By admin 
RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) — North Carolina lawmakers are moving forward with a proposed constitutional amendment that, with voter approval, would add the state’s right-to-work law to the North Carolina Constitution.
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North Carolina has been a right-to-work state since 1947. The law prevents workers from being required to join a union as a condition of employment.
Now, Republicans want to enshrine that right into the state constitution.
“We think it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. This has been law in North Carolina for nearly 80 years and is under no danger of being repealed because of the political situation in the General Assembly,” said Braxton Winston, president of North Carolina AFL-CIO.
“This is something that’s been long overdue in North Carolina,” said Donald Bryson, CEO of John Locke Foundation. “Putting it in the state constitution is something that protects it for the longer term rather than just a simple majority coming into the General Assembly and overturning it in the future.”
Dr. Michael Bitzer, political scientist at Catawba College, said constitutional amendments are much harder to reverse than ordinary state laws because they require approval from both lawmakers and voters.
“The big thing Republicans want to do is constitutionally protect this dynamic,” Bitzer said. “We’ll just have to wait and see what the voters of North Carolina think about that.”
Winston says North Carolina already has some of the weakest worker protections in the country.
“We are the only state in the nation that does not have collective bargaining rights for public sector employees,” he said. “Right-to-work laws limit employers’ ability to negotiate with their workers to create what are called closed shops.”
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Bryson disagreed, arguing the law gives workers freedom to choose.
“Right-to-work is a pro-worker movement. We believe that workers who join unions or don’t join unions have that right to association. They have a right to join a union, or they have a right to not join a union,” he said.
It’s also good for the state — Bryson said North Carolina is consistently ranked No. 1 for business.
“That also makes the state more attractive for outside investment and makes the state more attractive for people who want to move to this state and invest and create more jobs in this state,” he said.
Winston said their 150,000 union members, including police, firefighters, factory workers, and flight attendants, are “fired up” about the effort.
“We are a mighty bunch. We have folks from the mountains to the coast, and everywhere in between,” he said. “We have folks all across this state, Republicans, Democrats, and independents that are coalescing around this fight that we did not initiate but is brought to us, and we are certainly ready to fight back.”
The measure passed the Senate on Wednesday, but still needs to be approved by the House before it is added to the November ballot, where voters will get the final say.
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