When the Taft-Hartley Act passed in 1947, it brought 12 years of explosive union growth to a sudden stop. Boosted by the passage of the National Labor Relations Act in 1935, union membership had reached 34% of private-sector workers by 1947. The increase in IBEW membership was even more dramatic, from 56,000 to 385,000 members.

When 5 million workers went on strike in 1946 due to the economic turmoil following the end of World War II, it amounted to nearly a tenth of the total workforce. It was clear that labor had become a powerful force, and it had big business running scared. Business interests fought back by dredging up the "right-to-work" propaganda from its racist roots in the 1920s and forcing it through Congress in 1947 in the form of Taft-Hartley. Congress overrode President Harry Truman's veto to enact it.

Within one year of the law's passage, 13 states authorized Section 14(b) of the act, which enabled right-to-work: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia.

State legislatures supplanted Washington, D.C., as the battleground for labor rights, and IBEW International President Dan Tracy urged members to pay close attention. "The wrong kind of men in state legislatures can spell headaches and hardship in terms of welfare and working conditions, while the right kind of members can help labor toward better working conditions and higher standards of living," Tracy wrote in the March 1948 issue of The Electrical Worker.

For Tracy, the solution was clear: Elect state legislators who are allies of labor. In the elections of 1948, New Hampshire voters did just that, replacing several anti-union legislators with labor-friendly ones. The state repealed right-to-work in 1949. It was a welcome, though rare, victory.

The 1950s brought seven more states going right-to-work. The first to flip were Nevada in 1952 and Alabama in 1953. Local 505 in Mobile reported the unfortunate news in a 1953 issue of The Electrical Worker. "Brothers and Sisters, I am very sorry to report that Alabama has joined the ranks of states crippling organized labor by passing the so-called 'right-to-work' bill," wrote the local's press secretary. "Labor went for the Governor when he needed them. Now he is going to turn us down."

Everywhere in the country, these right-to-work bills faced fierce resistance from the IBEW. When the governor of Oklahoma began promoting a bill, Local 584 in Tulsa was quick to rally its members. "Keep those letters of protest pouring into the Governor's office so he'll realize how many friends he's lost," wrote Press Secretary Bob Dooley in a 1953 Electrical Worker issue.

In an editorial the same year, Tracy noted a study from the Oklahoma State Federation of Labor comparing the state to Arkansas, which was in the first wave of right-to-work. In the six years prior, employment in manufacturing went up by 1.2% in Arkansas, whereas in Oklahoma it was 24.8%. "The salesmen for 'right-to-work' say that such laws stimulate more industry," wrote Tracy. "The facts simply do not back up this conclusion." For the time being, Oklahoma held off.

In some of these states, anti-labor bills had been successfully defeated in the state legislatures, only for them to pass in misleading referenda that were often written by industrialists. This demonstrated the need for greater public awareness. "It is unfortunate that such a vicious law has such a high-sounding name," wrote IP Tracy in a 1954 editorial. "A look into the past, when there were no unions, brings out the true picture of 'right-to-work.' The employer was supreme. He hired and fired at will, paid what he pleased and forced employees to work for as long as he wished them to work. It was only through the advent of unions that workers came to exercise their Constitutional right to work for reasonable hours, under reasonable conditions and for fair wages."

The message was heard loud and clear in Washington state, where Wenatchee Local 1665 put up a vigorous defense of unionism. "It seems incredible that labor should be obliged to defend itself against so-called 'right-to-work' legislation, when our record is there for even the most uninformed to see," wrote Press Secretary T.E. Nepp in a 1955 issue of The Electrical Worker. The bill in Washington was defeated in 1955, but states continued to pass right-to-work laws.

For the IBEW, hope was renewed at the end of 1958 when former President Truman spoke at the 26th International Convention in Cleveland. Truman's speech brought the delegates to their feet with unapologetic attacks on the Taft-Hartley Act. "The big business interests who were behind Taft-Hartley and who dominate the Republican Party knew that they could not kill the union shop in broad daylight in the halls of Congress," explained Truman. "They thought they would have a better chance in the state capitals where they might have less opposition and less publicity. … Some of these people will tell you they are for unions but against the union shop. Well, that's like saying you are for motherhood and don't like children," Truman said to great applause.

It would be five years until the next state, Wyoming, voted to go right-to-work. Two years later, in 1965, Indiana answered Truman's call and repealed its bill. Sensing a turning of the tide, President Lyndon B. Johnson campaigned for Congress to repeal Section 14(b) but was thwarted in 1966 by a filibuster led by Sen. Everett Dirksen of Illinois. Though it was a devastating loss, the attention the campaign brought seemed to slow the tide. Over the next 40 years, only three states passed right-to-work legislation: Louisiana in 1976, Idaho in 1985 and Oklahoma in 2001.

The right-to-work drought broke a decade later, after a wave of Republicans winning statehouses. Indiana and Michigan flipped to right-to-work in 2012, Wisconsin in 2015, West Virginia in 2016 and Kentucky in 2017. Missouri approved a right-to-work bill in 2017, but it was forced to a referendum that failed to pass in 2018.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, unemployment skyrocketed across North America due to massive layoffs in the private sector. Suddenly, many workers began to see union security agreements in a whole new light: not as a luxury but as a necessity for economic stability. Public polling now shows support for unions at historically high levels. In 2022, Illinois passed a referendum guaranteeing the right to collective bargaining. In March 2023, Michigan became the third state to repeal right-to-work and the first since 1965.

Today, 26 states have right-to-work laws. If history is to be any guide, the fight to repeal will be tough. But the solutions are the same as they've always been. In 1922, when right-to-work first reared its head, International Secretary-Treasurer Charles Ford set forth the challenge: "We must drive home the fact to every wage worker in the country that the only rights he now possesses are those which he is strong enough to get and to keep. At all times it is a question of organization. Only when the people come into possession of their rights, when we get men in public office who will dare to tell the people the truth, when the workers receive their fair share of what they produce, then will men and women truly have the 'right to work.'"