The so-called “right to work” laws got some attention this week, when Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels, signed his own state’s “right to work” law, making it the 23rd state to enact laws that emasculate American workers in their workplaces. These laws are a primary reason for the U.S. decline in unionization of its workers and, coincidentally, the nation’s economy has declined at a commensurate rate.

All the while, the Corporate America-sponsored “Right to Work Committee” and its legal defense fund for generations have touted such laws as the right of workers to choose whether they wish to join a union or not, and, therefore, whether to pay dues to a union that represents them. In any case, if there is a union in a workplace in a right-to-work state, there is unrelenting pressure by the employer and many fellow workers not to join and certainly not to pay dues. But, in most places, the union is required to represent all the workers, whether they pay dues or not. In other words, the union-dues-paying workers foot the bill for the free riders who get their representation for nothing.

Consequently, the environment for unions in the right-to-work states is not very friendly and the workers have to make do with collective begging, rather than collective bargaining. In the simplest terms, the corporations in right-to-work-for-less states put more money into their own coffers and much less into the paychecks of the workers, which means that there is less money for the small businesses in their communities where workers spend their money.

It means that the educational systems are not as good, the medical care (in a public health sense) is not as good, and the so-called infrastructure (roads, bridges, water and sewer systems, environmental protection) are not as good. If you look at a map of “right-to-work” states, you’ll be looking at a map of places where citizens can expect less of everything that makes for a good quality of life (notwithstanding that the American economy, in general, is in trouble right now).

That’s why knowledgeable American workers refer to the states with lesser rights as “right-to-work-for-less” states. You can look at it this way: there are the free states, in which workers are free to join together to form a union and there are those states in which the workers are not free. Where there are unions, the workers have a democratic process through their unions. They elect their local officers, they tell their negotiating committee what is important to them at the bargaining table, and they are free to participate in the process in many ways that includes running for office and taking a leadership role in representing their fellow workers.

Try running for president of the company from the shop floor and see what it gets you. It just won’t happen. It is with a union that workers meet the bosses at the bargaining table, with some semblance of equality.

The map of free states (union-possible states) and the “right-to-work-for-less” states is clear-cut. With few exceptions, the unfree states are the states where the disparity in income and wealth is great and the historic problems of poverty, civil rights, inequality in the political process, in education, and in the securing of rights, in general, are present to this day. That is not to say that there are not problems of this sort in the free states, but there is no comparison with the unfree states.

And, it should be viewed in those stark terms: The “right-to-work” states are states in which workers are not free to form unions and represent themselves at the bargaining table in what is a vital part of our national life, the economy. The free states are those in which the workers are free to represent themselves at the bargaining table, as more or less equals to the bosses. It’s like free citizens under a constitution like that of the U.S., compared with subject people under a king or absolute ruler in some developing country.

Daniels, the Republican Indiana governor, a short time ago indicated that he was not interested in the creation of a right-to-work-for-less law, but he wasted no time signing one into law in the past week, as if he wanted it to be an in-your-face welcome to the two professional football teams that played in his capital city last Sunday. Although some of the players make more in a week than the average worker makes in a year, they were in support of the workers who protested the new law and made it clear that they were unhappy about playing in a city and a state where workers who want a union are not welcome.

The “Right to Work Committee and its legal foundation are constantly scheming to create lawsuits against unions and union leaders and they seem to have unlimited money to do so. Small wonder, since the money from these Astroturf organizations is the same source of funds that brought us the infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision in the Citizens United case, in which a split court said that money is speech and corporations are people, and nameless and faceless political action committees can spend as much money in political campaigns as they wish. The court decision was a victory for Corporate America and the same kinds of characters that push states into the backwaters of history, as far as workers’ rights are concerned.

What’s interesting is that these are the same people who rail against “entitlements,” such as Medicaid, any kind of welfare program for the poor, and erroneously, Medicare and Social Security. They don’t want to see anyone getting “something for nothing,” even if they work 60 hours a week at minimum wage. They do, however, want to see workers living off the backs of their fellow workers who do pay union dues and stand up for the rights of all workers.

That’s something for nothing, just as the Republican frontrunner for the presidential nomination, Mitt Romney, who rakes in his money while doing nothing, famously said, “Corporations are people, too, my friend,” to someone who demanded that corporate money be removed from the political process.

American trade unionists have been fighting for generations against the theft of their country’s wealth by a small elite. That’s why it should be gratifying for union men and women to see the “Occupy” movement taking up the same issues and expanding on them. There were bloody fights over the same worker rights, even fights that verged on war, by workers and their unions, against detective agencies (corporations’ private armies), gun thugs, and at times, the U.S. military. The fight for an equitable share of the wealth of the land has never stopped, and the “Occupy” movement has picked up the banner. Now, it needs to join those who have been struggling for economic and political equity for many decades.

Back in the 1930s, during the Great Depression when the plight of workers was the worst, President Franklin D. Roosevelt facilitated some profound changes, among them the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), which allowed and encouraged the formation of unions, to both lift up workers and their families, as well as bring their communities back to life. Giving those rights to working people was a dangerous thing, in the minds of the one-percenters of the time and their fight against the full realization of workers’ aspirations began in earnest. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many other representatives of the 1 percent have fought as if it is their last fight…against the empowerment of workers.

In some ways, it is the biggest fight of the 1 percent. Since passage of the NLRA, using various methods, in the courts and in Congress and the state legislatures, powerful corporate interests have succeeded in thwarting the spirit of the NLRA. Using the ploy of the states’ rights principle, they were successful in getting federal lawmakers to grant to the states the power to thwart both the spirit and the letter of the NLRA. That’s how the ratio of CEO pay and perks went from 24-1, to 250-1, compared with average workers’ pay, over just a few decades. An important element in achieving this push of wealth to the top 1 percent has been right-to-work (for less) laws.

The Occupy movement needs to spread the word that the U.S. economy has descended in parallel with the decline in the percentage of U.S. workers who are in unions. Others on the left have known this for decades. Under U.S. labor law, why should there be free states and unfree (right-to-work-for-less) states? Fighting to overturn these laws should be seen as a civil rights issue. It’s a fight for the 99 percent.

BlackCommentator.com Columnist, John Funiciello, is a labor organizer and former union organizer. His union work started when he became a local president of The Newspaper Guild in the early 1970s. He was a reporter for 14 years for newspapers in New York State. In addition to labor work, he is organizing family farmers as they struggle to stay on the land under enormous pressure from factory food producers and land developers. Click here to contact Mr. Funiciello.