It’s good to see worker freedom spreading.

Moving beyond rhetoric, Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner on Monday issued an executive order that aims at absolving state workers who don’t want to join a union from paying fees that support collective bargaining.

The new governor’s decree effectively attempts to impose right-to-work rules on public employees, an idea Rauner and his pro-business allies also are pursuing for private-sector unions.

Anticipating a strong pushback from organized labor, Rauner filed a pre-emptive federal lawsuit in Chicago seeking to have his decision declared legal. But the move likely will spark additional court battles as unions quickly decried the effort as an illegal abuse of power. It’s also possible Democratic lawmakers could vote to overturn Rauner’s executive order.