Right-to-Work Archives
Right-to-Work

Nearly half of US states have adopted labor laws known as right-to-work laws. These laws have recently become established in traditionally union-strong states, and they allow companies to employ individuals without a mandate that the employees be union members. Labor and right-to-work laws have been in the spotlight through ongoing Boeing and Department of Justice saga, which involves South Carolina and Washington. Boeing has abandoned its factory in Seattle for the favorable right-to-work law state of South Carolina, prompting a debate as to whether states without right-to-work laws like Washington need those laws to keep up economically with right-to-work states. The Department of Justice has attempted to prevent Boeing from relocating and the battle highlights the importance of right-to-work laws and states that have adopted them.

THIS DAY @ LAW

Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, murdered by Henry II's knights

On December 29, 1170, Archbishop Thomas Becket, former Chancellor of England, was murdered in Canterbury Cathedral by knights acting in the name of Henry II.

Becket and Henry had been entangled in a power struggle over, among other things, criminal jurisdiction over clergy. Read a contemporary account of the murder of Thomas Becket.

Texas attains US statehood

On December 29, 1845, Texas became the twenty-eighth state to join the United States of America when US President James K. Polk signed the Ordinance of Annexation. Texas had a complicated path to statehood because it had formerly been part of Mexico and then an independent republic. The US Congress passed the Annexation of the Republic of Texas Joint Resolution on March 1, 1845. Voters in Texas then approved the Ordinance of Annexation in October, before it was approved by the US Congress and signed into law by President Polk on this day in 1845. The US Supreme Court later ruled in Texas v. White that, despite its unique path to statehood, Texas did not have the right to secede from the union.