Right to Work, Left to Struggle: Structural Effects of Right-to-Work Legislation on New Labor Organizing Efforts

Economic grievances in the US have become a focal driver of public unrest across partisan lines.Whereas individuals may form coordinated social groups (e.g., labor unions) to address theirgrievances, higher-level sociopolitical structures (e.g., labor laws) influence the activity of thesesocial groups in complex ways. In the present study we focus on the long-term effect of Right-to-Work (RTW) laws on workers’ material conditions and the emergence of new labor unions.Using hierarchical multilevel models of archival longitudinal data from 2018-2023 (N = 6,174),we find that RTW laws depress unionization efforts decades after their passing. Moreover, RTWlaws produce worse material conditions for workers and weaken the effectiveness of existinglabor unions in changing these. Overall, our results suggest that RTW laws trap workers ineconomic precarity, increase the costs of collective organizing, and reduce unionization to adefensive and less powerful response to worsening financial prospects.