And why the removal of right to work?
Because it has been consistently shown to lead to lower wages everywhere it is passed.
But it offers people the choice not to join a union. If they so choose to do so, why should they not be allowed to do so?
Because it creates a situation where someone can benefit from agreements like better wages and benefits that were obtained through collective bargaining, while not having to pay the costs (such as union dues) that were necessary to obtain such agreements. This sets up a version of
the prisoner's dilemma where the best scenario for the group would be to cooperate (maintaining the union and keeping higher wages and benefits), but the best scenario for each individual is for them to not cooperate and the others to cooperate (meaning they get higher wages but don't have the costs associated with being in a union) and the worst scenario for each individual would be to cooperate while others don't (leading to them having to pay union costs but have wages go down anyway). This creates an incentive for all workers to avoid cooperation, which leads to the second-worst possible outcome for each individual and the worst possible outcome for the group as a whole.
Not to mention that people can be legally required to do many things as part of the contract they sign for a job. They can be required to undergo drug tests (in most states), wear certain clothes, work certain hours, etc. If that is legal, then why shouldn't requiring someone to join a union as part of their contract be?
This seems like a conservative position, to allow for maximum freedom of contract. Right-to-work is the government outlawing a specific type of contract freely entered into by two private-sector individuals or organizations. That seems like a pretty strange thing for a free-market, laissez-faire person to support. It's a big government, not small government, type of law.
From a more leftist perspective, I don't think that most contracts are really "freely" entered into given socioeconomic pressures on most workers to find a job, and so I support government intervention to level the imbalance of power between employer and employee. Right-to-work legislation doesn't do anything to relieve that imbalance though, in fact it does the opposite, so I don't support it. Supporting right-to-work isn't a conservative position, but it's not a liberal/leftist one either. It's a big government corporatist position, an example of using the power of the government to intervene in private matters in support of business.
