in the Hoosier State rose from 9.1 percent to 10 percent over the period. Nevertheless, that was below Indiana’s recent height of 349,000 union members, or about 12.4 percent of the state’s workforce, in 2008. Indiana’s overall unemployment rate fell from 8.4 percent at the end of 2012 to 4.4 percent last year.
In Michigan, the number of union members was 633,000, or about 16.3 percent of the state workforce, when the state passed its law in 2013. That fell to 621,000 by 2015, or about 15.2 percent. The unemployment rate fell from 8 percent at the end of 2013 to 4.7 percent last year.
Tennessee adopted its right-to-work law in 1947, long before the Labor Department kept any statistics.
