Big Picture Panel: Angela Morabito, StandUnited.org & Sam Sacks, The District Sentinel. Kentucky now has a Republican-controlled legislature for the first time since 1921 - which is terrible news for the American labor movement. That's because Bluegrass state Republicans have made passing a right-to-work-for-less law their first order of business after taking control of the state government. If they succeed - Kentucky will become the 27th state in the country with a right to work for less law. Most of these states are concentrated in the south - the heartland of the Old Confederacy. Right to work for less laws devastate unions because they require unions to pay for all the legal fees and bargaining costs of workers who are not union members. It's like hiring a lawyer to work for you, and then refusing to pay him. The result is that the unions go broke, the employers are then free to screw the workers, and then make big donations to Republican politicians. So workers in states with right to work for less laws make around $6,000 less per year than workers in states that defend unions. I thought Republicans were all about prosperity - so why do they support right to work for less laws?