Gov. Eric Greitens has approved a plan to move a vote on the state’s “right-to-work” law from November to August, when voter turnout tends to be lower.
Greitens on Thursday signed a resolution that was approved by lawmakers last week.
The law, approved by the Republican Greitens and Missouri’s GOP-controlled legislature in 2017, would ban the mandatory collection of union fees in the state.
Before the law could take effect last year, labor groups submitted an initiative petition seeking to let voters decide on the issue.
“Every day that goes by that Right to Work is not the law in Missouri we miss out on more opportunities to add new facilities or additional work at existing facilities from companies that will only locate that work in Right to Work states,” Ray McCarty, president and CEO of Associated Industries of Missouri, testified at the hearing on SCR 49. “We don’t even know the opportunities we are missing because we don’t meet the initial criteria established by some companies,” he said.