Marilyn Musgrave: “it was nearly 5 decades ago in the spring of 1954 that Reed Larson went on what he believed to be a temporary leave from…”

“it was nearly 5 decades ago in the spring of 1954 that Reed Larson went on what he believed to be a temporary leave from his job as an engineer for the Coleman Company in Wichita, Kansas, in order to lead a new grass-roots advocacy group called Kansans For Right to Work. Larson and his group members were determined to pass a State right-to-work law protecting employees from being forced to join or pay dues to a labor union in order to get or keep a job. Because they first had to deal with a hostile Governor, the job took longer than originally expected. By the time Kansas's right-to-work law was finally passed in November of 1958, Larson had been on temporary leave from the Coleman Company for 4 1/2 years. After the Kansas victory, Larson was quickly recruited to lead the then 4-year-old national Right to Work Committee from its headquarters right here in our Nation's Capital and his temporary leave from the Coleman Company became permanent. For the next 44 years Larson stood at the helm of this organization, which has aptly been hailed as the Nation's preeminent defender of workers' freedom. I rise today to pay tribute to Reed Larson because of his long, selfless commitment to the right-to-work cause and because late last month at Mr. Larson's own recommendation, the board of directors of National Right to Work Committee appointed then executive vice president Mark Mix as the new Right to Work president and Larson as executive committee chairman.”