On this labor day, I'd like to clear up a common misconception wrt "right to work" laws.

[Liberal Veteran]

I often hear the term "right to work" used in the wrong way. A lot of people seem to confuse "right to work" laws with "employment at-will" laws.

(for the record, I think both are a slap in the face to the American worker).

So-called "right to work" laws basically outlaw closed union shops. Meaning that as part of accepting a job offer from that company, they cannot force you to join the union.

"Employment at-will" laws basically say that an employer can fire you without due cause as long as it doesn't violate certain laws such racial discrimination.

The cheap rationalization we are given for both is how it "benefits" the employee.

In the case of "right to work", the poor oppressed worker is freed from the shackles of having to join a collective bargaining unit if one accepts a job. What it really does is dilute the bargaining power of the union by allowing people who are cheap jerks to benefit from the concessions the bargaining unit gets in their contract negotiations without having to pay any dues and makes it easier for employers to break unions by hiring people more likely to opt out of the bargaining unit until there are enough people to decertify the union. Another benefit to the employer is that in the case of strike or lock out, the employer can still find himself with enough non-union workers to be able to cope with the temporary loss of experienced workers than they would be if ALL the workers are part of the labor dispute.

I'm not really seeing the upside for the employee in this case.

In the case of "at will" employment, the supposed benefit is that both sides can terminate an employment with no notice or reason. Of course, since there are very few jobs where if one just says "Fuck this shit, I quit" that an employer would be able to do anything about it, it doesn't really have any benefit for the employee. So it's another anti-worker law that has some cheap rationalization since it practice, what almost all of the time, what "at will" employment means is that you have no kind of job security and no recourse except in very limited circumstances. If the new supervisor just doesn't like you, he can say "you're fired" regardless of the quality of your work and there isn't a damned thing you can do about it.

So again I am not seeing an upside to this for the worker.

Anyhow, since I see the two terms used interchangeably, I thought I'd take a moment to explain the difference. They both suck and they are both anti-worker, but they are not the same thing (although far too often, states that have one have the other as well).

[patrioticintellect]

1. More on Labor Day

To build on that...

http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_kevin_go_070903_happy_labor_day_or_t.htm

[Gman]

2. I always tack on the phrase "for less"

whenever someone mentions "right to work".

[needledriver]

3. Right to - huh?

I just call it "Right to Scab."