But what is “right to work” and why are Republicans so determined to pass it? Briefly, these laws say that union members have to pay the costs of representing their coworkers who choose not to join a union. (Less briefly here.) Under federal law, no one can ever be made to join a union, but in states without so-called “right to work” laws, if there’s a union bargaining contracts for you and representing you in grievances, you have to pay a “fair share” or representation fee to cover those costs. What Indiana and New Hampshire Republicans want to do is to allow non-union members to be free riders, getting the representation their union coworkers pay for. Dean Baker bluntly describes this as an added tax on union membership.

     SALEM, N.H. — Mitt Romney on Thursday branded President Obama a “crony capitalist” for making three appointments to the National Labor Relations Board without Congressional approval, suggesting the move was a reward to organized labor for its political support.
     “This president has engaged and is engaging in crony capitalism,” Mr. Romney said. “It is happening with the Labor Relations Board.”
     It was an unusually pointed and personal attack on Mr. Obama, whom Mr. Romney has long sought to portray as an overzealous advocate for labor unions, and it appeared deliberately timed to appeal to Republican primary voters in South Carolina: the state has relatively relaxed union rules and a labor board decision involving a Boeing airline plant there has stirred widespread anger.
     Also too, please note one of the appointees is a Republican.
     Okay, let’s just get out of the way that he has reversed the meaning of the phrase in trying to make his point:
     Crony capitalism is a term describing a capitalist economy in which success in business depends on close relationships between business people and government officials. It may be exhibited by favoritism in the distribution of legal permits, government grants, special tax breaks, and so forth.
     since a government appointment is not one of the ‘rewards’. Yet he continues on this line of accusation:
     “This president is a crony capitalist,” Mr. Romney said. “He is a job killer.”
     The president’s relationship with organized labor has become the focus of Mr. Romney’s central critique of the Obama presidency: that it promotes an “entitlement society” driven by government spending and judgments, rather than the rules of the free market.
     “You know he said he wanted to create green jobs,” Mr. Romney said of the president. “I don’t think we understood that he wants to give jobs to the people who gave him the green.”
     Unfortunately Mittney fails to explain how supporting unions equates to being a ‘job killer’, something which Romney himself has been accurately accused of, just today.
     I think we know who the job killer is, Mittney.