Voters in Missouri on Aug. 7 rejected a so-called “right-to-work” law by a 2-to-1 vote after labor unions in the state successfully organized to put the measure on the ballot as a referendum. The law would have banned unions in the state from collecting fees from nonmembers to offset the cost of negotiating contracts that cover them. The vote marked the first time that voters struck down a right-to-work law at the polls in the United States.

The state’s former governor, Republican Eric Greitens, signed the right-to-work bill in 2017, claiming it would attract businesses to Missouri. But a 2007 Hofstra University study suggests that while such laws may boost the number of businesses, their owners reap almost all the financial gain while average wages decline for workers in right-to-work states. According to research by economists at the University of Missouri at Kansas City, Missouri would have suffered the same fate and been hit with an annual loss of income of $1,945 to $2,547 per household.

Workers and their unions in the state fought hard to block the law, collecting about 300,000 signatures — more than double the requirement — to put the measure before voters as a referendum.

The right-to-work law’s historic defeat comes in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME in June mandating similar restrictions for public sector unions nationwide. As a result of the Supreme Court ruling, only private sector unions in Missouri will collect fees.

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said the workers’ win in Missouri should “remind America the path to power runs through the labor movement.”

Vox, Aug. 7
Reuters, Aug. 8