Until recently, the spread of “right-to-work” (RTW) legislation formed a fairly dormant chapter in the history of labor relations and state policy. By the conventional narrative, the state-by-state adoption of RTW rules represented a key front of postwar anti-union politics, helping to establish an uneven geography of workplace regulations, possibly contributing to the shift of manufacturing to the Sunbelt, and undermining union-dense production sectors in the Northeast and Midwest. However, this once largely closed episode of economic restructuring has re-opened with three Midwestern states adopting RTW over the past three years and a broader uptick in related legislation in other states. Focusing on one new front of anti-union legislative campaigns, this report examines the emergence of RTW law as a viable option for local governments. Beyond probing the limits of federal regulations, local RTW’s circulation as a flexible policy concept strategically exploits political and economic factors at the local scale that differ from the “rules of the game” established at the state level.

The empirical literature on the wage effect of 'right-to-work' (RTW) legislation remains fairly ambiguous with studies producing contrasting results. In this article, we address this issue by exploring the impact of RTW on wage heterogeneity between socio-demographic and occupational subpopulations in the U.S. Using data from the 2012-2014 Current Population Survey, we employ two analytical techniques for estimating the wage effect of RTW legislation. First, we utilize multi-level regression to observe the effects of state-level RTW legislation on individual hourly earnings and wage differences while controlling for socio-demographic and occupational characteristics of individual workers as well as developmental and regulatory characteristics of states. Second, we utilize propensity-score matching (PSM) to observe the wage difference between similar workers located in RTW and non-RTW states. According to estimates from the fully specified multi-level regression models, private workers in RTW states earn 1 percent less than workers in non-RTW states. However, according to estimates from the PSM approach, private workers in RTW states earn about 6 percent less than similar workers in non-RTW states. The results show RTW legislation reduces hourly wages, but the magnitude of the wage effect is dependent on the specification of regression models and the statistical approached use to estimate the treatment effect of RTW legislation. Additionally, we also find RTW both suppresses and exacerbates existing wage inequalities between socio-demographic subpopulations.