Elizabeth Brown, State Director of the Fiscal Alliance Foundation

Vermont workers already have the right to bargain. Prop 3 would lock in a system that costs us jobs, investment and taxes.

Last year, Vermont’s population fell by a larger share than any other state’s. From 2015 to 2025, private-sector jobs grew 12.6% nationally. In Vermont, they fell 0.6%. Our cost of living runs 13.5% above average, and after adjusting for it we rank 42nd in disposable income per person.

What does that have to do with Proposal 3? A lot. Unions fight for better benefits and higher wages, but a bigger paycheck only helps if it goes further. In states without Right to Work laws, living costs run 16.6% above the national average. In Right to Work states, they run 4.3% below. Once you account for what things cost, people in Right to Work states take home about $3,500 more per person.

Prop 3 is being sold as a way to protect workers’ right to bargain collectively. That right is already protected by state law. Prop 3 does not create collective bargaining. It moves our labor laws out of the Legislature’s hands and into the Constitution.

But it goes beyond that. First, it bars any law that stops unions and employers from making union membership a condition of employment. That takes away employee choice and permanently rules out a Right to Work law. The Vermont AFL-CIO says as much in its own testimony.

Second, it sets a new test for every labor law on the books. No law may “interfere with, negate, or diminish” the right to bargain. Even Illinois, the only state to pass a similar amendment, let lawmakers make reasonable exemptions. Vermont’s version does not. That puts existing laws in question, including limits on public-employee strikes, and could leave judges, rather than the people we elect, to decide which survive.

Supporters say permanence is the point. That is a fair argument. But no one in Montpelier is threatening collective bargaining. What permanence really protects is one side of a policy debate.

Labor law is not the only thing shaping our economy. Housing, taxes and an aging population all play a part. But it is one tool a state can use to compete, and Prop 3 takes it off the table for good.

Over the past decade, private-sector jobs grew 17.2% in Right to Work states, nearly twice the rate of the rest. States that adopt Right to Work see venture capital investment rise 68% to 82%, according to a study in the Journal of Banking and Finance. That is the money that starts new companies.

Look at dairy. From 2018 to 2025, milk output grew about 15.7% in Right to Work dairy states and about 0.1% in the rest. Vermont’s fell 6%.

Then there are taxes. State and local taxes already take 13.6% of Vermonters’ income. Only New York, Connecticut and Hawaii take more. States with the most unionized public workforces carry tax burdens about 32% higher than the least unionized, and Vermont is one of them. Prop 3 would make it almost impossible for future lawmakers to rein in those costs. Who will foot the bill? Vermont property taxpayers.

Illinois offers a warning. Since its amendment passed, lawmakers added $11 billion in new liabilities to Chicago’s police and fire pensions, already the worst funded in the nation, with no new revenue to pay for them. The Illinois Policy Institute counts more than 350 state laws that could eventually be overridden by union contracts.

Supporters predicted a dozen states would follow Illinois. None has. Even California let its version die in committee.

Without Proposal 3, Vermont workers keep every protection they have today. Vermont also keeps the ability to change course if it becomes necessary.

Vermonters can look at the evidence and disagree. That is the point. Today we can have that debate. Prop 3 would put it beyond the Legislature’s reach.

Constitutions are for lasting principles, not for freezing one side of a policy debate in place. Vermont cannot afford to lock in the status quo.