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 The suit comes just a day after Kentucky's Hardin County became
the fifth in the state in less than a month to pass a local
ordinance that prohibits unions from requiring members to pay dues
in exchange for representation.
The lawsuit only covers Hardin County, but plaintiffs' attorney
Irwin Cutler said the suit could expand to cover challenges to laws
passed in Warren, Simpson, Fulton and Todd counties.
Proponents of right-to-work laws say they can be a tool to attract
new businesses. Officials in Warren County said their community, 20
miles (32 km) north of Tennessee, has lost several opportunities to
its neighbor, which is a right-to-work state.
But United Auto Workers’ Local 3047 President Renard Duvall, whose
chapter is one of the plaintiffs in the suit, said he fears unions
would lose power in collective bargaining negotiations, leading to
reduced wages that could impact the communities where workers live.
 "We have never tried to price our wages so high they run the company
out of business," said Duvall, 48, who has worked 16 years as a
tool-and-die maker at Metalsa’s Elizabethtown plant in Hardin
County. "We want our company to be profitable."
Cutler said that federal law only allows states or territories to
enact such legislation. Allowing the decision to be made at a county
level could produce "an administrative nightmare" for companies with
operations across a state, he said.
However, Brent Yessin, an attorney who has offered to represent
Kentucky counties that pass a right-to-work ordinance called the
argument simplistic and misplaced.
Since the Labor Relations Act became law, courts have ruled that
counties are considered subdivisions of states and have the right to
pass such ordinances, Yessin said.
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Right-to-work laws exist in 24 states, but efforts to pass similar
legislation in Kentucky have failed on pushback from the state's
Democratic-controlled House of Representatives.
Warren County, which is home to General Motors’ Chevrolet Corvette
plant, became the first county in the state to pass the ordinance on
Dec. 19.
Opinions regarding the legality of county-based right-to-work laws
are mixed.
Kentucky's Attorney General's office issued an opinion prior to the
Warren County vote saying counties did not have the proper
authority, while two former Kentucky state Supreme Court justices
issued a statement in support of the counties' right to pass such
laws.
(Editing by Curtis Skinner and Robert Birsel)
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