[JURIST] The Kentucky House of Representatives [official website] on Thursday advanced a bill [text, PDF] that would allow workers to avoid paying dues at union workplaces. This bill was backed by Republican lawmakers who gained a majority in the House last fall. Kentucky democrats have released statements [WSJ report] against the bill. “Kentucky right-to-work is about padding the pockets of the corporate giants who want to keep the cost of doing business down at the expense of the worker,” Rep. Dennis Keene [official website] said. “Right-to-work is simply a clever slogan designed to undermine union resources,” Bill Londrigan, president of the Kentucky AFL-CIO [official website], told Kentucky representatives Wednesday. Republicans in the state claim that this will help bring more business and commerce into Kentucky.

Right-to-work laws have become more prevalent across the country in recent years. In 2015 the Republican-led Missouri General Assembly approved a “right to work” bill [JURIST report] that would stop workers from being required to be part of a union or pay dues, but the bill did not garner enough votes to overcome a likely veto by Governor Jay Nixon. The West Virginia Legislature passed the WV Workplace Freedom Act in February 2016 [JURIST report], overruling a veto by the Democratic Governor Earl Ray Tomblin the day before. West Virginia became the twenty-sixth state in the country with a right-to-work law, a law that bars employers from requiring that their employees pay union fees. In May the Wisconsin Court of Appeals stayed [JURIST report] a lower court’s decision striking down Wisconsin’s “right to work” law, thus reinstating it at least for the time being.