Indiana is considering becoming a Right to Work state, which would make it the first state since Oklahoma in 2001 to end coerced unionism.

Twenty-two states have opted to be Right to Work states, and all are in Flyover Country.  Most states continue to require that all workers at a place of employment join a union and pay union dues if 51% of the workers at that place of employment vote to have a union.  Not only must the 49% who vote against the union pay hefty dues each month to bosses who spend most of those dues supporting the left, but these 49% are also forbidden by law from negotiating their own terms of employment.

What happens when a state enacts a Right to Work law?  Employees of businesses still have the right to form a union, providing that no one is forced to join or compelled to pay dues.  Members of the union can still strike, but they cannot prevent other employees from still working.  The union can still negotiate contract terms for their own members, but they cannot bind employees who do not belong to the union.

So unions do not vanish in states with Right to Work laws.  In Alabama, which has Right to Work, more than 10% of the workforce belongs voluntarily to unions.  What Right to Work does do is place unionized labor in the free market, competing with non-unionized labor.  Free labor, like free business, is good in the long run for everyone.

But conservatives should support Right to Work for more than just reasons of economic common sense.  Have you ever wondered why the left exists in America, despite the fact that most Americans are conservatives and the appalling and amoral nonsense of leftism?  The left infiltrates and controls organizations, reigning over myriad critical junctions of power through slavishly devoted systems of bureaucracies.

We see this in the realms of news, entertainment, and education, each of which is connected to the other.  The last twenty years have largely exposed the myth of an objective media, of the film and television industry interested in entertainment rather than indoctrination, and of an educational system truly devoted to learning.  Growing armies of our countrymen see this complex of institutions as simply the tool of leftist ideological jihad. 

The same is increasingly true of the parallel complex of lawyers, judges, regulators, congressmen, and litigation-happy leftist advocacy groups.  The wholly incestuous relationship which these siblings share reeks with an increasingly overpowering putrescence.  Indeed, the only innocent supporters of this gaggle are those with no sense of smell.

Labor union campaign funds dwarf all the business and industrial contributions.  Unions provide more than money; they provide muscle, as was so clearly demonstrated in Wisconsin over the last year.  These hacks act as paid armies (unlike the volunteers to conservative candidates) who do not appear as campaign expenses for Democrats.

Republican state governments are beginning to tackle Right to Work and mandatory deduction of union dues by employers on a state-by-state basis.  At the national level, however, Republicans have followed for decades the pragmatic approach Nixon began four decades ago of trying to keep labor bosses appeased by not proposing an amendment to the Taft-Hartley Act to make Right to Work federal law.  Conservative Republican senators have taken up a National Right to Work Law again.

This is wise politics.  Big Labor reflexively supports the left and the Democrats, no matter how "moderate" Republicans behave toward unions.  What cooperation has been possible in the past between Republicans and unions has existed because industrial unions had a problem with radical environmentalism.  Increasingly, union members do not work for private industry.  The taxpayer, not the corporate managers, pays for fat pensions and luxuriant benefit packages. 

Forcing unions, particularly public employees unions, to compete in the marketplace for members would radically reduce the power of these unions to win elections for the left.  Without the hundreds of millions in campaign funds and the hundreds of thousands of foot soldiers paid for by unions, Democrats would have no chance to control Congress, influence state governments, or win -- except in extraordinary situations -- the White House. 

Free labor would also give America a desperately needed edge in economic competitiveness around the world.  John Hawkins at Townhall reviews five ways unions are destroying our nation.  Unions are a vestigial organ, a redundant layer of bureaucracy parroting incessantly the false theme of management exploitation.  Free markets resolve the problem of bad employers much more efficiently than union bullying, which must accept the Marxist fable that owners of business exploit workers.

Republicans must shed their fear of union bosses and recall that Reagan showed his mettle first in firing air traffic controllers who illegally struck (which profoundly affected the Kremlin's perception of the Gipper's courage).  Reagan, in response to Republican nervous Nellies who dreaded the wrath of leftist elitists (who were surely going to fight Reagan's plans anyway), also had wise words of political strategy when he said of these leftists: "What are they going to do?  Hang us from a higher tree?"