Posts tagged industrialization
Defend worker freedom this Labor Day
September 9, 2026 // “States with right-to-work laws enjoy lower unemployment rates, higher job growth, and higher wage and income growth compared with forced union states.” That’s according to a 2022 John Locke Foundation report from F. Vincent Vernuccio, former US Department of Labor official and current president of the Institute for the American Worker. Specifically, the report notes that between 2000 and 2019, personal income in right-to-work states grew by 56.4%, compared with just 40.6% in states without such laws. Also during that time, private-sector jobs in right-to-work states grew by 23.1%, which was almost double the 12.1% of growth in non–right-to-work states. The report also cites lower unemployment rates in right-to-work states. In states with the highest unemployment rates, the majority of them lacked such protections. Based on these superior worker outcomes, Vernuccio declares, “Right-to-work laws are decidedly pro-worker.” He concludes by saying, “In the end, right-to-work is about one thing: freedom. It protects workers by taking away a union’s ability to get them fired for not paying union dues.”