http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/10/how-right-to-work-laws-could-reshape-michigans-economy/
My state is right-to-work, and salaries are lower here, not just for union members, but for everybody else, too. But its a moot point anyway, industrial unions are now so weak they play little role in American public life. The Right's target now are the government worker's unions. The idea that unions can support candidates and lobby for policies favorable to their interests (just like companies do) seems to give the Right apoplectic fits.
There's no question employers would prefer weakened unions, or none at all. They would also prefer not to pay taxes and to operate with no regulation either. But as the article indicates, the question of overall benefit to society is far from simple.
My cousin was a union organizer here, and his experience is when they tried to get workers to sign up, management lavished raises and benefits on everybody. After the vote, when the union was sent packing, came the layoffs and the wage cuts.
This isn't theoretical navel-gazing, these are people trying to earn a decent living and feed their families. People "looking out for their woman, reaching out for their dollar."
Supporters of right-to-work laws often argue that they’ll help attract more businesses to a state. Opponents retort that weakening unions will lead to an erosion of wages. (A large Economic Policy Institute study from 2011 found that, after controlling for a host of factors, right-to-work states have lower wages on average than pro-union states.)
Both arguments might be correct. One careful study conducted by Hofstra’s Lonnie Stevans in 2007 found that right-to-work laws do help boost the number of businesses in a state — but the gains mostly went to owners, while average wages went down. ”Although right-to-work states may be more attractive to business,” Stevans concludes, “this does not necessarily translate into enhanced economic verve in the right-to-work state if there is little ‘trickle-down’ from business owners to the non-unionized workers.”
I gave up on "trickle-down" a long time ago.