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For example, the most powerful local union in the country, Culinary 226 in Las Vegas—a political powerhouse that ensures middle-class wages and benefits for hotel housekeepers—operates in a right-to-work state and gets close to 100% dues compliance. Thus the Culinary local has the classic “free rider” problem—but the union solves the problem itself through its intense advocacy. 

However, the invisibility and ease of collecting union dues in the non-right-to-work states has paradoxically made unions more dependent on these “automatic” functions than ever. In short, most local unions today are logistically and, often, intellectually, atrophied. They lack the esprit, borne of success and militancy, of Culinary 226.  Unfortunately, on balance, and in most situations, unions need automatic dues collection just to function at a reasonably high level. The medicine may make them weaker, but to take them off it immediately could be fatal.