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Senate Republicans on Monday advanced a measure that would add Colorado to the list of so-called "right to work" states, prohibiting mandatory union membership. Despite opposition from throngs of union members and leaders, as well as many in the business world, Republicans on the Senate Business, Labor and Technology Committee pushed the bill along on a party-line vote. Senate Bill 55, sponsored by Sen. Tim Neville of Littleton, would prohibit an employer from requiring someone to join an organized labor group or pay dues as a condition of employment. It also would create civil and criminal penalties for violations.

In the 47 years between 1964 and 2011, just three states adopted a right-to-work law – Louisiana (1976), Idaho (1985) and Oklahoma (2001). But in the last five years, five more states have made it illegal for employers to make workers pay unions as a condition of employment: Indiana (2012), Michigan (2013), Wisconsin (2015), West Virginia (2016) and Kentucky (2017). In the opening days of its 2017 legislative session, Missouri took a step toward becoming the 29th right-to-work state, when its Republican-controlled House approved a bill to adopt the policy. Kentucky, Michigan, Wisconsin and Indiana all passed right-to-work laws when...

You can’t really pin this one on the Trump Effect because it’s been in the works for a while, but Missouri’s legislature sent a new bill to the Governor this week which will be making some big changes on the labor front. If you were somehow able to buy stock in labor unions on Wall Street, this would be a good time to sell it because the Show-Me state is about to show forced unionization to the door. (St. Lois Today) A moment long dreaded by the state’s labor unions and their supporters arrived on Thursday, as Missouri lawmakers...

Union membership in Wisconsin has declined nearly 40 percent since legislation was passed that gutted collective bargaining for public workers, according to federal data. The percentage of public and private workers who were union members was about 8 percent, or 219,000 people, in 2016, down by 136,000 members from 2010 levels, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The agency’s report shows the percentage of Wisconsin workers in unions is below the national average of 10.7 percent, The State Journal reported. …

Mish ShedlockJanuary 7, 2017 In a major setback for organized labor, Kentucky passed right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. “Organized labor suffered its first major legislative setback due to the 2016 elections on Saturday, when Kentucky Republicans gave final approval to right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. Both bills are expected to be signed into law by the governor, and will take effect immediately. Labor leaders were equally troubled by the legislature’s move to gut the state’s prevailing wage law. Such laws require that employers pay certain minimum wages on work funded by public...

Live Stream of debate / upcoming vote on bill to enact Right to Work and repeal of "prevailing wage" law. Union members can be heard screaming in protest in the background.

FRANKFORT Angry union workers packed the hallways of Kentucky’s Capitol Annex on Wednesday as Republican lawmakers pushed ahead with bills that would ban mandatory union dues and repeal a law that requires regional prevailing wages for workers on public construction projects. The chants of union workers were little deterrent to Gov. Matt Bevin and his GOP colleagues in the Kentucky House and Senate, who have made approving the bills their top priority of the 2017 General Assembly. Shouts and banging could be heard from the hallway, but the meeting room itself was packed with supporters as the House Committee on...

On the ballot Tuesday in two states (Washington and South Dakota) voters will find deceptive initiatives to vote on. Both were concocted by the forces of Big Labor for the purpose of getting and keeping more money from workers who don’t want to pay them. Businesses that operate in a competitive market under the rule of law need to persuade consumers to buy whatever goods and services they offer. That’s good: consumers get to decide what’s worth parting with their money and what isn’t. Also, buyers are free to stop buying any time they become dissatisfied or discover better uses...

With her unpopular positions and repulsive mindset, the real question is why isn’t Hillary Clinton 50 points behind in this election? In a bizarre video message this week to the Laborers International Union of North America, Hillary Clinton asked, “Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?” She seemed concerned that her opponent, Donald Trump, had closed the gap in the polls. Clinton claimed that Trump was staunchly opposed to labor unions, but she had a long history of support. She also noted her strong opposition to Right to Work laws. According to Clinton, “Right to Work is wrong for workers and...

Democrats love to talk about rights. They say people have the "right to affordable health care," the "right to a debt free college education," the "right to choose," and so on. But there's one right they apparently want to erase: The right to work. Here's how Hillary Clinton put it in a videoconference this week at the Laborers' International Union of North America: "I will fight back against so-called right to work. Right to work is wrong for workers and wrong for America." Come again? The right to work is wrong for America? Clinton is referring to state right-to-work laws...

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton sent a passionate video message to the Laborers’ International Union of North America, demanding that they help get the message out about Donald Trump. She pointed out that she was against “Right To Work” and appeared upset that Trump was gaining in the polls despite his record of supporting it. “Having said all this, ‘Why aren’t I 50 points ahead?’ you might ask,” she said, highlighting Trump’s anti-Labor union stance. “Nobody should be fooled,” she said. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0EyoKB3ZHSc

If the judge is on your side, you can win a case despite pathetic arguments. So if the cost of losing is near zero and the possible gain from winning is huge, why not launch a suit and see what happens? That’s the thinking behind a case challenging Idaho’s Right to Work (RTW) statute on the grounds that the state is taking property that belongs to labor unions when it allows workers to keep their jobs even if they don’t pay the dues demanded by the union. The theory of the suit is that Idaho’s law (and, logically, all other...

State bars across the country have become havens for the left in recent years, increasingly used to target conservative attorneys. With deep pockets — due to the exorbitant amount of dues they charge attorneys in order to practice law — it is impossible to fight back once targeted. More than half of state bars are mandatory, which means they are unavoidable if you want to practice law. This is very disturbing, considering many of these states have right-to-work laws. Why are attorneys required to join a union? Arizona has one of the most corrupt state bars in the country. Many...

A leaked memo revealed how the state’s largest teachers union planned to get around Michigan’s new right-to-work law soon after it was enacted. The law repeals the power previously enjoyed by the union to get a school employee fired for not paying it dues or fees. In the memo from December 2012, Michigan Education Association President Steve Cook laid out the union’s strategy: “We will use any legal means at our disposal to collect the dues owed under signed membership forms from any members who withhold dues prior to terminating their membership in August for the following fiscal year. Same...

A May 10 election in West Virginia could leave the state’s new right-to-work law in peril. On that day, voters will decide whether to re-elect Republican Justice Brent Benjamin to the West Virginia Supreme Court of Appeals, or replace him, possibly with union-supported Darrell McGraw. McGraw, who is seen as leading the pack of those challenging the 12-term justice, is endorsed almost entirely by unions. If elected, he would be the fourth Democrat on the five-member court. Flawed Dane County ruling may show the way to killing RTW in West Virginia and nationally The main concern of those who favor...

Now you’ve done it, Republicans. You’ve disappointed John Kasich. In a Wednesday interview with The Washington Post, Kasich — continuing his sad presidential campaign’s efforts to equate Ted Cruz with Donald Trump — whined about being one of few Republicans who cares about ideas.“See, I am a fundamental believer in ideas,” Kasich said. “If you don’t have ideas, you got nothing. And frankly, my Republican Party doesn’t like ideas. They want to be negative against things.”Every word of this is trademark John Weaver, the sometime Democrat consultant running Kasich’s campaign. Within a few hours, lefty opinion columnists were using Kasich’s...

Just over a year ago, Wisconsin became the 25th state to adopt a “right to work” law, as states are allowed to do under Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947. Many people misunderstand what the phrase “right to work” (RTW) means. A RTW law does not guarantee anyone a job. Nor does it damage or prohibit unions, as Big Labor advocates often suggest. All that a RTW law does is to deny the validity of collective bargaining contract clauses that require the company to fire a worker because he or she refuses to pay the union dues. But...

The right-to-work law promoted by Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin was struck down Friday by a judge in Dane County. ABC affiliate WBAY reports: The unions, including the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, United Steelworkers and International Association of Machinists, argued the law amounts to an unconstitutional seizure of their property because it allows workers who donÂ’t pay union dues to still receive union benefits.State attorneys argued the law is constitutional since it technically doesnÂ’t take any money out of union coffers.Judge William Foust agreed the law amounts to taking the unionsÂ’ property without just compensation, and that it violates the state...

Wisconsin’s right-to-work law, championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker as he was mounting his run for president, was struck down Friday as violating the state constitution. Attorney General Brad Schimel, also a Republican, promised to appeal the decision and said he was confident it would not stand, noting that no similar law has been struck down in any other state. […] Three unions filed the lawsuit last year shortly after Walker signed the bill into law. […] The unions argued that Wisconsin’s law was an unconstitutional seizure of union property since unions now must extend benefits to workers who don’t...

A study published by the University of Michigan claims that the state's decision to hire a nonunion contractor to run prison cafeterias led to gangs. But the report’s methodology allowed a labor union critical of privatization to hand-pick which prison guards participated in focus groups that the author used as a foundation for his report. According to the report, "The Michigan Corrections Officers recruited participants, arranged interview locations, and reimbursed participants for travel." Roland Zullo wrote the publication for the Institute for Research on Labor, Employment, and the Economy at the University of Michigan. It concluded that the contractor's employees...