The New Hampshire legislature rejected a right-to-work bill Thursday. The Republican-led lower house voted 200-177 against it, ending a bid to make the Granite State the 29th to prohibit workers from being required to support a union as a condition of employment.
Republican defections helped seal the legislation’s fate.
“This bill is a direct attack on our livelihood,” said Rep. Sean Morrison, R-Epping, and a firefighter, according to the Concord Monitor.
It was the second time in two years that the effort stalled. New Hampshire’s lower house passed a right-to-work bill in 2015 that exempted police and firefighters, but it died in the state senate.
Thursday’s defeat was a blow for newly elected New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu, also a Republican, who had made the legislation a priority.
“I am deeply disappointed today by the House’s failure to pass right-to-work. This legislation would have provided our state an economic advantage across the region by affording our workers greater choice, freedom and flexibility – true New Hampshire values,” Sununu said.
Right-to-work laws prohibit contracts between unions and management that force all workers to join the union or at least pay it a regular fee. Workers have no choice: they pay or are fired.
The requirements, called “security clauses” by unions, are a regular feature in non-right-to-work states and are key to unions’ financial power. In states that prohibit the practice, unions tend to be much weaker because they have a harder time keeping members.
Unions and most liberals argue the provisions are a matter of fairness since collective bargaining benefits all workers. Conservatives counter that the individual worker should have the right to decide whether he wants to back a union. They also argue that states with right-to-work laws have an easier time attracting and keeping businesses.
“This is not union busting,” House Majority Leader Dick Hinch, R-Merrimack, said in a floor speech. “This gives individuals the choice to participate and contribute, or not, based on their own best judgment.”
