Right-to-Work States 2026: List, Not At-Will

§1Right-to-work and at-will are two different questions

As of September 2026, 26 states have a right-to-work law on the books, one fewer than the 27 that had one as recently as 2023, after Michigan repealed its statute effective February 2024, becoming the first state in nearly six decades to reverse right-to-work status rather than adopt it. But right-to-work has nothing to do with whether an employer can fire someone without cause. That question belongs to a separate doctrine, at-will employment, one that every one of the 26 right-to-work states also follows, just like most of the 24 states plus D.C. that never adopted right-to-work in the first place. Right-to-work controls whether a union can require an employee to pay dues or fees as a condition of keeping a unionized job. At-will controls whether either side can end the employment relationship without a reason at all. A right-to-work law does not touch termination rights, and an at-will rule does not touch union dues. The two get conflated often enough that it shows up directly in what people search for, and "why is right to work bad" is one of the more common queries on this topic, with the honest answer depending on which of the two separate legal questions the person actually means.

Right-to-work laws exist because of Section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act (29 U.S.C. § 164(b)), added by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which lets a state opt out of enforcing "union security" clauses, provisions in a collective bargaining agreement that would otherwise require every employee in a unionized workplace to join the union or pay it fees as a condition of keeping the job. Without a state right-to-work law, a union and an employer can lawfully negotiate a security clause requiring every covered employee to pay dues or an equivalent fair-share fee. With one, that clause is unenforceable, and any employee covered by the contract can decline to pay without losing the job. That is the entire mechanical difference, and it only matters in a unionized workplace to begin with, since a union-security clause has nothing to enforce where there is no union.

§2The 26 right-to-work states in 2026, and two states that flipped

The following 26 states have a right-to-work statute in effect as of September 2026, along with the U.S. territory of Guam [National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, state-by-state statute tracker].

This list is shorter than it would have been three years ago. Michigan's legislature repealed its right-to-work law in March 2023, and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer signed the repeal, making Michigan the first state in nearly six decades to reverse an existing right-to-work statute rather than add a new one. The repeal's exact effective date is itself reported two different ways: SHRM and the Small Business Association of Michigan cite February 13, 2024, while the law firm Miller Johnson and the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation's own notice cite February 12, a discrepancy that traces to two different ways of counting the statute's 91-day post-adjournment window. Either date puts the actual end of Michigan's right-to-work status in mid-February 2024, which is the detail that matters for a multi-state employer's paperwork.

Michigan is not the only state where right-to-work status has flipped in the other direction. Missouri's legislature passed a right-to-work law in 2017, but the law never actually took effect: labor unions gathered enough signatures to force a statewide referendum, and in August 2018 Missouri voters rejected it by better than two to one, 67.5% against to 32.5% in favor [Ballotpedia, Missouri Proposition A, August 2018]. Ohio voters had struck down a different, broader public-sector collective-bargaining law by ballot referendum in 2011, but Missouri's vote was the first time a state's actual right-to-work statute specifically was put to voters and rejected before taking effect. Missouri has been treated as a non-right-to-work state ever since and does not appear in the list above, even though it has a right-to-work law on the books that was simply never allowed to take effect.

§3Right-to-work status does not reach every private-sector job the same way

Not every private-sector employee working under a right-to-work statute is actually covered by it. State right-to-work statutes draw their authority from Section 14(b) of the NLRA, which only reaches employers and employees the NLRA itself covers. Railroads and airlines are governed by a separate federal law, the Railway Labor Act, which Congress never amended when it passed Taft-Hartley in 1947, and courts have consistently held that state right-to-work laws do not apply to employees covered by the RLA because the RLA occupies that entire area of labor law on its own. A unionized railroad conductor or airline mechanic working in Texas can still be required to pay union dues as a condition of employment under a valid union-security clause, even though Texas carries right-to-work status for essentially every other private employer, because that specific job was never governed by the NLRA to begin with. For an employer whose workforce has nothing to do with rail or air transportation this exception rarely comes up, but it is the kind of detail that trips up a multi-state employer who treats "right-to-work state" as a blanket rule covering every job physically located there.

§4The public-sector question right-to-work status does not actually answer

For public-sector employees, whether an employee can be required to fund union activity was already settled nationally in 2018, independent of any state's right-to-work status. In Janus v. AFSCME Council 31, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that requiring a public-sector employee to pay an agency fee or fair-share fee to a union they have not joined violates the First Amendment, because collective bargaining with a government employer is itself a form of political speech. The ruling overturned a 41-year-old precedent, Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977), and it applied immediately in every state, not only the 26 right-to-work states.

Practically, that makes the state map above a private-sector map only. A public-school teacher, city employee, or state agency worker in Illinois, New York, or California, none of which are right-to-work states, can decline to pay any union fee at all, the same as a public employee in Texas or Florida, because Janus already extended that protection everywhere the NLRA's right-to-work carve-out never could reach in the first place (state and local government employment is not covered by the NLRA at all). The 26-state list still matters for private-sector union contracts. It does not change anything about public-sector union fees, which have already been optional nationwide since 2018.

§5What this means for offer letters, handbooks, and payroll

For an employer building offer letters, handbooks, or onboarding materials across multiple states, right-to-work status itself rarely needs its own standalone clause, since it governs what a union and an employer can agree to in a collective bargaining agreement, not anything an individual, non-union employment contract controls. Where it does matter operationally: if any part of the workforce is unionized, HR needs to know whether the state's right-to-work status permits a union-security clause at all before that clause gets negotiated into a contract or enforced against an employee. New-hire paperwork in a unionized, right-to-work workplace should clearly disclose that joining the union and paying dues is optional, not a condition of the job, using the same state-by-state discipline payroll teams already apply when checking a state's exempt salary threshold or other state-specific payroll rules each year.

Dues checkoff, where an employee agrees in writing to have union dues deducted directly from a paycheck, still requires the employee's own signed authorization in every state, right-to-work or not, and that authorization is typically revocable on whatever schedule the specific union contract sets, not by state law. None of this substitutes for reading the actual collective bargaining agreement at a unionized location. The state's right-to-work status is the starting constraint on what that agreement is even allowed to require, not the full compliance answer for building payroll deductions or handbook language, which is one more item worth folding into the same annual review covered in our 2026 HR compliance checklist.

§6Frequently asked questions

What are the downsides of right-to-work laws? The disadvantage most often cited in the economic research is lower wages. The labor-aligned Economic Policy Institute's most recent analysis, published in 2026, found pay running roughly 6.7% lower on average where such a law is on the books versus where it is not, after controlling for cost of living, demographics, and other labor-market factors, up from a roughly 3.1-3.2% gap the same organization measured around 2015 [Economic Policy Institute, 2026]. That finding is not uncontested. A separate, widely cited analysis comparing right-to-work counties to their neighboring counties across a state line found faster population growth on the right-to-work side, and, with roughly a three-year lag, faster job growth too, alongside slower near-term wage growth [Austin and Lilley, "The Long-Run Effects of Right-to-Work Laws"]. From an organizing standpoint, the practical disadvantage cited most often is weaker union bargaining leverage: where dues are voluntary, a union cannot require the employees it negotiates for to help fund that bargaining, which tends to reduce union density, and with it, union bargaining power, over time, even though being in one of these states does not by itself keep a union from organizing.

What are the disadvantages of at-will employment? For employees, the main disadvantage is that termination can happen at any time, for almost any reason or no stated reason, without notice or severance, so long as the reason is not itself illegal, discriminatory, retaliatory, or a violation of a specific statute. That uncertainty is the tradeoff for flexibility that cuts both ways: an at-will employee can also quit at any time without notice or cause. For employers, the disadvantage sits on the opposite side of the same coin: at-will status does not eliminate wrongful-termination exposure, it narrows it to a specific set of exceptions, and getting one of those exceptions wrong, most often the public-policy or implied-contract exception, is still a real and litigated risk even in a fully at-will state [National Conference of State Legislatures, "At-Will Employment: Overview"].

What are the three exceptions to employment at-will? Most states recognize some version of three exceptions, though not every state recognizes all three. The public-policy exception bars firing an employee for refusing to break the law, for exercising a legal right such as filing a workers'-compensation claim, or for reporting employer misconduct. The implied-contract exception can override at-will status when an employer's own handbook, offer letter, or verbal assurances create a reasonable expectation of continued employment or a specific termination process, even without a formal written contract. The covenant of good faith and fair dealing exception, recognized in only a minority of states, requires a legitimate business reason for termination and bars firing an employee specifically to avoid paying compensation that is about to vest, such as a commission or pension. Montana goes further than any other state: its Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act requires "good cause" for termination once an employee has completed a probationary period, so once that period ends, a Montana worker in the private sector stops being meaningfully at-will [Montana Wrongful Discharge from Employment Act, Mont. Code Ann. § 39-2-901 et seq.].

Does "at-will" mean I can quit without notice? Yes, as a legal matter, and it runs in both directions. An employee can resign at any time, for any reason, without giving notice, exactly as an employer can let someone go without notice. Two weeks' notice is a workplace norm, not a legal requirement, in every state except where a signed contract of employment, a union contract, or, in Montana's case, the state's own good-cause statute after probation specifically requires otherwise.

Where does Pennsylvania stand on right-to-work? No, Pennsylvania has no such law on the books, and a unionized employer there can still negotiate mandatory dues into its union contract, requiring covered employees to keep paying dues or a fair-share fee to stay employed there. Pennsylvania sits with the rest of the Northeast, most of the industrial Midwest outside Indiana and pre-repeal Michigan, and the West Coast, none of which have ever put such a law on their books.

How many states currently count as right-to-work? 26, plus the territory of Guam. Three years ago that count stood at 27, before Michigan's repeal took hold in February 2024; the full roster with notable adoption dates is in the table above.

Which states have no right-to-work law? Twenty-four states have no such law on the books, and neither does the District of Columbia: Alaska, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Washington. Two names on that list carry a more complicated backstory covered earlier on this page: Michigan once had such a law and later reversed it, and Missouri's lawmakers approved one that voters struck down at the ballot box before it ever took effect.