Slowpoke Toon: Right to Be A Jerk States

[Jim Lane]

13. Actually, the assumption is that workers CAN do math.

A so-called "right to work" law is really a "right to be a free rider" law.

The correct calculation for the guy in the last panel would be: "If I join the union, they bargain on my behalf and I get better wages, minus a small deduction for union dues. If I don't join the union, they bargain on my behalf anyway and I get better wages, without the small deduction for union dues. I come out ahead by not joining, right?"

The problem is that, in the short term, he does come out ahead by not joining. Thus, under a "right to work" situation, any one individual worker has an incentive to take a free ride on the union dues payments of the workers who do join.

If enough people reason that way, then the union can't bargain effectively and everyone is worse off.

It's a classic free-rider situation, to which the classic solution is compulsion. Workers can choose not to join the union but must still pay an "agency fee" to the union to support its work on their behalf. That's the arrangement that a "right to work" law prohibits.