IBEW

FACT SHEET

Right to Work Laws

 

What is a right-to-work law? A right-to-work law, in U.S. labor law, is a state law that prohibits union membership as a condition of employment. A union-shop agreement, even if qualified and permitted by the National Labor Relations Act, is not valid in a state that has prohibited such an agreement. In some states, unions have secured agency-shop clauses, which require nonunion employees to pay the union fees equivalent to union dues and initiation fees as their cost of representation, because they receive all benefits that the union has won under the collective bargaining agreement. Most right-to-work laws have prohibited such payments. The U.S. Supreme Court has held further that an agency-shop clause is the equivalent of a union-shop clause and may therefore be prohibited. In Indiana, however, the courts have held that the agency-shop clause did not violate the right-to-work law of that state, which prohibited membership as a condition of employment but did not prohibit agency fees.

Union Shop Agreements - Union-Shop Agreement, in labor relations, is a clause of a collective bargaining agreement whereby the employer enjoys the right to hire persons without regard to their membership or nonmembership in the labor union that represents the employees, with the provision that the person so hired must become a member of the union after a specified period. During World War II, the so-called maintenance of membership clauses provided that no employee must join a union as a condition of employment but that those who did voluntarily join must remain members in good standing for the duration of the contract. Since the amendment of the National Labor Relations Act by the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947, the union-shop clause has become prevalent, replacing the maintenance of membership clause and the illegal closed-shop clause. Under the law, unions and employers can negotiate into a contract a union-shop clause can require employees to join the union not sooner than 30 days after the date of their employment or the date of the union contract, whichever is later. No employee may be fired for lack of good standing in the union for reasons other than failure to pay regular dues and initiation fees.

Open Shop Agreements - Open Shop, in labor relations, defines a business establishment or factory in which workers may be employed without regard to their membership or nonmembership in a trade union. The abolition of the open shop is usually one of the primary demands made by labor unions when they engage in collective bargaining with employers because the freedom of employers to hire and retain nonunion help generally makes all attempts at unionization ineffective. The alternatives to the open shop are the closed shop and the union shop.

Closed Shop Agreements - Closed-Shop Agreement, is a provision of a collective-bargaining agreement between a trade union and an employer, which contain a clause providing that employees in the bargaining unit of the shop or enterprise shall be union members as a condition of employment, and that all union members must remain in good standing in the union as a condition of continued employment (see OPEN SHOP). Usually, all new personnel added to the working staff must be hired through the union. Until the passage of the Labor-Management Relations Act, known as the Taft-Hartley Act, in 1947, about 30 percent of all workers in U.S. industries that had collective-bargaining agreements were covered by closed-shop contracts. Most of these contracts contained clauses against discipline or discharge of employees without just cause and included grievance and arbitration provisions to resolve disputes. Such clauses were banned by the Taft-Hartley Act, but in 1951 the union shop, which requires an employee to join the union after a specific period of time, was legalized.

"Closed_Shop Agreement," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation."Union_Shop Agreement," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation. "Right_To_Work Law," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation."Open Shop," Microsoft (R) Encarta. Copyright (c) 1994 Microsoft Corporation. Copyright (c) 1994 Funk & Wagnall's Corporation.