U.S. Senator Rand Paul (R-Ky.), a senior member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, emphasized the economic impact of right-to-work policies during a recent committee hearing on proposed federal labor reforms. Paul reiterated the need to protect worker freedoms, limit bureaucratic involvement, and uphold the liberty of contract.
“In February 2025, Dr. Paul reintroduced the National Right to Work Act. The bill does not add to existing federal law but deletes existing forced-unionism provisions and restores worker choice,” according to a statement entered into the record.
During the hearing, Senator Paul submitted statements from 29 industry associations and 45 business organizations that oppose the proposed labor reforms. These groups expressed concern that such changes could reduce flexibility for both employees and employers.
Paul questioned labor economist Rachel Greszler about the economic outcomes in states with right-to-work laws compared to those without them. Greszler said, “Over the past 50 years, right-to-work states have seen double the job growth and triple the population growth. That’s because businesses are confident, they can operate without a union taking control over their operations, and workers can choose how they want to participate.”
Senator Paul referenced historical perspectives on economic freedom: “Some have argued, such as Hayek — came up earlier — that the right to liberty of contract really is a basic, fundamental right upon which the economy is based,” he said. “The right to have certainty and to have honesty, and to have the courts uphold contracts without an arbitrary nature. To look at contracts from a dispassionate point of view. Getting involved in the middle of contracts shouldn’t be done lightly, and we need to consider the ramifications of what that does to the economy at large.”
He further clarified that his proposed legislation would eliminate certain exemptions within federal law rather than introduce new regulations: “The way the National Labor Relations Act was written says that you can’t discriminate against workers,” Dr. Paul continued. “And then they had to put an exemption in there — except for you can discriminate against non-union workers, basically. And so that exemption is what is removed by national right to work.”
When asked about potential nationwide effects if such legislation were enacted, Greszler responded: “I think that it would improve the economy. We’d see what’s happened in the states that are right to work. But more importantly, it just preserves that fundamental right of every worker to be able to choose whether or not they are forced to pay a private entity as a condition of their employment. And that’s just a fundamental protection that they should have.”
