Abstract
From 1944 to 1986, 19 states held 27 referendums on right-to-work legislation, with 22.5 million people voting on the proposals. Despite its prominence as a public issue, most research on right-to-work laws focuses on their industrial relations impacts, and not on employees’ individual rights to refrain from joining unions or those same employees’ responsibilities to support their bargaining unit representative. Nor has there been any research on what citizen groups determine those rights and responsibilities in a right-to-work referendum. This study explores a potential operational model of anti-right-to-work voting with a multiple regression analysis of Missouri’s 1978 right-to-work election results, and hopes to serve as a stimulus to additional research on these particular dimensions of the right-to-work issue.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ashford, J. (1980).Victory in Missouri: The United Labor Committee of Missouri’s Campaign Against ‘Right-to-Work’—An Analysis of the 1978 Campaign. Jefferson City, MO. Copy provided by Duke McVey, President, Missouri AFL-CIO, in possession of the author.
Atlas, M. (1981). Gambling with elections: The problems of geodemographics.Campaigns & Elections, (Fall), 4–12.
Bechnel, T. (1980).Labor, Church and the Sugar Establishment, 1887–1976. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana State University Press.
Canak, W., & Miller, B. (1990). Gumbo politics: Unions, business an Louisiana right-to-work legislation.Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 43, 258–272.
Fellner, K. (1979). The Missouri Right-to-Work Campaign. Report to the Service Employees International Union. Copy provided by Walter Pearson, Research and Education Director, Bakery, Confectionery, and Tobacco Workers Union, copy in possession of the author.
Fenton, J. H. (1959). The right-to-work vote in Ohio.Midwest Journal of Political Science, 3, 241–253.
Gall, G. J. (1991). Southern workers and anti-union sentiment: Arkansas and Florida in 1944. In Zieger, R. H. (ed.)Organized Labor in the Twentieth Century South. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.
Gall, G. J. (1988a).The Politics of Right to Work: The Labor Federations as Special Interests, 1943–1979. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
Gall, G. J. (1988b). Right-to-work referendum voting: Observations on the aggregate historical statistics.Labor Law Journal, 39, 805–812.
Haggard, T. R. (1990). Union security and the right to work: A comprehensive bibliography.Journal of Labor Research, 11, 81–106.
Kern, R. (1982). Right to work again.Century, 2, 15–18.
Kokkelenberg, E. C., & Sockell, D. (1985). Union membership in the United States, 1973–1981.Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 38, 497–537.
Langbein, L. I., & Lichtman, A. (1978).Ecological Inference. Sage University Paper series on Quantitative Applications in the Social Science. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage Publications.
Leuthold, D., & Fine-Trail, T. (1985). The initiative, referendum, and other public-issue votes. In Hardy, R. (Ed.),Missouri Government and Politics, 51–61. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press.
McLean, E. (1985).Roman Catholicism and the Right-to-Work, Lanham: University Press of America.
Mockus, J. (1980). Geodemographics II: Targeting your turnout.Campaigns & Elections Summer: 55–63.
Missouri RTW Campaign Documents (1978). Documents regarding the anti-RTW campaign by Missouri labor provided through the courtesy of George Boyle, Director of the Labor Education program at the University of Missouri, Columbia and Duke McVey, president of the Missouri AFL-CIO. Documents in the possession of the author. Copies available upon request.
Moore, W. J., & Newman, R. J. (1985). The effects of right-to-work laws: A review of the literature.Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 38, 571–585.
Opinion Research Corporation (1980).Public Attitudes Toward Right to Work Laws. Princeton, NJ: Arthur D. Little Company.
Political Profiles: The Nixon-Ford Years (1979).Eagleton, Thomas F. New York: Facts on File.
Robbin, J. (1980). Geodemographics: The new magic.Campaigns & Elections, Spring: 25–34.
Quinn, B. et. al. (1982).Churches and Church Membership in the United States, 1980. Atlanta: Glenmary Research Center.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (1980).1980 Census of Housing and Population. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (1978).1978 Census of Agriculture: State and County Data. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Gall, G.J. Union security rights at the polls: A call for modeling right-to-work voting. Employ Respons Rights J 9, 41–56 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02622439
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02622439