Comment on Explaining US labor law: "Right to work" & "At-will" employment
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
Meta-commentary: as a term of art in the sphere of employment law, “right to work” is intentionally confusing to laypersons. That was one of the points of the legislation that established the concept: make people who don’t bother with doing research judge the book by its cover, as it were, in the interest of suppressing union activity.
Nougat@kbin.social 11 months ago
"Right to work" refers to the "right" that workers have to be emploed without joining a union.
In these states, if a union has presence in a workplace, you are not required to be a member of that union to be employed there. This can mean that your compensation, benefits, work hours, overtime availability, rest hours, safety considerations, etc., are different from (read: worse than) the union member next to you doing the exact same work.
Obviously, the emplyer isn't going to make those things too much worse, else they would drive more of their workers into the union, which means that even non-union workers in a workplace where a union operates benefit from that union, and they receive that benefit for free.
Thank you, unions.
gravitas_deficiency@sh.itjust.works 11 months ago
It’s harder to boil the frogs slowly if the frogs have a thermostat and a contract mandating a specific temperature.