New Hampshire Union Leader newspaper reports on
House Labor Committee Hearing for Right to Work

Covering the New Hampshire House of Representatives' Labor Committee hearing on S.B. 61 -- the New Hampshire Right to Work Bill -- for the New Hampshire Union Leader, Kevin Landrigan reports:

CONCORD — New Hampshire would attract new employers if it became the 28th state — and the only one in the Northeast — to embrace a right-to-work bill (SB 61) to end the requirement workers pay union dues or cover the cost of collective bargaining, advocates said Thursday.

“This bill would guarantee workers for the right to decide for themselves whether a union would represent them, just like at any other employment environment,” said McKayne Boedecker, executive director of New England Citizens for Right to Work. “Good unions don’t need forced dues, and bad unions don’t deserve them.”

But an organized campaign on social media led to nearly eight times as many opponents — 1,703 — signing up against the bill as the 222 who registered their support for it.

“Every session we have to listen to the same bogus claims about growing our economy and protecting worker freedoms,” said Glenn Brackett, president of the state’s AFL-CIO, in testimony before the House Labor, Industrial and Rehabilitative Services Committee. “These laws also work to line the pocket of out-of-state lobbyists and their big corporate funders.”

The Business & Industry Association of New Hampshire lent its support.

“This is something that New Hampshire can do right now, today, to give our state an economic shot in the arm, all at no cost to the state,” said David Juvet, BIA’s senior vice president of public policy.

Last month, the State Senate voted 13-11 to endorse the measure as it has several times over the past decade.

Read more at the New Hampshire Union Leader:

Right-to-Work bill faces final public hearing