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Roxanne Houman
History 174B Term Paper
Prof.Furner Spring 2013
You Have the Right to Impoverish Yourself:
How the Right-to-Work Laws Brought Us towards Inequality
Scholars across disciplines have been referring to a thirty-yeartrend of growing income
inequality in the United States. Some refer to this trend as the great divergence, of whichthere are
many factors;one factoris the decline of the labor movement forwhich the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947
is largely responsible. Specifically,the Right-to-Work(RTW) provision in this bill has proved itself
the harbinger of union decline “– and weakened unions tend to be good for business…or at least the
owner of the business.”1 It comes as no surprise then that business groups and pro-business
politicians are the biggest advocates forRTW legislation, claiming that it will bring economic
growth to the state. And, though it does bring growth, it isn’t distributed evenly. The accompanying
ideology to this legislation is that an individual has the right to work so that he may earn a living
wage without being forcedinto union membership. Yet,where this legislation has been enacted it
seems that workersare making less and proprietors are making more, resulting in increasing
inequality. An analysis of empirical data, first-hand testimony and articles demonstrate how the
“Right-to-Work” helped cultivate an old anti-union sentiment into a conservative pro-business
coalition that dominated the south, the west, and the Republican party. The RTWlaws were
instrumental in consolidating the conservative movement of the political right wing that oversaw
the great divergence.
In order to explain how this happened, the nuances of the law must be scrutinized, so that
the empirical data can provide some context on the original discourse surrounding the “Right-to-
Work.” The RTW laws stemmed from Section 14 (b) – a provision in the Taft-Hartley Act. The Act
1 Rick Ungar, “Right-to-Work Laws Explained, Debunked And Demystified,” Forbes
(December 11, 2012) <http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/12/11/right-to-
work-laws-explained-debunked-demystified/> (June 3, 2013)

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was a series of amendments to Labor’s Magna Carta, knownto some as the National Labor
Relations Act of 1935 and to others as the Wagner Act; it guaranteed the worker’s right to organize
and bargain collectively.Inthe subsequent contracts made between union and employer, three
types of hiring limits emerged: agency shop, union shop, and closed shop. It was the closed shop
that gave the most powerto unions by placing a mandate in the contractthat the employer could
only hire those whowere already union members. The Taft-Hartley Act outlawed the closed shop,
whichmeant that the contractthat a union negotiated had to be extended to non-members; in the
union shop, the non-member wouldbe have to join within a specified amount of time; and within an
agency shop the non-member must pay a fee for representation and can remain a non-member.2
But the RTWprovision further reduced union powerby endowing states the option of making
union or agency shops illegal, thereby putting open shops in their place: in an open shop a non-
member workergets all the benefits of union membership (contract, representation, etc.) without
having to pay a single penny. Now, unions are given the exerted pressure of providing for members
whoare not a part of their organization; some see this as a maliciously cleverlegislative technique
that will drown unions into an underfunded, ineffectivepurgatory, while others view it as the
preservation of worker freedom.
Essentially any workers whofelt coerced into union membership could be relieved by the
provision in Taft-Hartley that banned the closed shop; with that alone he would have the rightto
work in his job and pay a small union fee to coverthe cost of representation. Then was the purpose
of Section 14 (b) to release the individual workerfrom having to pay any union fees so his sacred
right to workwouldbe protected? That’s unlikely given that the open shop situation created by this
2 Cara Robinson, “Labor Unions, Corporations and Right-to-Work Laws: Impacts on the
American Economy” (2012). Sociolgy, Social Work, & Urban Professions Faculty Research.
Paper 2. <http://digitalscholarship.tnstate.edu/sswandurbanp_fac/2> (June 4, 2012), 4.
The union shop agreement allows a worker the option to forego membership and pay a fee
so the union shop and agency shop operate similarly. Benjamin Collins, “Right to Work
Laws: Legislative Background and Empirical Research” (December 6, 2012). Congressional
Research Service. <http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R42575.pdf> (June 4, 2013), 3.

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provision undermines that individual worker’s ability to hold a higher wage. Withoutthe leverage
that unions have when all the workers agree to strike together (assuming the individual worker
won’t strike with a union of which he’s not apart), the workersdon’t have a bargaining chip with
whichto negotiate favorable workingconditions. Why is it in the best interest of an individual
workerto give up his only leverage? Can he negotiate better on his own?
Not according to the empirical data. Of the two observed studies that calculatedthe median
wage, both demonstrated higher numbers for union security states: “Laurence Mishel (2001) of the
Economic Policy Institute found that in 2000 the median wage for workersliving in RTWstates was
$11.45, while wages forthose living in non-RTW states were $13.00.”3 And “only 4 of the 22 RTW
states4 are abovethe average median income forthe United States as a whole.”5 Most studies
calculated the average incomes or wages and their results were so conflictingthat they were
inconclusive.In truth, the average wage of a state isn’t helpful in determining higher worker wages;
the median is what needs to be lookedat.6 Another study by Lonnie Stevans shows that “wages and
personal income are both lower in right-to-workstates, yet proprietors’ income is higher.”7 Another
3 Robinson, 11.
4 At the time of the study in 2011 there were only 22 RTW states.
5 Marty Wolfson, “’Right to Work’ vs. the Rights of Workers”(2011). A Report from The
Higgins Labor Studies Program at the University of Notre Dame.
<http://higginslabor.nd.edu/assets/38894/> (June 4, 2013), 9.
6 The rationale in using the median instead of the mean is to better gauge the income of a
worker, seeing that a worker’s income is in the lower to middle part of the income
spectrum. However, the average is more easily skewed: for example, if an employer began
to take more of his revenue and distribute less of it to his workers, the average income of
the whole plant would be the same because the total amount of money would be the same
divided by the same number of people. But that doesn’t reflect the fact that the worker’s
are getting less. This might actually be a possible explanation for the variations in the
average calculations that show no difference between the wages of a RTW state and a non-
RTW state.
7 Lonnie K. Stevans, “The Effect of Endogenous Right-to-Work Laws on Business and
Economic Conditions in the United States: A Multivariate Approach” (2009) Review of Law
and Economics
<http://www.americanrightsatwork.org/dmdocuments/clearinghouse_resources/stevans
_article.pdf> (June 4, 2013), 595-614. Quoted on p.610.

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study indicates “income polarization is higher in RTW states, witha higher percentage of workers
earning the minimum wage (even when controlling for education level) than in non-RTW states.”8
The evidence suggests that the Right-to-Worklaws, which were created to protect the right
of the worker,are protecting the wallet of the proprietor. Well then if this is the case, who and what
prompted this RTWprovision and the subsequent RTW state laws? It comes as no shockerthat
business leaders were the ones who“spearheaded these compulsory open-shop campaigns.”9
Unionization reached its peak in 1945 withabout one third of American workersin labor unions.10
So corporation heads “[lobbied] for the loosening of union power insisting that businesses and
individuals were…prevented from exercising their right of association.”11 Management couldn’t
retain that control on all of its capital, given that the Wagner Act of 1935 gave labor unions
bargaining leverage on that, so management championed individual rights instead – as a counter
attack. In 1938, Frank Henry Selden, no friend of labor’s, framed the individual worker a man
deprived of his basic freedoms: “this question of the right to workresolves into whether one group
holding one opinion has the right to forceanother group to accept its opinion.”12 Selden was
expressing an old schoolanti-union rage but he laced it with individual rights rhetoric. In this piece,
he describes the oppressing unionized workers as “these workmen,” and “racketeers,” while
labeling the Wagner Act as “this abomination of abominations,” shamelessly and angrily taking side
with the management.
That was the attitude of pro-management in 1938. By 1948, management was somewhat
placated; since the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act one year prior, they had gotten backsome of
their powerwith the end of the closed shop. Now they slowly worked towards getting backthe rest
8 Robinson, 11.
9 Elizabeth Tandy Shermer, “Counter-Organizing the Sunbelt: Right-to-Work Campaigns
and Anti-Union Conservatism 1943-1958.” Pacific Historical Review, 78 (February 2009),
85.
10 Robinson, 7.
11 Robinson, 5.
12 Frank H. Selden, “The Right to Be Free to Choose,” Forum and Century (January 1938), 31.

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of it by eliminating the union and agency shop, through state initiatives. But that didn’t workin
California, much to the chagrin of Cecil B. DeMille, a Hollywoodmovieproducer. DeMille, whowas a
member of the American Federation of Radio Arts, refused to pay a $1 assessment to battle
California Proposition 12, a Right-to-Workinitiative. When the A.F.R.A. suspended him, thereby
canceling his radio show, DeMille realized that the fundamental issue “was union power: the power
to controlthe individual member’s political freedom through controlof his right to work.”13 When
the RTW didn’t pass as a federal mandate in the Taft-Hartley Act, he went to the House of
Representatives one year later to make the case fora federal law. He did not succeed but his
testimony is revealing in that the rhetoric of the conservativecoalition can be seen in the making.
He likened union organization to communism, he made excessive use of individual rights discourse,
and he disclosed some business concerns: all characteristics of a Republican in the conservative
coalition.
He resorted to Red Scare tactics by saying things like, “theCommunist willoppose any kind
of right-to-work legislation,” equating union members with communists.14 Others on the right took
advantage of the political landscape as well and accused unions of communism to stymie their
power.15 DeMille made it clear several times that he thinks an individual’s right to workis far
greater than the collectiveright to workand bargain.16 He mentioned that in one incident, because
of union agreements, he had lost money amounting to $8,000 and 3½ hours wages, which
amounted to an irksome business loss for him.17 DeMille clearly stood to gain if an RTWlaw passed
and limited that whichcost him time and money. His testimony is exemplary of the conservative
13 Robert Birchard, Cecil B. DeMille’s Hollywood. (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky,
2004), 330. It was as a result of the publicity from this incident that helped Taft-Hartley
pass.
14 DeMille, 7. He did this several times in his testimony, perhaps to stress the point.
15 Robinson, 5.
16 DeMille, 11, 13, 22.
17 DeMille, 28.

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crusade that had been launched by the 1940s against labor’s right to organize;18 but it also carries
traces of personal vendetta. Cecil DeMille eventually distanced himself fromHollywood’s leftcrowd
as he went closer to the politicalright: he created his ownFoundation forPoliticalFreedom that
solicited money and spread it to Right-to-Work campaigns throughout the States, engraining him in
the conservative coalition.19
Perhaps better than anyone else, Barry Goldwaterchampioned the Right-to-Workcampaign
to national prominence, and by doing that succeeded in uniting a conservative coalitionacross the
southern and western states centered on pro-business politics, individual liberty, and anti-union
policies. His support forthe RTWlaws seems to stem frompolitical views that were entirely anti-
New Deal. He was already famous in his native state when the Phoenix Gazette published his
editorial admonishing the President’s handing over the future of the working man to the
racketeering practices of ill-organized unions; he now had a platform fromwhich to spread his
message.20 Whether or not he truly believed that one day “workersand owners willhave achieved a
‘maturity’ in this field of mutual association, the governmental referee being no longer necessary,”
is difficultto say because he was, in fact, a libertarian. But he couldn’t have been naïve of the
tendency forcapital-owners to take advantage of workers.21 After all, his biggest supporters were
“major business and political groups:” the PrescottChamber of Commerce, the National Right to
WorkCommittee, the National Association of Manufacturers, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, etc.22
Whether or not he realized that this coalition couldprofit from its ideology, he managed to help
elevate the Right-to-Workcoalition to the national platform.
18 Shermer, 92.
19 Shermer, 93.
20 Shermer, 91.
21 Goldwater quoted in article: Alexander Holmes, “Labor and the States,” Los Angeles
Times, (May 13, 1954), A5.
22 Shermer, 92 and 97.

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By 1964 Barry Goldwater was nominated as the Republican candidate forthe Presidential
race, fully backed by a conservative coalitionbased in the Sunbelt. It’s no coincidencethat the
conservativecoalition has a geographical overlap with the states that passed RTW laws; they were
what brought the coalition together. Goldwater and his vehemently anti-union campaigns, starting
in the 1930s, attracted the Southern coalitionthat wanted to preserve the Jim Crow society,and his
individual rights rhetoric attracted manufacturing bases in the Sunbelt and West that could turn a
higher profit withoutunion presence.23 DeMille’s disillusionment with union powerby 1944 led
him to highly value and campaign for the Right-to-Work, whichwould also allot him more power as
an employer. DeMille’s testimony revealed that his commitment to RTWlaws wrapped him around
a conservative movement of anti-communism, individual rights, and pro-business policy. DeMille
and Goldwater represent twoexamples of the many people that gathered around the Right-to-Work
and united in the conservativecoalition. But, their coming together allowed them to pass RTW laws
whichhave been shown to cause rising income inequality. As such, the data implicates the
conservativecoalition in contributing to the great divergence. Whichmeans that the Taft-Hartley
Act, by virtue of the Right-to-Work provision, played a much bigger hand in the great divergence
than just union dissipation; it got the ball rolling on government policies that wouldfoster
inequality.
23 Shermer, 94.