If the Assem­bly approves the bill next week — and with a GOP mar­gin of 63 to 36, larg­er than in the Sen­ate, it is almost cer­tain­ly expect­ed to do so — Gov. Scott Walk­er has promised to sign it, giv­ing a for­mer union strong­hold the dubi­ous dis­tinc­tion of becom­ing the 25 th state to pass such legislation.

MADI­SON, WIS­CON­SIN — Against the wish­es of thou­sands of angry con­stituents in two days of protests out­side the state capi­tol build­ing this week, the Wis­con­sin state sen­ate late Wednes­day night vot­ed 17 to 15 in favor of a ​“right-to-work” law. Only one Repub­li­can, a for­mer union mem­ber from the north­ern wood­lands of the state, joined all Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors in vot­ing against the anti-union law that the Repub­li­can lead­er­ship has rushed through an ​“extra­or­di­nary session.”

The law will make it ille­gal for unions and employ­ers to nego­ti­ate ​“union secu­ri­ty“ agree­ments. Such con­tract pro­vi­sions typ­i­cal­ly require all employ­ees in a bar­gain­ing unit to pay dues, or some fair share of the reg­u­lar dues, to pay for the work the union does on behalf of all work­ers in col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing and rep­re­sent­ing them in the griev­ance and dis­ci­pline processes.

After Con­gress autho­rized such state laws in 1947, they were large­ly con­fined to the extreme­ly anti-union South, where busi­ness own­ers fought to keep wages low and cul­tur­al hos­til­i­ty to col­lec­tive action ran strong. The ranks of right-to-work states grew irreg­u­lar­ly after the 1950s, but the polit­i­cal right has sensed a chance to make progress in the tra­di­tion­al­ly well-union­ized indus­tri­al Mid­west states and else­where since 2012, when states like Michi­gan and Indi­ana passed right-to-work laws.

If — or, more accu­rate­ly at this point, when — the Wis­con­sin law is approved, the right-to-work cam­paign will have reached a crit­i­cal mark: half the states in the U.S. and just under half the pri­vate work­force will be under right-to-work rules.

Even sup­port­ers con­cede there is lit­tle chance of stop­ping the law in Wisconsin.

“It’s about 99 per­cent sure thing it’s going to pass,” Steve Buf­fa­lo, dis­trict man­ag­er for the Oper­at­ing Engi­neers Local 139, said as he pre­pared for a noon ral­ly before the Sen­ate vote. ​“If we could get one or two Sen­a­tors to flip, we could stop this.” But now that the Sen­ate has passed the bill, the task is all but impos­si­ble now.

The hard odds against block­ing the leg­is­la­tion may have kept the turnout for the oppo­si­tion ral­lies below the num­bers who protest­ed and occu­pied the capi­tol four years ago. Those march­es, some­times reach­ing 100,000 par­tic­i­pants, were intend­ed to stop Walk­er from push­ing through leg­is­la­tion that even­tu­al­ly stripped pub­lic employ­ees of most bar­gain­ing rights. Still, sev­er­al thou­sand demon­stra­tors show­ing up for two days in a row dur­ing a work­week and bit­ing win­ter cold and snow was a respectable turnout.

Repub­li­cans also took pre­cau­tions this time to under­cut mobi­liza­tion: The right-to-work bill is being rushed through the extra­or­di­nary ses­sion in less than two weeks. Rather than allow the huge list of wit­ness­es to tes­ti­fy against the bill through the night, as hap­pened four years ago, the com­mit­tee chair abrupt­ly cut off the stream of wit­ness­es ear­ly with the excuse that the com­mit­tee had heard of planned dis­rup­tions. Also, unlike four years ago when the capi­tol was occu­pied round the clock, a sign was post­ed on every entrance pro­hibit­ing any­one from bring­ing in items like sleep­ing bags.

Why the urgency? ​“Now is a pret­ty good time for them to do it,” Walk­er said after the Sen­ate vote.

But on whose time­piece? Two sur­veys showed that pass­ing right-to-work leg­is­la­tion was at or near the bot­tom of pri­or­i­ties for Wis­con­sin vot­ers, many of whom were more con­cerned about issues such as the bud­get cuts Walk­er is impos­ing on education.

Indeed, Rep. Tod Ohn­stad, a for­mer Unit­ed Auto Work­ers leader from Kenosha and a mem­ber of the Assem­bly labor com­mit­tee, thinks that the right-to-work ini­tia­tive may be a ruse to dis­tract pub­lic atten­tion from the bud­get cuts.

Also, after ini­tial­ly dis­cour­ag­ing a vote on the bill this year, mak­ing him appear rea­son­able and leav­ing provo­ca­tion of the unions to Sen­ate pres­i­dent Ed Fitzger­ald, Walk­er agreed to sign it. ​“This will give him more cov­er in the ear­ly pri­maries” in his bid for the GOP pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion, Ohn­stad said, refer­ring to the need of can­di­dates to pla­cate the party’s far right in ear­ly contests.

The day after the Sen­ate vote, Walk­er was in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., at the Con­ser­v­a­tive Polit­i­cal Action Con­ven­tion, using his anti-union bona fides as sur­ro­gate cre­den­tials for his abil­i­ty to fight terrorism.

“If I can take on 100,000 pro­tes­tors, I can do the same across the world,” he pos­tured, implic­it­ly com­par­ing union mem­bers to ISIS ter­ror­ists.

“They tell us right-to-work is on the top of the list of man­u­fac­tur­ing com­pa­nies, and why they want to move to a vote,” Buf­fa­lo said, ​“but I hadn’t heard from one man­u­fac­tur­er who said that was near and dear to their heart.”

Indeed, a group of near­ly 400 small busi­ness­es and con­trac­tors formed an oppo­si­tion coali­tion, the Wis­con­sin Con­trac­tor Coali­tion. Mem­bers say they count on strong unions and their train­ing pro­grams to pro­vide them the skilled work­force they need.

But it was at the top of the list for Repub­li­can Sen­ate leader Scott Fitzger­ald, who has said the enact­ment of right-to-work ​“will estab­lish work­place freedom.”

It also appeared to be at the top of the very dis­creet list of the right-wing Repub­li­can fun­ders (like the Koch broth­ers), foun­da­tions (like the Bradley foun­da­tion, based in Wis­con­sin), Tea Par­ty activists and estab­lished anti-union advo­cates (like the Nation­al Right-to-Work Com­mit­tee and the Her­itage Foundation).

But if pass­ing a right-to-work law was a low pri­or­i­ty for the pub­lic, stop­ping such a law seemed almost as low. In a poll by Green­berg Quin­lan Ros­ner for the pro­gres­sive coali­tion We Are Wis­con­sin, Wis­con­sin vot­ers appeared less sup­port­ive of right-to-work than a nation­al Gallup sam­ple polled last year.

Gallup found that 71 per­cent sup­port­ed right-to-work, even though 53 per­cent of the same respon­dents approved of unions. The GQR poll found that 50 per­cent of Wis­con­sin vot­ers sup­port­ed, 37 per­cent opposed, and 13 per­cent were uncer­tain about a right-to-work bill after a neu­tral descrip­tion of its pro­vi­sions. After offer­ing more vig­or­ous argu­ments for both sides, 46 per­cent still favored right-to-work laws, 42 per­cent opposed and 11 per­cent are uncertain.

It seems that aver­age vot­ers react out of a gut ide­o­log­i­cal hos­til­i­ty to the idea of being forced to pay for or join any­thing they do not want to join (or pay), even if they benefit.

Pro­po­nents of right-to-work laws argue that the mea­sures will boost job growth and gen­er­al eco­nom­ic activ­i­ty, but it’s not clear how big a role the argu­ment plays in deter­min­ing pop­u­lar opin­ion. The research find­ings sup­port labor’s oppo­si­tion: there’s no clear evi­dence that right-to-work laws in them­selves pro­mote job or GDP growth, but they clear­ly reduce union mem­ber­ship, weak­en unions, reduce health and safe­ty at work, low­er wages and ben­e­fits, increase prof­its and share­hold­er wealth and increase inequality.

Four years ago, the South Cen­tral Labor Fed­er­a­tion raised eye­brows around the coun­try with its talk of call­ing a gen­er­al strike to fight back against Walk­er, and the idea popped up again at the capi­tol rally.

“I think it’s about time to seize the moment in this bat­tle,” Machin­ist inter­na­tion­al vice-pres­i­dent Phil Gru­ber told the crowd. ​“Let’s stand still. Let’s stop the bus­es, trains and trucks. It’s time for action. Every­one who has a union card has to stand together.”

It’s a roman­tic idea, yes, but also real­is­tic under cer­tain con­di­tions. Unfor­tu­nate­ly they don’t exist now in Wis­con­sin or any oth­er place in the U.S.

It’s not just a mat­ter of unions hav­ing lim­it­ed expe­ri­ence real­ly work­ing togeth­er; it’s not just the lim­its of pow­er if every­one with a union card adds up to no more than 11 per­cent of the work­force. With­out pub­lic sym­pa­thy and clear under­stand­ing of how work­ers like them­selves share an inter­est with the labor move­ment, even when they are incon­ve­nienced, lead­ers like Walk­er could eas­i­ly turn the pow­er of the state against such mass action and prob­a­bly win over much of pub­lic opinion.

Yet the labor move­ment could, with that vision of mass sol­i­dar­i­ty in action in mind, take small steps in that direc­tion that might even­tu­al­ly build capac­i­ty for actions that come increas­ing­ly close to that ideal.

Most peo­ple want a job that can make it pos­si­ble to raise a fam­i­ly, give their chil­dren an edu­ca­tion and count on a decent retire­ment, and they need both a union and gov­ern­ment lead­ers who answer to aver­age cit­i­zens, not lob­by­ists for the rich, nurse Alli­son Sorg told the protest rally.

“That’s all we want,” she said. ​“Is that too much to ask?”

Appar­ent­ly Scott Walk­er, Wis­con­sin Repub­li­can politi­cians, and the bankers, bil­lion­aires and ide­o­logues who call their tune think it is. Pass­ing the right-to-work leg­is­la­tion is their way of say­ing so.