New unified GOP governments in Kentucky and Missouri adopted right-to-work legislation without any delay earlier this year. But the Granite State turned out to be a bridge too far.
The New Hampshire House voted down right-to-work today, 177-200. Prior to the vote, there were concerns that some of the 400 citizen-lawmakers in America’s largest state legislative body might not be there to vote due to a blizzard, but opponents of right-to-work were able to find more votes than anticipated.
Right-to-work laws bar the practice of forcing one’s employees to pay union dues or fees as a condition of their employment. Congress gave the states the option to pass these laws in the 1940s as one of the first major changes to the National Labor Relations Act, which had passed a decade earlier. They do not ban or otherwise affect workers’ right to organize and join unions.
Most right-to-work states were early adopters by the 1960s. For decades after that, only a small number of states, including Idaho and Oklahoma, passed such laws. But during the Obama era, thanks in large part to the decline of labor unions in general and the administration’s aggressive regulatory attempts to reverse it, interest in right-to-work laws surged. Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin, West Virginia and Kentucky adopted them while Barack Obama was president, and Missouri did so right after he left office.
Right-to-work is the law in 28 states, governing labor relations for just over 51 percent of Americans.
