The voters’ decision will come months after the supreme court dealt a major blow to unions nationwide with Janus ruling

Sandy Hinson works as a janitor in Kansas City, Missouri. A single mother to four children and now a grandmother too, Hinson says she still bakes on the side for extra money to help her get by.

“When I was still raising kids though, oh my God, I used to work three jobs, ironing clothes for people, too,” she said. “That’s why I’m worried about these younger families with right to work. They’ll have to take on another job – and that takes away time from the kids.”

Hinson’s fear is “right-to-work” legislation, which drains unions’ strength by taking away their ability to charge non-union workers for their collective bargaining with employers. Right-to-work laws have been been spreading to states across the US; something which unions say hurts their cause – and that of their workers as they campaign for better wages and safer working conditions.

Now Missouri is next to decide on right-to-work, putting the midwestern state squarely at the center of the country’s debate over the future of its moribund union movement. But the choice on whether the state adopts a right-to-work law rests directly with Missouri’s voters in a special election to be held on Tuesday.

It is a bet that the unions themselves have made: that pro-union laws – and fighting anti-union laws – are far more popular with ordinary citizens than with the usually Republican administrations that seek to curb union power.

The road the state took to get here is a long one. In February 2017, less than a month after taking office, the former Republican governor Eric Greitens signed a bill making Missouri the 28th right-to-work state in the country. Greitens said the move would boost the local economy and create more jobs – ultimately being a boon for local workers.

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But after Greitens signed the bill, labor organizations across the state collected more than 300,000 signatures, roughly three times more than they needed, from people calling for a referendum. The public was then set to vote on right-to-work, or Proposition A, in the November general election.

The same day the signatures were submitted, however, the GOP-controlled legislature pushed the vote up to the August primary ballot.

Proponents of right to work said moving the vote up to August would hasten the process as businesses waited on the final decision.

But opponents called the maneuver an attempt to dampen voter turnout. They pointed out that, of the 26 similar prior referenda in Missouri – dating back over a century – none were moved by the legislature to the primary ballot, right to work being the only exception. Whatever their intention was, as a general rule, fewer people show up for primaries than for general elections.

Jake Rosenfeld, professor of sociology at Washington University in St Louis, questioned the claims of right to work laws creating more, and better paying, jobs. “Generally speaking, there is not much evidence to back that up,” he said.

Right to work, he said, would lower private sector union density – even from its current, historic low of around 6.5%. “And lower union density leads to lower pay – for both union and non-union workers,” Rosenfeld said.

But workers across the state would not be the only ones hurt. “Proponents of right to work rarely talk about this, but a key objective in their efforts is to defang a major source of organizational and financial support for the Democratic party. And the effects there would be quite large,” Rosenfeld said.

The people of Missouri already rejected this in 1978 because we knew it wouldn’t be the right thing then, too, Alexis Straughter, nursing assistant

The vote in Missouri comes on the heels of the Janus supreme court decision in June, in which the country’s top court ruled that public-sector workers are not obligated to pay union dues, purportedly in defense of free speech. The decision will likely cost unions tens of millions of dollars. Trump got on Twitter shortly after, calling it a “Big loss for the coffers of the Democrats!”

Back on the ground, workers like Hinson also cite recent hikes in gas prices and food costs as compounding factors to the legislation if workers’ ability to negotiate pay rises weakens. “Just getting to and from work will be harder, and if it passes,” she said. “You’ll have to decide if you can afford that little extra food to tide you over to the next payday, things like that.”

Recently a study by the Economic Policy Institute found that average workers in right to work states make 3.1% less than those in non-right to work.

“I get emotional thinking of the young mother who won’t be able to afford some simple things if her pay is cut, like bus fare,” Hinson said.

Her concerns are supported by recent research that show the wages of black women and other women of color are disproportionately hurt by the legislation. The EPI wrote: “The median black woman in neighboring RTW (right to work) states earns 6.2% less than her counterpart in Missouri, and the median Hispanic woman earns 12.7% less.”

Missouri’s right-to-work law isn’t infused with any language of race, but its origins are muddy.

Vance Muse, a Texas businessman and a self-described “believer in white supremacy”, set out in the 1940s to destroy unions. He saw unions as communist breeding grounds and a threat to racial order. Muse worked through the Christian American Association and elsewhere to pass right to work laws, and 11 states had them by the time he died in 1950.

“It’s clear that a lot of the early players in the right to work arena also dabbled in viciously racist politics as well,” Rosenfeld said. “But how that carries on today, there isn’t as much legacy now. For those stridently anti-union, race may not come to the forefront as much anymore.”

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“Martin Luther King talked about this back in 1961,” Alexis Straughter, a nursing assistant and mother of two in St Louis, explained. “He already knew it wouldn’t be a good thing for the country back then.”

King, who was assassinated the night after speaking to a group of black sanitation workers on strike, was decisively against right-to-work legislation. In a 1961 speech, King said: “In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work’… Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights.”

Missouri has also been here before: in 1978 voters rejected a right to work law by a hefty majority of 60%.

“The people of Missouri already rejected this in 1978 because we knew it wouldn’t be the right thing then, too,” Straughter said.

The Guardian asked 20 registered voters in St Louis about the upcoming right-to-work vote.

A group of three women at a coffeehouse all agreed in their opposition with varying levels of information on the issue. A couple walking through the city were split, one planned on voting against, the other had not heard of right to work and wanted to know more, first. Two women working in a local barbershop said they had not been planning to vote in August.

Thirteen additional residents were similarly questioned and each told the Guardian they planned on opposing right to work in this week’s vote.

But away from blue St Louis in the deeper red parts of the state, there is likely more support for passing the law. So far only two polls have been taken, one rejecting right to work 56% to 38% and another having the two sides roughly level on 40%.

That’s not enough to have Missouri’s unions and their supporters sure of victory. Though Straughter is confident, nonetheless. “Working families built this state and I believe working families are going to make sure lawmakers know you can’t pass a law without our consent,” she said.