Many people are surprised to learn, whether from an employment contract or employee handbook, that they are an "at-will employee". But what does being an at-will employee mean? Being an at-will employee means that your employer can terminate your employment at any time, for any cause - with or without notice. An employer has every right to walk up to an at-will employee and say, "I don't like that your favorite color is purple. You're fired." There are very few, if any, remedies for you, unless your employer did something to violate your employee rights or broke labor laws.
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Opponents argue that right-to-work laws restrict freedom of association by prohibiting workers and employers from agreeing to contracts that include fair share fees, and so create a
free rider problem.[SUP]
[15][/SUP][SUP]
[16][/SUP] The absence of fair share fees forces dues paying members to subsidize services to non-union employees (who are bound by the terms of the union contract even though they are not members of the union). Thus, these individuals benefit from
collective bargaining without paying union dues.[SUP]
[15][/SUP][SUP]
[17][/SUP]
The
AFL-CIO union argues that because unions are weakened by these laws, wages are lowered[SUP]
[17][/SUP] and worker safety and health is endangered. For these reasons, the union refers to right-to-work states as "right to work for less" states[SUP]
[18][/SUP] or "right-to-fire" states, and to non-right-to-work states as "free collective bargaining" states.
Business interests led by the Chamber of Commerce lobbied extensively for right-to-work legislation in the Southern states.[SUP]
[15][/SUP][SUP]
[19][/SUP][SUP]
[20][/SUP][SUP]
[21][/SUP] Critics from organized labor have argued since the late 1970s[SUP]
[22][/SUP] that while the
National Right to Work Committee purports to engage in grass-roots lobbying on behalf of the "little guy", the National Right to Work Committee was formed by a group of southern businessmen with the express purpose of fighting unions, and that they "added a few workers for the purpose of public relations".[SUP]
[23][/SUP]
