For many years, Right to Work Nevada has benefited from employment growth and growth in real, after-tax income that both far outpace the gains of compulsory unionism states nationwide and in the western U.S.
Unfortunately, state Attorney General Aaron Ford, the heavy favorite to capture Nevada’s Democrat gubernatorial nomination in a primary occurring a couple of weeks after this Newsletter edition goes to press, wants to end Right to Work protections for Silver State employees anyway.
As Mr. Ford bluntly told the Nevada Independent’s Tabitha Mueller in late April regarding Big Labor legislators in Carson City and a potential 2027 Right to Work repeal scheme, “[I]f they send it to me, I’m signing it.”
According to Nevada-based Communications Workers of America (CWA) bigwig Marc Ellis, pledging to destroy Right to Work is what won Mr. Ford his union local’s endorsement.
And winning the backing of Big Labor bosses like Mr. Ellis is clearly more important to Mr. Ford than doing what is best for Nevada employees and businesses.
National Right to Work Committee Vice President Greg Mourad commented: “According to the U.S. Labor Department’s household survey, Right to Work Nevada’s total employment surged by 21.8% from 2015 to 2025. That’s more than in 45 of the other 49 states.
“Not one forced-unionism state across the entire country could match Right to Work Nevada.
“On average, employment in forced dues states grew by just 5.8%, or barely more than a quarter as much as in the Silver State.
“Moreover, employment in Right to Work Nevada grew more than 2.5 times as fast as the average for just the eight forced-unionism states located in the U.S. West.”
Mr. Mourad added that Nevada’s economic advantage over non-Right to Work states is equally enormous when it comes to inflation-adjusted growth in after-tax, spendable income.
“From 2015 to 2025,” he noted, “U.S. Commerce Department-reported disposable income in Nevada soared by 39.9%, using the urban consumer price index to adjust for inflation.
“That’s nearly double the 20.7% overall increase for forced-unionism states over the same period.”
Mr. Mourad continued, “When they are confronted with hard numbers like the Labor and Commerce data I’ve just cited, union bosses and their puppet politicians typically try to claim faster employment and income growth in Right to Work states are ‘coincidences.’
“But there is a growing body of scholarly evidence showing that, in reality, Right to Work protections foster higher living standards wherever they are in effect.”
As an example, Mr. Mourad cited a thoroughly documented article coauthored by an international team of finance specialists and published last March in the Journal of Banking and Finance.
The article reported that, by adopting Right to Work laws, states increase their venture capital, or VC, investment by 68-82%.
As prior academic research shows, VC “enhances innovation, improves productivity, and fosters strategic alliances between firms.”
Mr. Mourad commented:
“It is a shame that Aaron Ford is ready to throw away a key economic advantage Nevada has long had over forced unionism states like California, New Mexico and Oregon simply in order to reward Big Labor bosses for bankrolling his campaign.
“Fortunately, the Silver State’s largest newspaper, the influential Las Vegas Review Journal, is joining with the National Right to Work Committee and our many members and supporters in Nevada in voicing its strong opposition to Mr. Ford’s cynical political gambit.”
Mr. Mourad spoke in reference to an early May Review Journal editorial whose title appropriately labeled the candidate’s vow to rubber-stamp compulsory-dues legislation if given the chance as a “pernicious attack on worker rights.”
As the editorial itself put it, Mr. Ford’s campaign stance is “an affront to freedom of association” and constitutes advocacy for “limiting rather than expanding choices for employees”:
“Of course workers have a right to join a union if they so choose. But freedom runs both ways. . . .
“Forcing employees to financially support or join organizations that engage in political activities they oppose is an affront to the First Amendment. It is autocratic, not democratic.”
This November 3, in addition to the Nevada governorship, three other statewide offices, as well as half the seats in the state Senate and all the seats in the state Assembly, will be potentially up for grabs.
To ensure that as many freedom loving Nevadans as possible are alerted to the fact that their Right to Work law is at risk and mobilized to defend it this year, the Committee is making the Silver State an important part of its nationwide state Survey 2026 program.
Before Survey 2026 is over, tens of thousands of Committee members and supporters in Nevada will have been notified about where their state executive and legislative candidates stand on compulsory union dues and other key Right to Work-related issues, and urged to hold their politicians accountable.
“This year, Aaron Ford and other union-label candidates like Alexis Hill, his most prominent opponent in the Democrat gubernatorial primary, have been given a choice,” said Mr. Mourad.
“They have the opportunity to renounce Big Labor bosses’ support and pledge to back Right to Work . . . or they can choose to ignore Right to Work supporters’ pleas, and face the potential political consequences.
“Of course, the state Survey program mobilizes freedom-loving citizens to contact all candidates, regardless of their previous records on Right to Work-related issues.
“In Nevada, for example, Committee members are mailing incumbent GOP Gov. Joe Lombardo, who is running for reelection this year, to thank him for consistently supporting retention of Nevada’s Right to Work law, and to urge him to end Nevada’s special-interest statutes authorizing government union bosses to grab monopoly-bargaining privileges over civil servants.
“The fact is, Nevada’s statutes promoting government-sector unionization hurt taxpayers and other citizens who rely on vital public services by empowering union bosses who are unaccountable to the public to codetermine with elected officials or their appointees how civil servants are compensated and disciplined.
“Right to Work leaders and members are calling on Nevada candidates, regardless of their political party and their overall track records on labor policy, to support repeal of Nevada’s monopoly-bargaining statutes.”
This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.
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