right-to-work states

(noun)

Right-to-work states have passed laws that prohibit union security agreements, or agreements between labor unions and employers that govern the extent to which an established union can require employees' membership, payment of union dues, or fees as a condition of employment, either before or after hiring. Right-to-work laws exist in twenty-three U.S. states, mostly in the southern and western United States.

Related Terms

Examples of right-to-work states in the following topics:

  • Gender Inequality in Politics

    • Women have had to fight for equal treatment in politics in the United States by winning the right to vote and a seat at the political table.
    • Before 1920, women did not have a national right to vote in the United States.
    • "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex."
    • Since gaining the fundamental right to vote in 1920, women have worked in many levels of government in the United States.
    • Mott, along with Elizabeth Cady Stanton, organized the Seneca Falls Convention in 1948, effectively launching the women's civil rights movement in the United States.

  • The Movement for Gay and Lesbian Civil Rights

    • The LGBT rights movement refers to the efforts of LGBT advocates to improve their legal and social status.
    • Since the mid-1900s, individuals and organizations have worked to overcome prejudice against LGBT people.
    • The first organizations in the U.S. that worked to improve the standing of LGBT people were known as homophile organizations.
    • It additionally stated that states did not need to recognize same-sex marriages granted by other states.
    • Analyze the efforts of the LGBT rights movement to achieve equal rights and opportunities for homosexual, bisexual, and transgendered individuals

  • Women as a Minority

    • The belief that men and women are very different and that this should be strongly reflected in society, language, the right to have sex, and the law
    • In the United States, women were treated as second-class citizens and not given the right to vote until 1920, when the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S.
    • Constitution provided: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. "
    • Issues commonly associated with notions of women's rights include, though are not limited to, the rights to: bodily integrity and autonomy; vote (suffrage); hold public office; work; fair wages or equal pay; own property; be educated; serve in the military or be conscripted; enter into legal contracts; and to have marital, parental, and religious rights.
    • The UN member states that have not ratified the convention are Iran, Nauru, Palau, Somalia, Sudan, Tonga, and the United States.

  • Functions of the State

    • Many people consider the United States to be a pluralist state.
    • On an even more mundane level, Marxists might point out that many states have given capitalists extra privileges by treating corporations as people, affording them the same rights as human beings.
    • States may be classified as sovereign if they are not dependent on, or subject to, any other power or state.
    • States are considered to be subject to external sovereignty, or hegemony, if their ultimate sovereignty lies in another state.
    • Marx's early writings portrayed the state as "parasitic," built upon the superstructure of the economy and working against the public interest.

  • Types of Governments

    • Democracy is a form of government in which the right to govern or sovereignty is held by the majority of citizens within a country or a state.
    • The "majority rule" is often described as a characteristic feature of democracy, but without responsible government it is possible for the rights of a minority to be abused by the "tyranny of the majority".
    • A Communist state is a state with a form of government characterized by single-party rule of a Communist party and a professed allegiance to an ideology of communism as the guiding principle of the state.
    • While almost all claim lineage to Marxist thought, there are many varieties of Communist states, with indigenous adaptions.
    • For Marxist-Leninists, the state and the Communist Party claim to act in accordance with the wishes of the industrial working class; for Maoists, the state and party claim to act in accordance to the peasantry.

  • Citizenship Rights

    • In the United States, citizens have certain rights and responsibilities, as defined in the U.S.
    • Citizens have the right to free speech and freedom of assembly, for example, but they also have the responsibility to follow the laws of the land and to pay taxes.
    • In the United States, citizens have certain rights and responsibilities, as defined in the U.S.
    • Citizens have the right to free speech and freedom of assembly, for example, but they also have the responsibility to follow the laws of the land and to pay taxes.
    • A person is generally presumed to be a citizen of a nation if one or both of their parents are also a citizen of said nation; this is often called jus sanguinis (Latin legal term), meaning "right of blood. " A jus sanguinis policy means grants citizenship based on ancestry or ethnicity, and is related to the concept of a nation state common in Europe.

  • Labor Unions

    • Labor unions provide members with the power of collective bargaining over and fight for workers rights.
    • Although most industrialized countries have seen a drop in unionization rates, the drop in union density (the unionized proportion of the working population) has been more significant in the United States than elsewhere.
    • Although much smaller compared to their peak membership in the 1950s, American unions remain an important political factor, both through mobilization of their own memberships and through coalitions with like-minded activist organizations around issues such as immigrant rights, trade policy, health care, and living wage campaigns.
    • To fight employer anti-union programs, unions are currently advocating new "card check" federal legislation that would require employers to bargain with a union if more than 50% of workers signed forms, or "cards," stating they wish to be represented by that union, rather than waiting 45 to 90 days for a federally-supervised a secret ballot election during which time employers can fire, harass and generally make life miserable for pro-union employees.
    • This diagram shows the rise and fall of union membership in the United States.

  • Social Exclusion

    • Social exclusion occurs when individuals and communities are blocked from rights and opportunities that are available to others.
    • Many employers in the United States, including the government, claim to be "equal opportunity employers," meaning that they will not systematically exclude groups of people from working for them on the basis of traits such as race, gender, or sexual orientation.
    • It refers to processes through which individuals and entire communities of people are systematically blocked from rights, opportunities, and resources that are normally available to members of society and that are key to social integration.
    • In modern industrialized societies, paid work is not only the principal source of income with which to buy goods and services, but is also the fount of individuals' identity and feelings of self-worth.
    • Sociologists see strong links between crime and social exclusion in industrialized societies including the United States.

  • New Social Movements

    • New social movements focus on issues related to human rights, rather than on materialistic concerns, such as economic development.
    • The primary difference is in their goals, as the new movements focus not on issues of materialistic qualities such as economic well-being, but on issues related to human rights (such as gay rights or pacifism).
    • Departing from the worker's movement, which was central to the political aim of gaining access to citizenship and representation for the working class, new social movements concentrate on bringing about social mobilization through cultural innovations, the development of new lifestyles, and the transformation of identities.
    • The concept of new politics can be exemplified in gay liberation, the focus of which transcends the political issue of gay rights to address the need for a social and cultural acceptance of homosexuality.
    • As stated by Offe, the new middle class has evolved in association with the old one in the new social movements because of its high levels of education and its access to information and resources.

  • Culture Wars

    • They wanted parents to have the option of sending children to private, religious schools (at state expense), and they opposed legalized abortion or equal rights for gay and lesbian people.
    • The concept of a culture war has been in use in English since at least its adoption as a calque (loan translation) to refer to the German "Kulturkampf."
    • Members of the religious right often criticized academics and artists, and their works, in a struggle against what they considered indecent, subversive, and blasphemous.
    • So-called red state/blue state maps have become popular for showing election results.
    • Some suggest that the red state/blue state divide maps the battle lines in the culture wars.