on the pay of professional athletes, they are literally making what the market is willing to pay them. so i would think you would be happy to hear about a free market success story like this

on a serious note, if you belong to a union, then when you are asked to do much more work than your pay suggests, your union will work to get your salary in line with what your responsibilities suggest you should be paid. in "right to work", you have to suck it up because you know you could be fired tomorrow for no better reason than your boss decides you are expendable.

sure, you could ask your supervisor for more money if they give you much more responsibility than you are being paid for, but what do you think their response will be if you do? if you're in a "right to work" state, many times you will end up on the short list of people who should probably be fired next time budgets are planned, because they know someone more desperate for the same job can be found who will take a pay cut from what you're currently making. "right to work" drives down earnings for all workers, not just the union shops you're so opposed to.

i will give you a personal example, and keep in mind i am also in CA like yourself: my last job promoted me to a senior position and promised me a substantial pay raise after a probationary period. after a year of nothing but silence on the issue, they finally agreed to give me less than half of what they promised, and the majority of that in performance-based incentives and not an actual raise in my salary. without a union rep (we had union locals as clients but no employee representation) my only options are: take their offer and work longer hours to meet the incentives they set, or find another job in a recession that might be better. i ultimately found another job, and by sheer luck it *is* better, but it's not a position i should have to face as an individual worker having to get management to agree to the promises they said they would agree to.