Explaining US labor law: "Right to work" & "At-will" employment

Many people are confused by two common terms related to employment in the USA: “right to work” and “at-will employment”. This post will attempt to demystify both.

**Q. What are “right to work” (RTW) laws?**A. American states are divided, because some have these laws and others don’t. You’d think from the name that they help working people. But in reality, they do the opposite and were misleadingly named for political purposes.

Unions get workers higher wages and better working conditions once they start having impact in a certain workplace. The union needs to maintain a high membership rate to retain the leverage that allows that. But when some workers start freeloading at a union workplace, benefiting from these better conditions but refusing to join the union, the union weakens, and the conditions worsen over time. RTW laws prohibit union security agreements, which are powerful tools for preventing such freeloading.

As such, they weaken unions. Some people think unions are useless in states with RTW laws, but that’s wrong. It should also be mentioned that generally speaking, every individual worker benefits far more from being part of the union than it costs.

**Q. What is “at-will” employment?**A. In simple terms, it means the company’s owners can fire workers for pretty much any reason, except illegal reasons (in the USA, some types of discrimination, anti-union retaliation, etc). That would differ from “just-cause” employment. In the latter case, the standard that must be met to fire an employee is higher.

In the U.S. “at-will” employment is permitted by law in most states. But even in these states, workers may have a contract with the company that provides more job security. That’s often the case in union workplaces. In other countries, things may be different. The law may only allow workers to be fired for certain approved reasons, such as repeated unjustified absences.

**Q. Do RTW or at-will states allow companies to legally fire workers for supporting unions?**A. All U.S. states prohibit company retaliation against workers for supporting, promoting, or organizing a union, except in certain circumstances. Workers may receive restitution up to getting their job restored with back pay depending on how the NLRB judges their case. That’s not guaranteed, however, since the laws often aren’t enforced accurately. And when they are, there can be long delays and other trouble.

**Q. What should I do if I want to have the advantages of unions at my workplace?**A. You’ll find useful information at join-a-union.github.io.

Note: This post does not officially constitute legal advice nor comes with any legal guarantee of accuracy or otherwise.

MonkeMischief ,

“At-will” is such a double edged sword. It used to be the cudgel to make you fear that you could simply be fired because a manager didn’t like your shoes that day.

But it’s also what allows you to get up, leave, and never come back at any time you choose, and nobody can stop you. They’ve been learning about that side of it for a while now! XD

gravitas_deficiency ,

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 , (edited )

"Right to work" refers to the "right" that workers have to be employed without joining a union.

The states that have laws against union membership as a condition of employment are Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

Edit: I am frankly surprised to not see Ohio on that list.

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 employer 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 ,

It’s harder to boil the frogs slowly if the frogs have a thermostat and a contract mandating a specific temperature.

Dave , (edited )
@Dave@lemmy.nz avatar

I feel like there’s still a lot of unexplained jargon here. Perhaps you’re just wanting to keep it short and give a starting point for further research, if so, all good.

I’m thinking things like:

  • You explain Right To Work laws prevent Union Security Agreements. But don’t explain what those are.
  • There is a brief mention of illegal reasons to be fired, but it’s not really enough for someone to work out if they have been illegally fired
  • The standard for just-cause could be explained more, or linked to more info

Maybe the above points could have a link to another website that explains them?

I also feel like some things should have sources. For example, that Right to Work was misleadingly named for political purposes, that unionized workplaces get higher pay, that you can’t be fired for unionizing, the likely outcome of an NLRB judgment. I’m not saying these things are wrong, in fact they could be easy to find a source for, all the more reason to do so.

This is just some feedback, feel free to ignore, but I think if it were me reading I would appreciate links to more info and to back up claims as it would help me trust it a bit more.

Nougat ,

I'd also like to see some more details about:

In the U.S. “at-will” employment is permitted by law in most states.

In which states is at-will employment not "permitted"?

My understanding of at-will employment is that both employer and employee - in the absence of an employment contract - have the right to terminate the employment agreement at any time, for any reason, or none at all (with the exceptions being employers cannot terminate someone for illegal reasons, many of which are spelled out in the Civil Rights Act of 1964).

If the employer decides to terminate for any legal reason which is not "for cause" (where the employee committed a terminable infraction), the employee is entitled to receive unemployment insurance benefits, a good portion of which comes out of the employer's pocket.

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