On November 8, Tennesseans overwhelmingly voted to enshrine right-to-work in the state constitution. For 75 years, Tennessee law has protected its workers from being forced to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment. It had been such a longstanding tradition that when I began urging state officials and business leaders to consider making right-to-work a constitutional protection, I was met with tremendous reluctance. Why do this now when this state law has been unchallenged for nearly a century?
But as these discussions began in late 2019, the attacks levied against right-to-work policies took the national stage. Then-candidate Joe Biden called on Congress to override and ban state right-to-work protections, and Nancy Pelosi’s House twice voted to do just that via the so-called PRO Act. It also took moderate Democrats in Virginia to stop an attempt by their own party to repeal their right-to-work law. This stood out to us just across the border in Tennessee because our two states had passed our original right-to-work laws in the exact same year.
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