| dc.description.abstract | The role of unions in the US labor market has been a highly contested political issue, leading states to pass Right-to-Work (RTW) laws. As of 2023, 27 states in the US have active RTW laws, legislation that makes it illegal for unionized firms to require union membership as a condition of employment. I use synthetic control methods to estimate RTW’s effects on a broad range of state outcomes that could be of interest to policymakers. I find evidence that RTW typically reduces the union coverage rate and average hourly wages, while it seems to have no generalizable effect on other important state-level variables such as total employment and the unemployment rate. The synthetic control methods help to uncover substantial heterogeneity in RTW’s impacts on a state’s union coverage rate, and this heterogeneity is likely due to union composition in the public sector and the size of a state’s public sector at the time of enactment. It is also possible that differences in union organizing tactics after RTW enactment contribute to this heterogeneity. This paper examines five states that passed RTW after 2010 separately – Indiana (2012), Michigan (2013), Wisconsin (2015), West Virginia (2016), and Kentucky (2017). Additionally, estimated effects of RTW do not seem to be due solely to shifting union preferences or worker expectations. Synthetic control results for Missouri, which passed RTW in 2017 and then struck down the law before it could be enacted, are not similar to the results of the post-2010 enactment states. Missouri’s results provide evidence that RTW has an independent effect on a state’s union coverage rate and average hourly wages. | en_US |
