Here is the kind of thing that can happen as the result of compulsory unionism. X, a family man in Pennsylvania had been a union member in good standing for over twenty years. When the United Electrical Workers became the recognized bargaining agent at his plant, he refused to join on the grounds the UEW was Communist dominated--a judgment that had been made by the CIO itself when it expelled the UEW in 1950. The result, since his employer had a union shop agreement with the UEW, was that X lost his job. _The remedy here is to give freedom of association legal protection._ And that is why I strongly favor enactment of State right-to-work laws which forbid contracts that make union membership a condition of employment. These laws are aimed at removing a great blight on the contemporary American scene, and I am at a loss to understand why so many people who so often profess concern for “civil rights” and “civil liberties” are vehemently opposed to them. Freedom of association is one of the natural rights of man. Clearly, therefore, it should also be a “civil” right. Right-to-work laws derive from the natural law: they are simply an attempt to give freedom of association the added protection of civil law. I am well aware of the “free loader” argument, so often advanced by union leaders in defense of compulsory unionism. The contention is that a man ought not to enjoy the benefits of an organization’s activities unless he contributes his fair share of their cost. I am unaware, however, of any other organization or institution that seeks to enforce this theory by compulsion. The Red Cross benefits all of us, directly or indirectly, but _no one suggests that Red Cross donations be compulsory_. It is one thing to say that a man _should_ contribute to an association that is purportedly acting in his interest; it is quite another thing to say that he _must_ do so. I believe that a man ought to join a union if it is a good union that is serving the interests of its members. I believe, moreover, that most men _will_ give support to a union _provided it is deserving of that support_. There will always be some men, of course, who will try to sponge off others; but let us not express our contempt for _some_ men by denying freedom of choice to _all_ men.