National Labor Relations Board officials weighed into a contentious local political fight in Kentucky, telling a judge that local governments cannot pass right-to-work ordinances.
The union-controlled federal panel’s move will boost the efforts of labor organizations seeking to halt a push by conservative political and business activists to get the Bluegrass State to adopt the workplace freedom measures one county at a time.
Right-to-work laws prohibit union contracts with “security clauses” that force workers to either join a union or pay a regular fee as a condition of employment. In a “friend of court” legal brief filed April 17, the federal board, the entity that enforces the National Labor Relations Act, told a federal judge in Kentucky that the act “empower[s] only states and territories to prohibit union security.”
Activists in the state have disagreed, and since November have assisted five counties — Fulton, Hardin, Simpson, Todd and Warren — in adopting local versions of the law. Another five have initiated the process. Labor unions are fighting the effort in court.
Twenty-five of the 50 states presently have right-to-work laws, with Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin adopting them in just the last three years. First authorized by Congress under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, right-to-work laws are associated with union membership declines and financial losses since they enable workers to keep their jobs without having to support a union. Business groups tend to favor them, while labor organizations have fought them tooth and nail.
Proponents of the county actions concede there is scant precedent for the laws at the local government level but have nevertheless mounted an effort in Kentucky believing that it will help build grassroots support for the law state-wide.
The effort has been largely backed by a group called Protect My Paycheck, which is headed by Brent Yessin, a business-side labor lawyer and Kentucky native. Yessin pledged to defend the laws in court on his own dime if the counties were challenged, thus removing a key concern that previously held back local supporters.
Critics are fighting back hard. Nine labor unions filed suit on Jan. 14 to stop Hardin County from adopting the law, backed by Kentucky’s Democratic attorney general, Jack Conway. The eventual ruling is expected to cover the other counties as well.
The effort has prompted some turmoil among supporters of right-to-work. The National Right to Work Committee, the leading national proponent of the issue, released a statement in late December agreeing that counties cannot adopt the laws.
“There is zero reason to believe that any local right-to-work ordinances adopted in Kentucky or any other state will be upheld in court,” said Stan Greer, senior research associate at the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, an affiliate of the committee.
Committee President Mark Mix has argued that the county level push is diverting resources and energy away from their efforts to pass a state level law, a contention Yessin and other supporters have rejected.
