This story was reported and written by VPM News.
A Virginia Democrat has filed legislation that would repeal its "right-to-work" law, which would allow for mandatory fees on employees who benefit from union-negotiated contracts. While a repeal of the law is popular with labor groups, debates among General Assembly Democrats could showcase rifts within their party.
The law, which has been untouched since 1973, bans what's known as "union" or "agency" shops: businesses that require union membership or paying union dues as a condition of employment, respectively. (The US Department of Labor defines Virginia's law as one that permits "open shops.")
Proponents of the long-standing law say that it keeps Virginia competitive and depict it as preventing forced unionization. Opponents say that it guts labor's ability to organize by allowing workers to gain access to union benefits without paying fees or membership dues.
Sen. Jennifer Carroll Foy (D–Prince William) filed the bill for the 2026 session early.
"We need an above-all approach to address the largest redistribution of wealth from the bottom 90% to the top 1%," she told VPM News. "The only way to level out the playing field is when workers have just as much bargaining power, and that power comes from the option to join a union. And so the only response to organized money, I believe, is organized people."
In 2021, about a dozen Democrats in Virginia's House of Delegates attempted to bypass procedures so a right-to-work repeal vote could take place on the floor, which ultimately failed. Since then, some influential Democrats that opposed a repeal at the time have changed their stance — like Del. Luke Torian (D–Prince William), chair of the House Appropriations Committee.
Passage of Carroll Foy's bill would also need support from nearly all of her colleagues in the Virginia Senate to make it to the governor's desk. Lt. Gov.–elect Ghazala Hashmi hasn't said whether she would cast a tie-breaking vote, but voiced support for repealing the law during her run for the Lt. Gov. nomination.
The biggest hurdle would come from Gov.-elect Abigail Spanberger, who opposes wholesale repeal of the law but has said there may be necessary reforms to the law — without detailing how or if she actually supports reforms.
"We have seen reforms and adjustments to it over the years, and recognizing that as Virginia and our economy moves forward, reforms may be necessary into the future, but no, not a full repeal," the Democrat told WRIC in May.
A brief history
In 1947, Congress allowed states to ban union and agency shop agreements through the Taft-Hartley Act. In 2021 then-Congresswoman Spanberger voted for the PRO Act, which would have repealed that provision. At the time she represented the 7th Congressional District, but she took a different local stance when running for Virginia's high office.
According to Rip Verkerke, who teaches employment law at the University of Virginia Law School, the approach of right-to-work "reforms" appears to be unusual nationwide.
"As far as I'm aware, states have either chosen to repeal [right-to-work] in their entirety… or keep it in place. And so it would be sort of breaking new ground to enact such a law," he said. "It would, arguably, respond to the principal defense offered for these laws, which is that they restrict people's freedom to join or not join some organization."
National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix said in an emailed statement that "there is no such thing" as partial appeal: "Given the popularity of Right to Work, it's unsurprising that politicians might hide their support for forced union dues under the false guise of 'reform,' but either workers in a given state can be forced to pay up or be fired, or they can't."
Spanberger's press team did not reply to specific questions sent by email. (You can read the questions below.)
"When you look at the way Democratic politicians talk about right to work, they're cagey. [The] reason they're cagey is because this is a politically fraught issue. It's one that is very challenging to address," Verkerke told VPM News.
Still, there are reforms possible, say he and Ann Hodges, a professor emeritus at the University of Richmond, who taught labor law for 30 years.
One, a so-called fair share agreement, would require payment of union dues or a fee, but not membership.
Virginia's existing law provides that benefits a union negotiates apply to all workers. This creates the free-rider problem that union advocates say undercuts their ability to collectively bargain.
"The other workers end up paying the cost of that representation, which of course, makes the union weaker because the union has fewer resources, but still has to represent everyone in the workplace," said Hodges. "It's not really union dues. It's a fee for the services that the union provides."
Verkerke said it would be one of the simplest, but most significant, changes to Virginia's law.
"It would definitely undermine the status of the right to work legislation in a very significant way, but it would not require individuals to become members of a union, and it also wouldn't require employees to finance to pay for political activity," he said.
A fair-share law in 2020 died in committee, with current Senate Finance Chair Louise Lucas (D–Portsmouth) voting to table it, and current Senate Majority leader, Sen. Scott Surovell (D–Fairfax) voting against tabling it.
Another reform would be to exempt certain jobs from the "right to work."
If the purpose of a union is to generate better benefits or working conditions, potential legislation could leverage that by targeting certain types of work.
The popular association with unions is that of representing industrial and logistical jobs. But SEIU, one of the largest in Virginia, represents 4,000 service industry workers — including home health care workers — across the state.
In some Republican-led states that have enacted right-to-work laws, local law enforcement have seen their rights be preserved due to political considerations. Wisconsin lawmakers exempted police in 2011 from its RTW law, although that has been challenged in court.
"They tend to be more conservative and more Republican voters, and so they often get to preserve their collective bargaining rights and other sort of union rights in states that are taking them away from other workers," said Hodges.
A similar debate has been part of discussions over changes to Virginia's public employee bargaining law. The Virginia General Assembly and former Gov. Ralph Northam gave localities the power to allow public employees to collectively bargain starting in 2021. During the 2025 session, an effort to allow public employees to collectively bargain statewide failed. This is different from right to work, but was a major piece of labor legislation.
The Virginia Police Benevolent Association, which represents law enforcement officers across the commonwealth, endorsed Spanberger in August. It didn't mention collective bargaining in its endorsement, but it supported expansion of collective bargaining in a questionnaire for House of Delegates candidates obtained by VPM News.
The Dillon Rule
As a Dillon Rule state, the General Assembly has a lot of discretion as to how to allow, restrict and permit policies to select localities.
Verkerke said it's possible that lifting restrictions in certain parts of the commonwealth could be challenged on a state constitutional basis since the Virginia Constitution requires uniformity of legislation.
However, he said federal law doesn't prevent that kind of "stratified" approach, "so long as the state law specifies that some agreements are permissible and some agreements are impermissible."
Hodges also said a possible reform is allowing localities to exempt themselves from the right-to-work law.
"I can imagine the same places that are adopting collective bargaining in the public sector might be areas where there would be interest in eliminating the right to work law," said Hodges. "Missouri actually had a law that they were trying to pass that allowed a workplace to vote on whether or not they wanted the right to work law to apply. The employees could actually vote."
Political outlook
The national AFL-CIO union did not endorse a candidate for Virginia's next governor. It did criticize Spanberger's stance on right to work in May.
"It is unacceptable for any elected official—especially one who claims to stand with working people—to defend a law that undermines those very principles" it wrote, referring to Virginia's right-to-work law.
A spokesperson for the LiUNA Mid-Atlantic Regional Organizing Coalition, which represents construction workers, said they had no comment for this article.
When VPM News asked LaNoral Thomas, president of SEIU Local 512 in Fairfax, about the chapter's support for changing right to work, she said the union's focus would be on expanding collective bargaining to all state public employees and legislation on home health care workers' compensation and working conditions, rather than prioritizing repeal of the right-to-work law.
"If we're going to change it, we need to change it. And so that's why for us, the priority is making sure that we're expanding collective bargaining rights, making sure that every worker who wants to form a union has that right and can do so," she said. "And then when it's time to actually repeal right to work, we'll do the whole thing, and not bits and pieces of it."
Carroll Foy, when asked about Spanberger's stance, said bills should have "their day" in the General Assembly.
"I do believe that bold problems deserve bold solutions, and that's why I've put in for a full repeal," she said. "Gov.-elect Spanberger has been clear on her positions, but we have to remember that we are Democrats. We're not monolithic, and there may be areas that we disagree, but I know that we agree on making Virginia one of the best places for workers and for unions."
VPM News questions for Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger
- What type of reforms would Congresswoman Spanberger propose to Virginia's Right to Work law? What goals should any sort of reform have in mind?
- Does she support exempting certain types of employment (certain industry or wage-levels) from the law?
- Does she support fair-share agreements or agency shop agreements, in which workers pay a negotiated fee to unions but not require membership?
- Does she support a permissive bill that would allow localities to decide what kind of changes would be in effect locally?
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