Right to Work Blog

From the Washington Post:

The Virginia Democratic Party failed to properly disclose a $200,000 donation it received in early September from a labor union, party officials admitted . . . .

On Sept. 4, the Laborers’ Political League Education Fund gave the state party $200,000, which at the time was the largest contribution the state party had received in at least a decade, excluding transfers from candidates or other Democratic committees. But the state party never reported it until Oct. 15, when it filed its quarterly campaign finance report.

After being questioned by the Washington Post, party officials said they mistakenly failed to abide by the law.

“The Democratic Party of Virginia’s compliance operation missed advance reporting on a September contribution,” said Jared Leopold, a spokesman for the Virginia Democratic Party. “The Party acknowledges the error. Today, the Party reached out to the State Board of Elections to report the oversight and remedy the situation.” . . .

Since Sept. 1, the party has collected $570,000 from four labor unions, including $205,000 on Oct. 21 from the National Air Traffic Controllers Association, campaign finance records show.

We have been warning readers for years that enactment of the Card Check Scam Bill — certainly a top agenda item for a Democrat Congress and a Democrat president — will have a negative impact on Right to Work states, and more people are starting to recognize that fact.

The Birmingham Business Journal takes a look at the possible impact the so-called Employee Free Choice Act will have on Alabama employers:

The proposed bill, often referred to as card check legislation, would take away the right of the employer to demand a secret ballot when more than 30 percent of its employees petition in favor of union participation. If the petition is declared valid, the union would then be certified as the exclusive representative of all the company’s employees.

The bill also proposes federal mediation if a unionized company and a union can’t agree upon a collective bargaining contract within 120 days.

The concern for businesses is that unions might use pressure to push employees into union membership and that they won’t understand the ramifications, like the union bargaining exclusively for all employees, said Jay St. Clair of labor and employment law firm Littler Mendelson PC in Birmingham.

“The concern is that there can be coercion and people can’t vote their true feelings,” he said. “It does away with the fundamental process (secret ballot) that has been in law since 1930 and a process we’re all familiar with and have endorsed for 70 years.”

And in Virginia, where former Democrat Gov. Mark Warner is running for the Senate, Warner refuses to say that he will vote against the Card Check Scam Bill — a fact that has the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record rightfully up in arms:

As the polls repeatedly tell us, former Gov. Mark Warner makes an appealing candidate for U.S. Senate. But a recent refusal to commit, up or down, on an issue critical to many Virginia voters, in our mind, diminishes this appeal.

The issue to which we refer is the proposed Employee Free Choice Act, which would, in essence, replace the secret ballot in the decision to organize a union with a “card check” system. The system would allow union organizers to place pressure — at times, undue pressure — on individual workers to “check” that “card” to organize a union. A secret ballot affords each and every worker, well, the secrecy of their vote on this matter. It affords them protection. So in a state such as Virginia, which cherishes a right-to-work tradition that for decades has been a foundation stone of state prosperity, Mr. Warner’s position, or lack thereof, should be political dynamite for the business community and its employees.

Asked no less than three times this past Friday during a question-and-answer session at The Winchester Star whether he would vote “yes” or “no” on this undemocratic bill, Mr. Warner admirably imitated a crawfish. He wiggled and danced, and gave explanations for his wiggling and dancing, but never did answer the question.

We find that middling odd — and much more when we note that such a committed old liberal as George McGovern has actually made a television commercial opposing this “undemocratic overreach.” Part of the script reads as follows: “Voting is an immense privilege. That is why I am concerned about a new development that could deny this freedom to many Americans. As a longtime friend of labor unions, I must raise my voice against pending legislation I see as a disturbing and undemocratic overreach not in the interest of either management or labor.”

We wholeheartedly agree with Mr. McGovern, but would lend a bit of nuance to his statement. While it is true that “labor” — and by this we mean individual workers — would see no benefit from this act, “Big Labor,” the unions themselves, could realize substantial succor.

For his part, Mr. Warner pledged fealty to the state’s right-to-work law and tradition, but said the process of union organization was an entirely different matter. He said “reform” of the process was necessary, and that “over the last eight years,” the balance had shifted too much toward management, at the expense of labor. Nonetheless, he did say he had certain “concerns” about provisions of the legislation in question. Bottom line: Mr. Warner said he would not vote for any measure giving an “unfair advantage” to labor or management, yet refused to commit either way on this piece of legislation.

Yet this bill would give an “unfair advantage” to labor leaders by taking away from workers the right to choose without coercion, the same right all Americans exercise in an election. What about this does Mr. Warner not understand — particularly when a liberal like George McGovern sees it so clearly? This is a right-to-work issue.

Readers know the difficulty Michigan is having creating jobs and economic prosperity. But defenders of Big Labor like to deny that the regulations and costs the United Auto Workers (UAW) and other big unions have imposed on the state have anything to do with the state’s mired economic conditions. Albeit already difficult, it is getting harder to make such an argument.

Phil Gramm and Mike Solon writing in the Wall Street Journalnote:

The Competitiveness Index created by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) identifies “16 policy variables that have a proven impact on the migration of capital — both investment capital and human capital — into and out of states.” Its analysis shows that “generally speaking, states that spend less, especially on income transfer programs, and states that tax less, particularly on productive activities such as working or investing, experience higher growth rates than states that tax and spend more.”

Ranking states by domestic migration, per-capita income growth and employment growth, ALEC found that from 1996 through 2006, Texas, Florida and Arizona were the three most successful states. Illinois, Ohio and Michigan were the three least successful.

The rewards for success were huge. Texas gained 1.7 million net new jobs, Florida gained 1.4 million and Arizona gained 600,000. While the U.S. average job growth percentage was 9.9%, Texas, Florida and Arizona had job growth of 18.5%, 21.4% and 28.9%, respectively.

. . .

There also appears to be a clear difference between union interests and the worker interests. Texas, Florida and Arizona are right-to-work states, while Michigan, Ohio and Illinois are not. Michigan, Ohio and Illinois impose significantly higher minimum wages than Texas, Florida and Arizona. Yet with all the proclaimed benefits of unionism and higher minimum wages, Texas, Florida and Arizona workers saw their real income grow more than twice as fast as workers in Michigan, Ohio and Illinois.

Incredibly, the business climate in Michigan is now so unfavorable that it has overwhelmed the considerable comparative advantage in auto production that Michigan spent a century building up. No one should let Michigan politicians blame their problems solely on the decline of the U.S. auto industry. Yes, Michigan lost 83,000 auto manufacturing jobs during the past decade and a half, but more than 91,000 new auto manufacturing jobs sprung up in Alabama, Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia and Texas.

Gramm and Solon ask whether any of these facts play into the presidential debate and the positions the candidates have on issues like Right to Work?

So what do the state laboratories tell us about the potential success of the economic programs presented by Barack Obama and John McCain?

Mr. McCain will lower taxes. Mr. Obama will raise them, especially on small businesses. To understand why, you need to know something about the “infamous” top 1% of income tax filers: In order to avoid high corporate tax rates and the double taxation of dividends, small business owners have increasingly filed as individuals rather than corporations. When Democrats talk about soaking the rich, it isn’t the Rockefellers they’re talking about; it’s the companies where most Americans work. Three out of four individual income tax filers in the top 1% are, in fact, small businesses.

In the name of taxing the rich, Mr. Obama would raise the marginal tax rates to over 50% on millions of small businesses that provide 75% of all new jobs in America. Investors and corporations will also pay higher taxes under the Obama program, but, as the Michigan-Ohio-Illinois experience painfully demonstrates, workers ultimately pay for higher taxes in lower wages and fewer jobs.

Mr. Obama would spend all the savings from walking out of Iraq to expand the government. Mr. McCain would reserve all the savings from our success in Iraq to shrink the deficit, as part of a credible and internally consistent program to balance the budget by the end of his first term. Mr. Obama’s program offers no hope, or even a promise, of ever achieving a balanced budget.

Mr. Obama would stimulate the economy by increasing federal spending. Mr. McCain would stimulate the economy by cutting the corporate tax rate. Mr. Obama would expand unionism by denying workers the right to a secret ballot on the decision to form a union, and would dramatically increase the minimum wage. Mr. Obama would also expand the role of government in the economy, and stop reforms in areas like tort abuse.

The states have already tested the McCain and Obama programs, and the results are clear. We now face a national choice to determine if everything that has failed the families of Michigan, Ohio and Illinois will be imposed on a grander scale across the nation. In an appropriate twist of fate, Michigan and Ohio, the two states that have suffered the most from the policies that Mr. Obama proposes, have it within their power not only to reverse their own misfortunes but to spare the nation from a similar fate.

Harrisonburg, Virginia’s Daily News-Record has it right on the “woefully misnamed Employee Free Choice Act.”

. . . Called the “card check bill,” it would effectively deprive workers of the right to decide whether or not they want a union by secret ballot. Instead, such a measure would allow laborers at a workplace to organize if a majority check a box on a card for that purpose. . . .

Mr. Obama has affirmed he would make such a bill “the law of the land when I’m president.” Presumptive Republican candidate John McCain staunchly opposes the legislation, correctly noting that it would sunder workers’ preciously held right to make such a decision democratically via private ballot — without labor organizers peering over their shoulders and knowing how they vote. . . .

In an August 18, editorial, “No on Card-Check,” the Daily News-Record went on to urge Virginia’s two senatorial candidates to speak out now on how they stand on the “card check” legislation:

. . . Of foremost concern is how Virginia’s two senatorial candidates — former governors Mark Warner, a Democrat, and Jim Gilmore, a Republican — view this legislation. Virginia has long been a right-to-work state, and proudly defends this beneficent tradition as one of the foundation stones of its prosperity. That said, we can scarcely fathom a statewide candidate endorsing any measure antithetical to this tradition — without losing favor among Virginia voters.

Of Mr. Gilmore, on this score, we have no qualms. Facing an uphill battle toward election as it is, the GOP candidate would commit political suicide by abandoning right-to-work and the secret ballot. His conservative political philosophy mitigates against such a move anyway.

Mr. Warner is, or could be, another story. He may feel compelled to follow the lead of Mr. Obama, whose campaign considers Virginia, which has voted Republican in every presidential election since 1968, definitely up for grabs this November. What’s more, roundly favored to win the seat held since 1979 by retiring Republican John Warner, he may believe he can do so and still avoid political fallout.

But endorsing “card-check” would be a grave disservice to a people and a state that has profited mightily from its right-to-work status. In addition, backing this legislation would, we feel, cut across Mr. Warner’s grain as an entrepreneur. And a highly successful one, at that.

Thus, we ask Mr. Warner — and, for the record, Mr. Gilmore as well — how say you on this bill, the erroneously (and grossly so) named Employee Free Choice Act?

In addition to the quarter of a billion dollars the AFL-CIO will spend to elect pro-Big Labor puppets across the nation, the Services Employees International Union (SEIU) will spend an incredible $75 million in forced-union-dues money between now and November.

The New York Times noted:

The union’s secretary-treasurer Anna Burger said the SEIU would devote money and staff to Colorado, North Carolina and Virginia. The union’s strategy appears to dovetail with the Obama campaign’s plans to compete in those states, all three of which President Bush won in 2004.

At a strategy briefing last week, campaign manager David Plouffe said “we think we’re in a very strong position” in North Carolina and Virginia and he indicated Mr. Obama would not be ceding the mountain West to Senator John McCain either. Mr. Obama chose the University of Colorado in Colorado Springs as the venue to talk up his national service agenda on Wednesday.

Ms. Burger said the union, which endorsed Senator Obama in February, would also pour resources for both the presidential contest and down-ballot races into the perennial battlegrounds of Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan, among others, as well as governor’s races in Indiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Washington State.

To add insult to injury, the $75 million total does not include a $10 million bounty the union bosses have set aside to ensure that pro-Big Labor politicians don’t ever vote the interests of union members instead of the union leadership.

The News Virginian knows that Virginia’s Right to Work Law has been a boon to the citizens of the Commonwealth, but that hasn’t stopped the state’s Big Labor bosses from trying to undermine the law:

Concealed beneath the clamor over the state budget and bills covering such issues as gun rights, mental health and puppy farms were bids targeting the commonwealth’s right-to-work law. Left-leaning lawmakers sought to allow collective bargaining for public workers and, in the words of Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, “begin an irreversible trend towards compulsory organizing of employees.”

Thankfully, both initiatives died in the Republican-led House of Delegates. Still, it is worth noting the import of maintaining the state’s status as one of the best in which to do business, an honor accorded Virginia two years running by Forbes Magazine. While Rust Belt states such as Ohio, Michigan and Pennsylvania limp along in the shadows of their former industrial glory, places such as Virginia and Texas manage to advance even amid the current economic tumult in large part because employers know they can function here without the threat of a debilitating strike.

Texas, for example, has added 36,000 manufacturing jobs since 2004 and recorded $168 billion in exports last year. Ohio conversely lost 10,400 jobs over the last decade. Its population shrank by 362,000 during that time while Texas’ swelled by more than three-fourths that amount. The trends put the lie to the notion that the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Democratic candidates say they despise, adversely affects American workers. Which state in the union would figure to be more impacted by NAFTA than Texas?

Saxman and others on his side of the aisle are right to fight assaults on the right-to-work law. Those who would like a glimpse of life without it need only look to that trio of Northern states where prosperity is a relic of a thriving industrial heritage driven to ruin by manufacturer mismanagement and union greed. Organized labor’s day has passed into night; the same has happened to those states still in unions’ grip.