Right to Work Blog

In early January, Governor Jim Gibbons signed an executive order repealing former Governor Bob Miller’s 1994 executive order mandating project labor agreements on Nevada public works construction projects. As reported in the Las Vegas Review Journal, Governor Gibbons’ new executive order:

. . . could save taxpayers millions of dollars . . . .

Under a PLA, the project owner is required to use only contractors that adhere to the rules set forth in the agreement, which includes wages, hours, benefits and other labor terms. In exchange, union workers pledge not to strike or pursue any other job actions.

Nonunion contractors have long contended that PLAs drive up the cost of construction on public projects such as schools and roads.

According to representatives of Nevada’s Associated Builders and Contractors:

In the executive order, Gibbons stressed that the state has “an obligation to all Nevadans to ensure that tax dollars are used economically, efficiently and in a non-discriminatory manner,” noting that this goal is met “through a process that ensures open and fair competition for state construction projects.”

The executive order noted that “promoting open and fair competition on the bidding and awarding of state construction projects will: allow the state to utilize the best contractor for the job at hand; expand job opportunities, particularly for small and disadvantaged businesses; advance free competition as a way of doing business in Nevada; and reduce construction costs and therefore save taxpayer dollars.”

Gov. Gibbon’s new executive order is a step in the right direction.

Under the National Labor Relations Act, construction contractors and employees have the right to choose to unionize or not to unionize. The vast majority of contractors and their employees – more than 80 percent – have voluntarily opted against unionization.

Because most contractors and employees choose to refrain from unionization when they have the free choice, Big Labor turned to politicians to remove that choice and impose union representation on employees from the top down. The method by which this is done is a project labor agreement, which is also frequently referred to as a “PLA.”

A project labor agreement requires all contractors, whether they are unionized or not, to subject themselves and their employees to unionization in order to work on a government-funded construction project. This is done by including a union collective bargaining agreement in a public construction project’s bid specifications. In order to receive a contract, a contractor must sign the agreement and subject its employees to union control.

Project labor agreements usually require contractors to grant union officials monopoly bargaining privileges over all workers; use exclusive union hiring halls; force workers to pay dues to keep their jobs; and pay above-market prices resulting from wasteful work rules and featherbedding.

The use of a project labor agreement usually results in cost overruns and higher construction costs for taxpayers. Qualified non-union contractors who wish to make lower-cost bids, and employees who wish to work non-union, are locked out of the project. However, politicians and government officials continue to impose project labor agreements to reward the union officials that fund their political campaigns and keep them in power.

And appears to have been running the show at New York City’s Amalgamated Transit Workers Union Local 1181.

According to an article by Daily News staff writer Greg B. Smith:

. . . [T]hat union’s corrupt president, Salvatore Battaglia, last week pleaded guilty to taking payoffs and said several bus company owners have made regular payments to his union for decades.

The union has been controlled by the Genovese crime family since the 1970s, helping private bus companies milk the taxpayers and pumping millions into mob pockets.

This is yet one more example of how the coercive powers union officials wield courtesy of federal labor law not only rob individual employees of fundamental freedoms, but exert a damaging and corrupting influence on work places, the economy, and other aspects of everyday American life.

When discussing his priorities, on the eve of the 2008 legislative session, Iowa State Representative Jeff Kaufmann made the following observation:

It is critical that we preserve our status as a Right to Work state. Attempts last year to weaken our Right to Work law were ill-advised in my opinion. As Iowans we should have the right to join a union but we should also have the right to not be a part of one. It should be an individual choice.

So true! And kudos to you, Representative Kaufmann, for making the preservation of Iowa’s Right to Work law one of your priorities.

As Iowa’s legislature came into session, House Minority Leader Chris Rants put Speaker Pat Murphy on notice about efforts to gut Iowa’s job-producing Right to Work law.

Rants, in a speech before the legislature, said:

“Mr. Speaker, this [gutting Right to Work] is the most divisive issue that was placed before this chamber for debate last year, and it would have the most devastating impact on Iowa’s fragile economy. We can spend the next 100 days moving chess pieces around, trying to prepare for this debate – one that would surely destroy any semblance of bipartisanship for the session. Or – you have the power to dispose of the issue today, and take SF413, the so-called “Fair Share” bill that guts our Right to Work Law off the table for discussion this year. Members of my caucus will not support this bill, and there are members of your caucus that don’t want to vote on it.”

Right on!

Let me get this straight.

After “. . . convincing only six of 100 Russell workers to picket with them and gaining 12 votes in favor of unionization,” over “. . . 30 members of Teamsters Local 25 padlocked the entrance of Russel[l] Disposal and parked a large tractor trailer in front of the business to block access to the waste businesses’ yard.”

And then, according to witnesses and as reported by the Somerville (MA) News, “. . . the union attempted to intimidate everyone in sight, including police and media, with curse-laden threats. A fracas erupted between Teamsters, police and Russell employees.”

So much for union democracy.

Screenwriter, novelist, blogger and commentator for National Public Radio, John Ridley, laid it on the line, last week, when he took “financial core,” status, as a means to remove himself from the Writers Guild of America. As he so eloquently put it:

. . . [W]hen membership is compulsory, free expression must be accommodated. The obligation of the union is to protect, not crush, the minority view.

Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter’s secret effort to give state workers union officials special monopoly bargaining privileges has been under attack and rightfully so. To appease the government union bosses, Washington State enacted a similar scheme in 2005, and it has cost taxpayers nearly $3 billion to cover increases in wages and benefits, the Denver Post reports. “The state shelled out $13.9 billion on wages and benefits . . . in fiscal 2006 and 2007, about $1.4 billion more than the previous two years, according to state data.”

No wonder taxpayers in Colorado are demanding repeal of Ritter’s gift to the union bosses.

Michigan citizens are now seeing and hearing former Detroit news anchor Bill Bonds, most recently known as a pitchman for personal-injury lawyer Sam Bernstein, featured in TV and radio ads for a mysterious outfit known as “Wrong for Michigan.” “Wrong for Michigan” is in reality a front group for union officials.

In the ads, Bonds makes an ill-informed attack on current efforts to enact a state Right to Work law, which would simply prohibit the firing of employees for refusal to join or pay so-called “agency” fees to an unwanted union.

Bonds admits Michigan’s economy is abysmal, but claims that, were it not for the state’s pro-forced unionism policies, things would be even worse. But the only way forced unionism “solves” any of Michigan’s problems is by fostering such a terrible job market that young people are fleeing the state in droves. From 1996 to 2006 alone, the number of 25-34 year-olds in Michigan fell by 150,000, or 11%. And since young employees are disproportionately uninsured and apt to have accidents on the job, the exodus of its youth makes Michigan’s health-insurance and workplace safety statistics appear better than they really are. Is this the kind of “success” the union bosses who are bankrolling the “Wrong for Michigan” ads really want to brag about?

A fair reading of the evidence indicates that Michigan’s lack of a Right to Work law really constitutes a major part of what’s wrong with the state’s economy.

Over the past five years, the 22 Right to Work states’ aggregate private-sector job growth of 6.3% was more than five times greater than the 28 forced-dues states’ aggregate growth of just 1.2%. Looking at Michigan’s region of the country alone, the five Right to Work Midwestern states had a combined private-sector job growth of 2.6%, while the seven forced-unionism states suffered an overall decline of 0.8%. Michigan’s extraordinary loss of 5.3% of its private-sector jobs is thus plausibly a result of the extraordinary power of union officials in the Wolverine State. In Michigan, Big Labor wields “exclusive” (monopoly) power to bargain with employers over the wages, benefits, and work rules of a higher share of private-sector employees than in all but one other state in the continental U.S.

In addition to their misleading assertions about health insurance and job safety, the “Wrong for Michigan” ads ignore multiple scholarly studies showing that the presence of a Right to Work law is correlated with higher real earnings and disposable incomes. Even data furnished in the American Federation of Teachers (AFT/AFL-CIO) union’s “Survey and Analysis of Teacher Salary Trends 2002,” published in July 2003, show that on average living costs (excluding all taxes) are roughly 15% higher in non-Right to Work states than in Right to Work states.
Study after study that factors in cost-of-living differences shows that, on average, employees’ real earnings are higher in Right to Work states than in forced-unionism states. For example, a study using a cost-of-living index published by Congressional Quarterly found that the average cost of living-adjusted weekly earnings in Right to Work states in 2005 were $723, compared to $688 in non-Right to Work states.

There is also compelling evidence that state Right to Work laws benefit citizens at all income levels. In 2006, just 8.2 out of every 1000 residents of Right to Work states had to rely on federal welfare (TANF) to get by, compared to 17.2 out of every 1000 in non-Right to Work states as a group and 21.1 out of every 1000 in Michigan. In light of such data, it takes a lot of moxie for the union brass, using Bonds as their front man, to claim that forced unionism reduces poverty!

Union officials certainly have a right to oppose passage of a Right to Work law in Michigan. But no one has a right to resort to distortion and obfuscation.

Carl Horowitz’s recent column covers Big Labor’s recent summit meeting with union officials from a host of other countries. Led by AFL-CIO top boss John Sweeney, American union bosses are joining hands with foreign union officials to “link global action with local action.” Attendees were plied with a rash of misinformation about U.S. labor law, claiming it is somehow stacked against labor unions.

“The current state of affairs in the United States involves very heavy restrictions of the right to organize and bargain collectively, and that restriction has spillover effects in other countries,” said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the Brussels-based International Trade Union Confederation . . . .

Horowitz highlights the hypocrisy writing:

In the minds of such people, not enacting a mandatory card-check law is evidence of repressing workers’ rights.

This is a man bites dog story. Congress has trouble cutting even the smallest government program, but Big Labor’s allies can cut the watch-dog agency that is designed to investigate union corruption.

Robert Bluey details Congress’ efforts to gut the Office of Labor Management Standards — a Christmas gift right to the union bosses.