Happy Labor Day!

Don’t forget to turn those burgers on the grill this weekend. And while you’re at it, don’t forget that without a right-to-work law, individual employees in Kentucky still don’t possess the freedom that their fellow workers in 24 other states enjoy: the right to make their own personal decisions about union membership.

The good news is that more and more Kentuckians are expressing strong support for following the lead of neighboring Indiana, Tennessee and Virginia and making Kentucky the nation’s 25th right-to-work state.

A recent poll released in conjunction with National Employee Freedom Week shows that eight in 10 Kentuckians believe that all employees should have the right to decide without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union.

The Google Consumer Surveys poll asked 500 Kentuckians: “Should employees have the right to decide, without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union?”

While the individual-freedom aspect of this policy is the most important, Kentucky’s legislative leaders should also keep in mind that citizens in states with right-to-work laws have been rewarded with more jobs and more money in their pockets. A new study by the Competitive Enterprise Institute shows:

• During the 35-year period between 1977 and 2012, nationwide total employment grew by 71 percent. But right-to-work states “significantly outpaced this average, with employment growing by 105.3 percent. Non-RTW states lagged behind both, with an employment growth of only 50 percent.”

• The national average of growth in personal income was 123 percent between 1977 and 2012. However, right-to-work states “experienced substantially higher growth – at a rate of 165 percent – indicating that inflation-adjusted total personal income in those states was about 2.8 times higher in 2012 than in 1977. Conversely, non-RTW states saw below average growth of 99 percent, meaning that real total personal income did not quite double in those states during this same period.”

• More people – primarily younger people – are moving into right-to-work states. “Census data show, for example, that from 2000 to 2009 more than 4.9 million native-born Americans moved from non-RTW to RTW states — an average of more than 1,450 persons per day.”

Such overwhelming support for individual labor freedom should embolden Kentucky’s policymakers to move forward on right-to-work legislation during the upcoming session of the Kentucky General Assembly.