Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the National Right to Work Committee, issued the following statement on the occasion of Labor Day 2021:
“On this Labor Day, workers’ freedoms are at a crossroads. Though union officials and their allies in government use this day to claim to speak for America’s workers, they are simultaneously hard at work trying to undermine the individual liberty of those same American workers.
“The last decade saw record advances for workers’ right to free association, with five new states enacting Right to Work protections which defend a worker from being fired merely for refusal to pay dues to a labor union he or she does not support. Twenty-seven states now protect this basic, fundamental freedom, and, as of last year, a majority of America’s working men and women now work in Right to Work states. That’s on top of the National Right to Work Foundation-won 2018 Janus v. AFSCME Supreme Court victory, which recognized the First Amendment right of every public worker to choose for him or herself whether or not to fund a labor union.
“Unfortunately, rather than embrace voluntarism and worker choice, union officials have instead doubled down on coercion. Their top priority in Congress, the so-called “PRO-Act,” would add tens of millions of workers to union bosses’ “pay up or be fired” ranks by wiping out all state Right to Work laws by federal fiat. Meanwhile, despite the Janus ruling, government union bosses have continued to undermine and outright ignore the First Amendment right of public employees to cease all funding of the political activities of all government unions. This has resulted in dozens of Janus enforcement lawsuits nationwide, including two Foundation cases currently pending at the U.S. Supreme Court.
“Yet Big Labor’s push for more power to impose their so-called “representation” and mandatory dues payments on workers remains at odds with an overwhelming majority of Americans. Polls show Americans still overwhelmingly oppose forced unionism – consistently finding that around 80% of Americans agree with the Right to Work principle that union membership and dues payment should be voluntary, not coerced.
“On this Labor Day, as hardworking rank-and-file workers continue to grapple with economic uncertainty and lingering COVID disruptions, it is more important now than ever that we reject Big Labor’s schemes to expand forced unionism over more workers, and instead respect the individual freedom to decide whether or not a union deserves their support.”
The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation is a nonprofit, charitable organization providing free legal aid to employees whose human or civil rights have been violated by compulsory unionism abuses. The Foundation, which can be contacted toll-free at 1-800-336-3600, assists thousands of employees in about 200 cases nationwide per year.
