Labor-Management Relations

Chesterfield County and the surrounding area support a very productive relationship between workers and employers. This healthy association has resulted in the following:

• Both the state and metro area have low levels of unionization and union election activity.
• Only 128 manufacturing and service businesses in the MSA are known to be unionized, which is less than one percent of the area's nearly 25,000 private business establishments.
• There are an estimated 24,900 union members in the MSA, less than five percent of nonagricultural employment.
• No office-intensive operation is known to be unionized.
• Work stoppages are few in number and usually part of a nationwide or statewide action.

Right to Work Law

Virginia is the northernmost right-to-work state in the Eastern United States. Virginia's Right to Work law prohibits a closed shop, where employers may hire only members of the contracting union, and a union shop, where the employee who is not a member of a union must join after a certain period of employment and must remain a member as a condition of employment.

Under the Virginia statute, the right to work cannot be denied an individual on account of membership or nonmembership in a labor union or organization. An employer cannot require employees to become or remain members of a labor union or require that dues or fees be paid to a union or labor organization as a condition of employment.