Republicans have long supported giving workers the freedom to choose whether to join a labor union. The evolution of one U.S. Senator’s position on the matter, however, has some in Washington wondering whether change is afoot.
Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) announced during a series of interviews conducted in October that he has changed positions on a major policy that is law in most of the country, Right-to-Work. During those interviews, Senator Hawley indicated he is no longer an advocate for Right-to-Work laws, which are on the books in 26 states and stipulate that workers cannot be forced to join and fund a union as a condition of employment.
Senator Hawley’s shift on freedom of association for workers comes at a time when some are encouraging other Republican politicians to join Hawley in warming up to labor unions. However, in urging opposition to Right-to-Work laws, which protect hundreds of millions of Americans from being forced to join and fund a union against their wishes, Hawley is turning away from a policy widely considered instrumental to the economic success of the states that are attracting the most people, jobs, and investment. In fact, for years Americans have been voting with their feet in favor of Right-to-Work states.
From 2019 to 2022, the 26 Right-to-Work states saw net in-migration of 950,679 people. Meanwhile in California, New York, and the other 22 states where workers face coerced unionization, there was a net outmigration of 952,897 people during that same period.
It’s not hard to see why Americans are favoring states where they won’t be forced to join and pay dues to a union as a condition of employment. As Senator Hawley’s colleague, Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.), pointed out during a November appearance on the Ruthless podcast, Oklahoma and the other 25 Right-to-Work states have higher worker pay on average than non-Right-to-Work states. Congressman Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), during a November 30 hearing on Capitol Hill, noted that in Senator Hawley’s own state of Missouri they have experienced “a giant sucking sound of jobs migrating across the border into nearly every neighboring state that provides workers the choice in whether or not they want to join a union.”
“When we actually looked at the data in Missouri, it wasn’t just that the entire state was losing jobs,” Congressman Burlison added, “the border counties were losing jobs at an even greater rate.”
The economies of Right-to-Work states are also growing faster. Average GDP growth rate in the 26 Right-to-Work states over the past three years was 4.76%, whereas non-Right-to-Work states saw GDP grow by 3.7% during that same period.
Along with faster growing economies, Right-to-Work state governments also impose lower costs on taxpayers. The average top marginal income tax rate is 3.96% in Right-to-Work states, compared to 7.17% in non-Right-to-Work states. The average overall state and local tax burden for Right-to-Work states is 9.75%, compared to 11.45% for non-Right-to-Work states.
It’s not just that Americans have been moving to Right-to-Work states in droves. State lawmakers around the country have also been taking action in recent years to join the Right-to-Work club.
In 1980 there were 19 Right-to-Work states, a figure that increased to 22 by 2010, representing 15.7% growth in the number of Right-to-Work states over the span of three decades. In the past ten years alone, however, the number of Right-to-Work states shot up by more than 18%, rising to 26. There had been as many as 27 Right-to-Work states as of 2022, but Michigan Democrats repealed their Right-to-Work law in 2023, bringing the total back to 26.
Aside from the policy arguments for Right-to-Work, recent developments indicate that supporting Right-to-Work remains smart politics for Republicans, particularly in a red state like the one Senator Hawley represents. Last year in neighboring Tennessee, for example, state legislators referred a measure to the statewide ballot to enshrine Right-to-Work protections in the state constitution. That constitutional amendment was approved by nearly 70% of Tennessee voters last November. Lawmakers in other Right-to-Work states are also interested in putting such worker protections in their state constitution, thus making it harder to repeal in the future.
While Senator Hawley was a vocal supporter of Right-to-Work in the past, it appears rejection of Right-to-Work by Missouri voters in a 2018 referendum may have been a catalyst for his position shift. “The people of Missouri made their decision and now the question is are we going to support these workers and their struggle to keep jobs in America,” Hawley told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in early October. In another interview that same month, Hawley said he “certainly wouldn’t support any federal legislation to impose right to work on anybody.”
“Right-to-work laws don’t impose anything on workers,” National Review’s Dominic Pino wrote in response to those comments by Hawley. “It’s the unions who want to impose their agenda on workers by forcing them to financially contribute to them as a condition of employment.”
“At a time when working families are struggling because wages are stagnant and health care and education costs are soaring, nobody should be forced to pay union dues,” a spokeswoman for Josh Hawley told the Washington Post in 2018, demonstrating how much Hawley’s position on the matter has changed over the past five years. When he was running for Senate, Josh Hawley signed the National Right to Work Committee’s pledge. Candidates who sign that pledge commit to “cosponsor and seek roll-call votes on legislation to repeal the provisions in federal laws which authorize compulsory union dues.”