They called it “right to work.” The man who invented the phrase — Vance Muse — said the quiet part out loud: it was meant to preserve Jim Crow. That was the 1940s. The lie is still on the books in 26 states, and it is still doing exactly what it was built to do.
The Illinois Economic Policy Institute just put numbers on it. In 2025, states that protect collective bargaining added 305,000 union members. “Right-to-work” states added 107,000. The wage gap between protected states and RTW states was 3.2% in 2015. By 2025 it was 6.7%. That’s over $4,000 a year out of the median worker’s pocket — money that did not vanish, it went somewhere. To the top.
CEOs got a 21% raise last year. They now make 312 times what the median worker makes. The same year those workers got a “freedom” law that suppressed their wages. Republican state legislators — your elephant-branded cowards, your donor-owned dickweeds — keep voting “right-to-work” while telling the workers they “liberated” to be grateful for the privilege of working for less.
411,000 new union members in 2025. The biggest jump since 2008. And 71% of Americans approve of unions. Young workers would join one if they could. The boss class knows this. That’s why they’re still selling the Jim Crow original under a new label, and that’s why every wingnut statehouse is already sharpening the next round of bills to kneecap the organizing wave before it gets legs.
Take the flag pin off before you rob the family, you sanctimonious fuck. Eat shit and stop calling wage theft freedom.
Source story: US unions gain 411,000 members in 2025, biggest jump since 2008.