With Wisconsin becoming the 25th state to enact right to work legislation, we have to ask if unions and their relevance are in a decline. Right to work laws can be the death of organized labor. Right to work is a bill or a constitutional provision that prohibits the use of union membership as a criterion for hiring or continued employment. It restricts how unions collect dues and requires that union representatives still protect a worker without requiring that person to pay for service.

With half of Republican run State Governments in the United States declaring war on organized labor, why does union membership continue to increase? Why are labor's causes, like the raising of minimum wages and a nationalized healthcare system, now a conversation topic at every kitchen table across the country? The answer is simple; you can't regulate institutions that derive their power directly from peoples battling poverty and injustice. In other words, by trying to take away a union's ability to exist, you anger the very persons unions are designed to protect and that is the individual worker.

Something very real is happening toward our changing attitudes about labor unions. Union membership is growing everywhere. New Jersey has seen an increase of 17.2 percent and the number of union members rose in 18 states across the country. More New Yorkers, .2% to be exact, can call themselves union members this year than last. Why? With the help of younger and more astute union leaders at the local and national levels, social media and modern communications like the internet, website and email marketing campaigns are reminding our working poor that the wealthy can't be trusted and working people everywhere are fighting back and winning.

News reports of a nationwide movement to raise the minimum wage, the "fight for $15"per hour, increased wages for tip workers and paid leave, these are not just headlines, these are actions taking place by workers who do not pay dues. Happening all around us are baggage handlers at airports striking for union recognition, the Steelworkers are in one of the biggest oil strikes in 35 years over safety; retail wireless workers are organizing in record rates and utility workers on Long Island and telecom workers in New England just settled union contracts with little to no concessions.

Even Long Island's Cablevision, a notorious anti-union employer, came to an agreement with its sole union workers in Brooklyn; an agreement both sides can live with. Wal-Mart, our nation's largest employer, decided to give 40 percent of its employees a raise, setting the standard for an increase in the federal minimum wage. Other retailers are expected to follow suit.

Right to work can, and will, do its damage, but its overall effects are limited and unions quickly regain ground. In Indiana, after right to work legislation was passed, union membership declined from 14% to 9.1%. A year later, union membership went back up to 12%, ranking Indiana right at the national average. Alabama which has had right to work laws since 1954, has seen huge gains in union membership. Currently 12.1% of workers in Alabama are in unions, a number that has been consistently rising in the last decade. Nevada, another right to work state, has 16% union density, one of the highest in the country and ahead of Union stronghold states such as Michigan, Maryland and Massachusetts.

What these union membership numbers show are that in states with dangerous industries, like oil in Alabama, or states with leisure and tourism as the primary economic engine, strong unions exist. The Hotel Unions and Building Trades in Las Vegas for example find a way around right to work.

Regardless of Wisconsin becoming right to work or not, Unions are not in a decline. In fact, right to work laws may be just what labor needs to make the huge comeback that working people have long been waiting for.

Kris LaGrange is a columnist, syndicated radio show host and head of UCOMM Communications, a labor-focused communications firm. He can be reached at lagrange@ucommworks.com.

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