Along with our allies at National Right to Work, the NFIB Small Business Legal Center has been fighting to defend right to work laws in various states. For example, we had an impact in Indiana where we convinced the state supreme court to reject an outlandish argument that right to work laws somehow violate the Thirteenth Amendment. And more recently we helped secure a decision in the Seventh Circuit Federal Court of Appeal, which rejected a claim that Wisconsin’s right to work law violated the Fifth Amendment’s Takings Clause.
But there are still many fights ahead. Labor unions continue to swing for the fences in these cases, throwing-out all sorts of arguments in the hope that something (anything) will stick. As a notable example, the unions convinced a lower court to temporarily enjoin West Virginia right to work statute from taking effect last year. Luckily, the West Virginia Supreme Court recently reversed—meaning that the Mountain State now enjoys right to work protection.
The NFIB Legal Center will continue to weigh-in on these cases. But, a palpable sense of panic has emerged in Big Labor these days. Not only have unions lost in efforts to dismantle right to work, the Supreme Court now seems poised to strike down state laws requiring public employees to provide financial support for labor unions. Although this bodes well for the small business community, as we saw in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, nothing is settled yet.
