When is Massachusetts going to become a right-to-work state? "Never" is no longer the assumed answer.

That's because the noose is slowly tightening around the neck of high-cost Massachusetts, where unions enjoy a stranglehold on government jobs and the construction trades.

Liberal policies and pro-union giveaways don't pay the bills -- they add to them. Worse, they keep Big Business looking elsewhere to locate its plants and jobs.

Some day, Massachusetts taxpayers will realize the Democrat-Big Union Labor nexus is a stumbling block to better ideas, cost-saving efficiencies, and private-sector investments that spur economic growth.

Indiana, Wisconsin and now Michigan were once considered ironclad pro-union states. But last year, Indiana and Wisconsin passed pro-business laws to give workers a choice as to whether they want to join a union or not. And on Tuesday, Republican Gov. Richard Snyder signed two laws making Michigan the nation's 24th right-to-work state.

Right-to-work laws are gaining ground because workers want a voice in how management runs things. Plus, they want to keep more of their hard-earned wages in their pockets, rather than having union dues extracted from paychecks to fund the salaries and pensions of fat-cat union bosses who ignore membership's input.

While union bosses and activists view the right-to-work trend as a war on labor, workers should view it as an opportunity to attract jobs and spread prosperity.

Indiana, Wisconsin and Michigan -- and Massachusetts too -- have lost their fair share of union jobs, mostly in manufacturing, to low-cost, right-to-work states and overseas operations. Some menial jobs will never come back. But present and future jobs that demand an educated workforce with strong technical skills are up for grabs as manufacturing begins to make a resurgence in the U.S. States that offer a level-playing field to decision-makers will win back business -- and jobs -- for workers.

If unions just concentrated on cooperating with management to improve the performance of workers, they'd probably be able to reverse the downward membership trend across the U.S. Union leaders have grown more political, however. They've put workers' interests behind their own, which is to ingratiate themselves to Democrat candidates and liberal campaigns, wasting billions of dollars of membership dues in the process.

In Indiana, when public-sector union workers won the freedom to decide for themselves on paying union dues or not, 95 percent elected to keep the money in their paychecks.

Is it any wonder that six of America's top 10 job-creating states in 2012 are right-to-work states? They are Texas, Florida, Michigan, Virginia, Tennessee and Oklahoma. (It's interesting to note that Florida, Michigan and Virginia backed President Obama, the darling of labor-union-campaign donations, in his successful re-election bid.)

Of course, there is still time for unions to save themselves from decline. They can become more receptive to members' needs and more collaborative with management in setting goals that, once achieved, result in financial rewards for workers.

What we don't agree with, however, is the way some states have used political dominance to push through right-to-work laws without proper discourse. Michigan Republicans, for example, did so in one day, setting off violent protests.

Massachusetts public-sector unions have done well in recent years to support legislative reforms in education and health care. We hope that continues. But they still have a long way to go to make the state more attractive to business investors who see unions as an obstacle to success.