On February 6, Missouri Governor Eric Greitens signed into law SB 19, making Missouri the 28th state to adopt right-to-work legislation. The law goes into effect on August 28, 2017, and provides that no employee may be required as a condition of employment or continued employment to become a member of a union or to pay any dues or other fees to a union. (Note that agreements entered into prior to August 28 are grandfathered and not subject to the law). In passing this law, Missouri joins a number of Midwest states to adopt right-to-work laws since 2012, including Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin.
New Hampshire currently has a bill pending that would make it the 29th right-to-work state, and on February 1, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) introduced in Congress a national right-to-work bill. Although efforts to ban compulsory union membership and forced union dues on a nationwide basis have been pursued by Congressional lawmakers in the past, those bills never passed. However, with Republicans now constituting a majority in Congress and a Republican President who has indicated that he supports a nationwide right-to-work law, the prospect of passage now is much higher.
