U.S. Senator Rand Paul speaking with attendees at the 2015 Iowa Growth & Opportunity Party at the Varied Industries Building at the Iowa State Fairgrounds in Des Moines, Iowa, photo taken by Gage Skidmore (Oct, 2015)
Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Congressman Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) on Wednesday reintroduced the National Right-to-Work for the 119th Congress. Americans for Tax Reform urges all members of Congress to support the bill.
Right to Work laws allow workers the freedom of employment without forced membership in a labor union or forced payment of dues to a union boss. Existing Right to Work Laws protect over 150 million Americans across 26 states.
“No one should have to pay someone for the right to have a job. Forced union dues were recognized as wrong when congress passed the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947,” said Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “Everyone in a free country has the right to work without being asked to pay off union bosses. I applaud Senator Paul and Congressman Wilson for their leadership and urge their colleagues to support the National Right-to-Work Act.”
This landmark bill would preserve and protect the free choice of individual employees to join labor unions and pay dues, as well as the right to refrain from such activities. The introduction of the bill follows a Bureau of Labor Statistics report released last month which showed that for the first time in modern American history, union membership rates declined to below 10 percent. A state-by-state breakdown shows that in jurisdictions where employees are given the option of whether to unionize, they often choose not to do so.
Research shows that states with Right to Work protections experience stronger growth in the number of people employed, growth in manufacturing employment, and growth in the private sector.
“Kentucky and 26 other states have already passed right to work laws. It’s time for the federal government to follow their lead,” said Sen. Paul. “Union bosses don’t get to decide what policies are ‘pro-worker.’ That’s up to workers themselves, and the overwhelming majority support the Right to Work principle that union dues should always be a voluntary choice.”
On the House side, Rep. Wilson stood shoulder to shoulder with National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix on Wednesday. Mix pointed out that this Act simply repeals key sections from the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) and the Railway Labor Act (RLA) that allowed employers to force their workers to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment.
“[The bill] doesn’t add a single word to federal law. It simply repeals the provisions in federal law that authorize forced payment of dues or fees to the American worker,” said Mix.
Rep. Wilson introduced the landmark legislation with a record 74 original cosponsors in the House, more than double the number of original cosponsors when the bill was last introduced in 2023. The National Right-to-Work Act in the 118th Congress eventually earned 137 cosponsors, also a record high.
Four years of the Biden administration saw union bosses profit off the back of the workers they purport to represent, emboldened by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris who declared themselves to be leading the “most pro-union administration in American history”. Both are on the record not just for pledging to ban Right to Work laws, but also for their championing of the “Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act” which would have enacted the ban.
The Trump-Vance campaign’s sweeping victory in November provides a clear mandate for pursuing right to work policies, given their support for right to work and opposition to the PRO Act on the campaign trail.
Americans for Tax Reform urges members of Congress to cosponsor the National Right-to-Work Act of 2025.
