Effects of Right-To-Work Laws: Can They Include Higher Levels of Satisfaction For Union Workers?

This paper reviews theories and evidence on the effect of “right-to-work” laws on union members’ satisfaction with their unions. With the increase of right-to-work activity at the state level, and with federal right-to-work legislation pending in Congress, this has returned as an important political issue. Following a brief review of how the hypotheses of “taste,” “free-rider,” and “bargaining power” can influence various effects of right-to-work laws, the idea of utility maximization paired with measures of union satisfaction is explored to show theoretical evidence that greater levels of union satisfaction could exist in right-to-work states than exist in non-right-to-work states. Arguments for both positive and negative effects are compared. The author proposes that, as a future area of research, empirical tests be performed that combine the concept of simultaneous equations with recently developed measures of union satisfaction.