From the Bargaining Table to the Ballot Box: Political Effects of Right to Work Laws

Feigenbaum, James J.; Hertel‐Fernandez, Alexander; Williamson, Vanessa

doi:10.3386/w24259

Cited by 102 publications

(75 citation statements)

References 37 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Including such controls has no effect on our results, and we are persuing the independent effect of right-to-work laws on union composition in ongoing work. See Feigenbaum et al (2018) for recent work on right-to-work laws, mainly using CPS-era data.…”

Section: State-year Panel Regressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Section: State-year Panel Regressionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Observations receive a value of 1 if they occur in a state-year with a passed RTW law, and 0 otherwise. Year-specific passage of RTW is collected from Moore (1998), Kogan (2017), and Feigenbaum et al (2018). Some laws are passed late in the year.…”

Section: Labor Market Institutional Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Right to Work, Power Resources, and Economic Inequality

VanHeuvelen¹

2019

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

How do Right to Work laws affect the distribution of economic resources? While sociological theories would predict inequality to increase following the passage of Right to Work laws, previous research has found these laws to be largely inconsequential for economic inequality. Drawing on power resources theory, I reassess the consequences of Right to Work laws and allow their impact to depend upon local union membership. To do so, I construct unique datasets at the state and commuting zone levels of income and wage inequality, merging data from the Internal Revenue Service, the US census, the American Community Survey, the US Union Sourcebook, the Current Population Survey, and the National Labor Relations Board for years 1939 to 2016. After using two-way fixed effects and instrumental variable regression models to replicate inconsistent results of previous studies, I show that these mask substantial and robust heterogeneity across local areas. Simply put, Right to Work laws are highly consequential when passed in times and places where labor has something to lose. Right to Work laws remove the negative association between labor union membership and inequality, while the consequences of Right to Work passage are greatest in highly unionized areas. In total, results suggest that Right to Work laws work as intended, increasing economic inequality indirectly by lowering labor power resources. Theoretical and policy implications are discussed.

show abstract

“…Multiple studies have connected declining union density to growing income inequity . Low union density undermines worker power over wages, which has spillover effects for prevailing norms in nonunionized workplaces, and undermines union organizing for redistributive policies, like a higher minimum wage . For example, one study estimated that declining union membership from 1973 to 2007 explained a third of the rise of wage inequity among men and a fifth of the rise among women, an effect size of similar magnitude to that found in more‐recent research .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 81%

“…The workplace‐level health benefits of unionization may be stronger for less‐educated, racialized, and otherwise marginalized workers, a finding demonstrated for economic outcomes like the union wage premium . Similarly, at the societal level, by regulating the balance of power between the working class and owning class, unionism may improve working‐class health by advancing economy‐wide compensation norms, labor rights, and progressive social protections and public‐health programs, reducing material deprivation and psychosocial stressors throughout the working class, union membership aside . For example, Feigenbaum et al found that state‐level right to work laws, which can weaken unions by allowing workers in unionized businesses to opt out of paying union dues, reduce state‐level policy progressivism, such as the strength of redistributive social programs.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, at the societal level, by regulating the balance of power between the working class and owning class, unionism may improve working‐class health by advancing economy‐wide compensation norms, labor rights, and progressive social protections and public‐health programs, reducing material deprivation and psychosocial stressors throughout the working class, union membership aside . For example, Feigenbaum et al found that state‐level right to work laws, which can weaken unions by allowing workers in unionized businesses to opt out of paying union dues, reduce state‐level policy progressivism, such as the strength of redistributive social programs. Additionally, by fostering solidarity among workers and their broader communities, unionism may reduce alienation and feelings of powerlessness, factors associated with mental illness and drug use .…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Solidarity and disparity: Declining labor union density and changing racial and educational mortality inequities in the United States

Eisenberg‐Guyot

Mooney

Hagopian

et al. 2019

American J Industrial Med

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Background: Recently, United States life expectancy has stagnated or declined for the poor and working class and risen for the middle and upper classes. Declining labor-union density-the percent of workers who are unionized-has precipitated burgeoning income inequity. We examined whether it has also exacerbated racial and educational mortality inequities.Methods: From CDC, we obtained state-level all-cause and overdose/suicide mortality overall and by gender, gender-race, and gender-education from 1986-2016. State-level union density and demographic and economic confounders came from the Current Population Survey. State-level policy confounders included the minimum wage, the generosity of Aid to Families with Dependent Children or Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, and the generosity of unemployment insurance. To model the exposure-outcome relationship, we used marginal structural modeling. Using state-level inverse-probability-of-treatment-weighted Poisson models with state and year fixed effects, we estimated 3-year moving average union density's effects on the following year's mortality rates. Then, we tested for gender, gender-race, and gender-education effect-modification. Finally, we estimated how racial and educational all-cause mortality inequities would change if union density increased to 1985 or 1988 levels, respectively.Results: Overall, a 10% increase in union density was associated with a 17% relative decrease in overdose/suicide mortality (95% confidence interval [CI]: 0.70, 0.98), or 5.7 lives saved per 100 000 person-years (95% CI: −10.7, −0.7). Union density's absolute (lives-saved) effects on overdose/suicide mortality were stronger for men than women, but its relative effects were similar across genders. Union density had little effect on all-cause mortality overall or across subgroups, and modeling suggested union-density increases would not affect mortality inequities.Conclusions: Declining union density (as operationalized in this study) may not explain all-cause mortality inequities, although increases in union density may reduce overdose/suicide mortality. K E Y W O R D S fatal overdose epidemic, health disparities, health inequities, labor movement, labor unions, marginal structural models, mortality inequities, social determinants of health

show abstract

From the Bargaining Table to the Ballot Box: Political Effects of Right to Work Laws

Cited by 102 publications

References 37 publications

Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data

Unions and Inequality Over the Twentieth Century: New Evidence from Survey Data

The Right to Work, Power Resources, and Economic Inequality

Solidarity and disparity: Declining labor union density and changing racial and educational mortality inequities in the United States

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About