The Columbian’s March 5 editorial, “Right To Work = Freedom,” concludes that “it is difficult to develop a cogent argument against right to work laws.” The massive income inequality that we experience in our country, an inequality that has grown exponentially in the last several decades at the same time that union membership has declined, is the most cogent argument against right to work laws. It is clear that in those states where right to work laws have been passed that the result has been guaranteeing the right to work for a lot less money.
Collective bargaining leads to a larger share of corporate income going to wages rather than profits; the fact that corporate profits are at historic highs is a reflection, in part, of the current weakness of collective bargaining and the heightened power of corporate owners and managers. Workers cannot, on their own, compete with companies that spend millions of dollars per year aggressively fighting workers’ efforts to choose to bargain collectively. Right to work laws are just one more strategy in this fight.
Right to Work laws are not about freedom, they are about guaranteeing that workers will have an even smaller piece of the economic pie.
Gary Lazzeroni
Vancouver
