“The proposed raise comes despite a recent study by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office finding that federal workers are significantly better compensated than their private-sector peers. The study, commissioned by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), found that federal civilian employees enjoy a total compensation premium of 16 percent, which includes a 2 percent advantage with respect to cash wages and a 48 percent advantage in benefits, the Free Beacon reports.

Jeff Demet’s name is on the petitions four times, but he said he didn’t sign even once. Also, his mother, Mary Demet’s signature is on the recall petitions, but she said she didn’t sign. Dennis Sargent of Racine is also on a petition that was allegedly circulated by Mark Demet, Jeff Demet’s brother. But Sargent said he did not sign a petition to recall Wanggaard and the address listed is not where he lives.

For more, read: Suspect recall signing could result in felony charges

Washington, DC (February 2, 2012) – The National Right to Work Foundation announced today that it is launching a legal task force aimed at protecting Indiana’s newly-enacted Right to Work law.

Union officials publicly floated the idea of challenging the law in Indiana’s courts before the law was even passed by the Indiana state senate.

Indiana is the nation’s 23rd Right to Work state after the state senate passed the bill and Governor Mitch Daniels signed the bill into law on Wednesday.

Foundation attorneys have successfully defended state Right to Work laws in the past, including Oklahoma’s. The task force has already examined reported union lines of attack and determined that Indiana’s Right to Work law is on sound legal ground.

“Union bosses want to undo what thousands of Hoosier citizens have worked hard for over the past decade,” said Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Because union partisans cannot win the hearts and minds of Indiana’s workers and voters, they seek to have the courts strike down Indiana’s popular Right to Work law for them.”

In addition to defending the Right to Work law from spurious union legal challenges, National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys are, as always, available to give free legal aid to employees seeking to exercise their Right to Work. Because the Indiana law applies only to forced dues clauses entered into after March 14, 2012, many employees may not be able to cut off all dues immediately. However, those employees can still exercise their right to refrain from formal union membership and cut off union dues being spent on politics.

Public polling shows that nearly 80 percent of Americans support the Right to Work principle, including 80 percent of union members.

Information about Indiana’s Right to Work law, including how Indiana employees can exercise their Right to Work can be found on the Foundation’s website: www.nrtw.org.

For the past two weeks, Big Labor bosses around the country have had their eyes on the Indiana capitol — watching in horror as the General Assembly passed a right-to-work bill with commanding majorities.

The passage of Indiana’s right-to-work law is an extraordinarily bitter defeat for the union brass. Less than a year ago, despite the fact that Hoosiers had elected substantial pro-right-to-work majorities to both chambers in 2010, union strategists remained confident they could preserve the forced-unionism status quo.

Last year, union bigwigs convinced the entire Democratic caucus of the Indiana House of Representatives to flee the state for five weeks in order to deny the body a quorum it needed to bring up and pass right-to-work legislation. Big Labor clearly believed whatever it lacked in legislative numbers it could make up for in zeal.

But polls showed Hoosiers overwhelmingly disapproved of the “fleabagger” tactic, and right-to-work supporters kept turning up the pressure on Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels and GOP legislative leaders to fight back against Big Labor.

Thanks to legislation passed after last year’s walkout, House members failing to show up to do their jobs when the General Assembly is in session may be hit with $1,000-a-day fines.

In the opening weeks of the 2012 session, House Democrats went public about their reluctance to jump over a cliff again for the union hierarchy. Finally, on Jan. 24, House Minority Leader Pat Bauer announced an end to his caucus’ boycott of the bill. It passed the next day.

Ever since, the caterwauling by Big Labor and its allies has resounded across the state. But what’s so bad about a law that merely says an individual shouldn’t be forced at the workplace to support financially an organization that he or she doesn’t believe acts in his or her interests?

Rather than address this question, union propagandists skirt it. Union officials never act contrary to the interests of any employee, they implicitly argue. Any employee who says otherwise they brand as a hypocritical “freeloader”!

For the stewards of a so-called “workers’ movement,” labor bosses have an unbelievably antagonistic attitude toward workers.

American charities collectively took in nearly $300 billion in 2010. Yet American workers can’t be trusted to support unions that supposedly represent their interests unless they are forced to do so? No law forces two-thirds of Americans to give to charity. And yet they do.

Union officials and their friends won’t acknowledge that being forced under federal or state law to accept a union as your monopoly-bargaining agent with your employer when it comes to pay, benefits and work rules is actually not in the economic interest of many employees.

Wisconsin watchdog Citizens for Responsible Government in Racine  reported that Racine native Jeff Demet’s name was found four times on the petition to recall Republican State Senator Van Wanggaard. Finding the same signature four times is bad enough, but when Demet was contacted about the four signatures, he claims he never signed the Wanggaard recall petition at all!

“Indiana has by every reckoning the 5th or 6th best business climate in the country, and now it gets a little better,” said Daniels on Fox News. “The phone began literally ringing yesterday afternoon with companies wanting to come to our state.”

We will keep you up to date but on thing we do know, Gov. Brewer is not one to back down from a fight.

SOON — PERHAPS AS EARLY AS TODAY — Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign legislation making Indiana the nation’s 23^rd right-to-work state. Labor unions angrily oppose the change, but their opposition has no legitimate or principled basis.

State right-to-work laws, authorized by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, are not anti-union. They are pro-choice: They protect workers from being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union as a condition of keeping a job. In non-right-to-work states, employees who work in a “union shop” are compelled to fork over part of each paycheck to a labor organization — even if they want nothing to do with unions, let alone to be represented by one. Laws like the one Indiana is poised to enact simply make union support voluntary. Hoosiers can’t be required to kick back part of their wages to the Republican Party or the Methodist Church or the Animal Liberation Front; the new measure will ensure that they don’t have to give a cut of everything they earn to labor unions, either.

Most Americans regard compulsory unionism as unconscionable. In a new Rasmussen survey, 74 percent of likely voters say non-union workers should not have to pay dues against their will. Once upon a time, labor movement giants like Samuel Gompers, a founder of the American Federation of Labor, agreed. “I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty — the principles of voluntarism,” declared Gompers in his last speech to the AFL in 1924. “No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.” Those words can be seen chiseled on Gompers’s memorial in Washington, DC.

So as a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, it is easy to understand why Big Labor long ago embraced what liberal scholar Robert Reich (who served as Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor) dubbed “the necessity for coercion.” In order “to maintain themselves,” Reich said in 1985, “unions have got to have some ability to strap their members to the mast.” Or, as Don Corleone might have put it, to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

But is there any ethical reason — any honorable basis — for the union shop?

To hear them tell it, they only object to “free riders.” Labor leaders claim it would be unjust to allow employees to avoid paying for the unions that negotiate benefits on their behalf. “There’s always going to be a certain amount of the population that will take something for free if they can get it for free,” says Nancy Guyott, head of the Indiana AFL-CIO.

That’s not a principle, it’s a shameless pretext. Unions demand monopoly bargaining power — the right to exclusively represent everyone in a workplace — and then insist that each of those workers must pay for the privilege. This is the “principle” of the squeegee-man who aggressively wipes your windshield when you stop at a red light, then demands that you pay for the service he has rendered you.

By the union’s “free-rider” logic, shouldn’t all voters be forced to subscribe to a daily newspaper, since all of them benefit from its journalism? And shouldn’t every company be compelled to support the Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies on behalf of business whether individual firms ask it to or not?

The passion with which Big Labor fights right-to-work helps explain why so many Americans have abandoned unions. The labor movement was born in freedom and choice. That’s not what it stands for anymore.

Indianapolis, Indiana – Today, Mark Mix, President of the 2.6 million-member National Right to Work Committee, praised the Indiana House and Senate for passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law.

Mr. Mix said, “This is a great day for Indiana’s workers and taxpayers.

“After a ten-year struggle involving hundreds of thousands of mobilized Hoosiers, Indiana will finally be able to enjoy all the benefits of a Right to Work law,” said Mr. Mix.

“Today, the Indiana Senate passed the Right to Work Bill by a vote of 28 to 22. The bill has already passed the House, so it now goes straight to Governor Daniels, who has vowed to sign it, making Indiana America’s 23rd Right to Work state,” continued Mix.

Mr. Mix continued, “The Right to Work Law will free nearly 200,000 Hoosiers who have been forced to pay tribute to a union boss for the privilege of getting up everyday and going to work so they can provide for their families.”

Proponents of the bill expect that passage of the Right to Work law will provide significant economic benefits for Indiana and Indiana workers.

For the past decade, non-agricultural employment in Right to Work states grew twice as fast compared to that in non-Right to Work states like Indiana, according to data from the Department of Labor.

“On the job front,” said Mr. Mix, “virtually every site selection consultant on record has testified that as many as half of their clients will not even consider expanding or relocating to non-Right to Work states.”

Governor Daniels experienced this problem firsthand, reporting recently that when Volkswagen was looking to build a production facility in America, he was unable to get the company to even return his phone calls.

Volkswagen ended up choosing to open its new facility in the Right to Work state of Tennessee.

Today’s action makes Indiana the first Right to Work state in the Manufacturing Belt, and supporters say it will give Hoosiers a significant advantage over all of its neighbors and the rest of the 27 non-Right to Work states.

“Besides enjoying an influx of new jobs, Right to Work states also enjoy higher personal income,” said Mr. Mix.

In particular, Mr. Mix drew attention to a study by Dr. Barry Poulson, a past president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and also a professor of economics at the University of Colorado, who compared household incomes in 133 metropolitan areas in Right to Work states with those of 158 metropolitan areas in non-Right to Work states.

“Among other results, he found that the average real income for households in Right to Work state metro areas, when all else was equal, was $4,258 more than non-Right to Work state metro areas,” said Mr. Mix.

Mr. Mix concluded, “I want to take a moment to thank Governor Daniels, House Speaker Bosma, Senate President Long, bill sponsors Jerry Torr and Carlin Yoder, and the men and women of the Indiana Legislature who stood up for the rights of the individual worker and voted to pass Right to Work.

“But most of all, I want to thank the thousands of dedicated Hoosiers who have stood up over the years to demand passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law.”

In an effort to loosen labor’s grip on workers, two GOP lawmakers want legislation that would require workers to re-affirm the existence of their unions with new votes every three years.

Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah and Rep. Tim Scott of South Carolina are pushing the Employee Rights Act that also would place limits on strikes, how fast a union can organize and how membership fees may be used to support political candidates. The bill has yet to receive a committee hearing in either chamber.

Few workers – less than 10 percent of union members – vote to organize. Instead, most workers join an existing union as a condition of employment.

This bill, however, would give workers a chance to voice their opinions. Union officials would be up for re-election every three years. At that time, employees could decide whether to keep or eliminate their union.

“My goal is to make sure that employees of a company make the decision on joining unions,” Mr. Scott said. “This just gives them an opportunity to say, ‘Yes, I want to be a part of the union.’”

“It’s neither anti-union, nor pro-employer,” Mr. Hatch told The Washington Times. “It’s pro-worker.”

“There’s not a single provision in this bill that will empower employers at the expense of the union,” Mr. Hatch said. “The only parties whose position will be improved by the Employee Rights Act are employees.”

“It’s about time we start worrying about the employees and the workers, rather than unions and management people,” Mr. Hatch said. “It is fair to both employers and unions, and, far more importantly, it’s fair to workers.”

Secret-ballot elections, instead of card checks, would be the voting method of choice under the Employee Rights Act, which was introduced last August in both chambers.

From the Indystar.com:

Gov. Mitch Daniels says he’ll sign into law a controversial labor law “as soon as it comes to me.”

That could be Wednesday, after a final vote on the so-called “right to work” legislation is taken in the Indiana Senate.

A Senate committee cleared the way for that vote on today, voting 6-1 to approve the bill and send it to the full Senate.

Under the “right to work” legislation, companies and unions could no longer negotiate a contract that requires non-members of the union to pay fees for representation.

Indianapolis, Indiana – Today, Mark Mix, President of the 2.6 million-member National Right to Work Committee, praised the Indiana House and Senate for passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law this afternoon.

Mr. Mix said, “This is a great day for Indiana’s workers and taxpayers.

“After a ten-year struggle involving hundreds of thousands of mobilized Hoosiers, Indiana will finally be able to enjoy all the benefits of a Right to Work law,” said Mr. Mix.

“Today, the Indiana House passed the Right to Work bill by a vote of 54 to 44.  Because the Senate passed an identical bill on Monday and Governor Daniels is on record in favor of the bill, it now seems certain that after the Senate approves the House bill, Indiana will become America’s 23rd Right to Work State,” continued Mix.

Mr. Mix continued, “The Right to Work Law will free nearly 200,000 Hoosiers who have been forced to pay tribute to a union boss for the privilege of getting up everyday and going to work so they can provide for their families.”

Proponents of the bill expect that passage of the Right to Work law will provide significant economic benefits for Indiana and Indiana workers.

For the past decade, non-agricultural employment in Right to Work states grew twice as fast compared to that in non-Right to Work states like Indiana, according to data from the Department of Labor.

“On the job front,” said Mr. Mix, “virtually every site selection consultant on record has testified that as many as half of their clients will not even consider expanding or relocating to non-Right to Work states.”

Governor Daniels experienced this problem firsthand, reporting recently that when Volkswagen was looking to build a production facility in America, he was unable to get the company to even return his phone calls.

Volkswagen ended up choosing to open its new facility in the Right to Work state of Tennessee.

Today’s action will make Indiana the first Right to Work state in the Manufacturing Belt, and supporters say it will give Hoosiers a significant advantage over all of its neighbors and the rest of the 27 non-Right to Work states.

“Besides enjoying an influx of new jobs, Right to Work states also enjoy higher personal income,” said Mr. Mix.

In particular, Mr. Mix drew attention to a study by Dr. Barry Poulson, a former president of the North American Economics and Finance Association and a professor of economics at the University of Colorado, who compared household incomes in 133 metropolitan areas in Right to Work states with those of 158 metropolitan areas in non-Right to Work states.

“Among other results, he found that the average real income for households in Right to Work state metro areas, when all else was equal, was $4,258 more than non-Right to Work state metro areas,” said Mr. Mix.

Mr. Mix concluded, “I want to take a moment to thank Governor Daniels, House Speaker Bosma, Senate President Long, the bill sponsors Jerry Torr and Carlin Yoder, and the men and women of the Indiana Legislature who stood up for the rights of the individual worker and voted to pass Right to Work.

“But most of all, I want to thank the thousands of dedicated Hoosiers who have stood up over the years to demand passage of the Indiana Right to Work Law.”

###

 The National Right to Work Committee, established in 1955, is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens’ organization dedicated to the principle that all Americans must have the right to join a union if they choose to, but none should ever be forced to affiliate with a union in order to get or keep a job.  Its web address is www.nrtwc.org.

It’s not turning out that way: The Apocalypse has not arrived for services, and Mr. Walker was able to balance the state budget without new taxes or looming deficits.

They swore revenge for his offenses, and last week Wisconsin Democrats delivered what they say are a million signatures for the recall of Republican Governor Scott Walker… to campaign against reforms that have already saved taxpayers tens of millions of dollars and rescued the state from a budget crisis. Game on.

Since last summer,  Big Labor waged and lost a bitter fight over the election of a state Supreme Court Justice and spent millions trying to recall Republican state senators.

Last year state senator Spencer Coggs called Mr. Walker’s plan “legalized slavery” while others predicted disaster for school districts and public services.

In districts like Wauwatosa, Racine, LaCrosse and Eau Claire, the changes in health and pension contributions prevented layoffs that were expected to be widespread and in some cases allowed the boards not to fire a single teacher.

There are a few unfortunate counter examples—schools had locked themselves into long-term agreements with unions that predated Mr. Walker’s reforms. Unable to take advantage of the changes, Milwaukee and Kenosha, which serve more than 100,000 students altogether, saw layoffs of more than 800 teaching positions for the 2011-2012 school year.

The reforms have also let school districts introduce competition to reduce health-care costs. Under the old rules, most school districts bought health insurance through the WEA Trust, a virtual monopoly provider and a creature of the Wisconsin Education Association Council.

The Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute estimates that the Appleton school district was able to save $3.1 million over the previous year, despite continuing to get insurance through WEA Trust. With other insurance options available, WEA Trust had to cut its prices to keep the business. Based on statewide media reports, MacIver estimates that as of September 74 local units of government were saving some $162 million.

In mid-December, Wisconsin taxpayers got evidence of the direct benefits of reform in their latest property tax bills—an average annual increase of 0.3%, the smallest since 1996. Potential Democratic challengers  will have to explain why the state should punish Mr. Walker for reforms that are helping taxpayers and local governments save money.

The only loser here are government unions that have less control over state and local politics. With the state no longer automatically withdrawing dues for the unions, labor leaders face the prospect of smaller checkbooks to buy politicians and intimidate reformers.

Mr. Walker reduced that influence on behalf of taxpayers, and the only point of the recall is union retribution designed to show other politicians that they don’t dare cross that line. The Wisconsin recall fight is the statewide election of the year, with implications for taxpayers nationwide.

Writing in D Magazine, Susan Arledge uses the facts to make the case for Right to Work:

The U.S. Bureau of Economic data shows that between 1990 and 2010, right-to-work states experienced much higher median economic performance with:

• Employment growth of 25.9 percent for right-to-work states vs. 7.9 percent for all other states
• Per capita income growth of 117.8 percent vs. 104.3 percent
• Population growth of 29 percent vs. 23.6 percent
• Manufacturing employment growth of 84.0 percent vs.19.4 percent
• Manufacturing wage per worker growth of 108.7 percent vs. 96.1 percent

Thus, on every economic dimension examined above, right-to-work states experienced significantly greater economic performance than non-right-to-work states.

It is worth remembering that Illinois has become the belly of the beast when it comes to pleasing the union bosses at expense of the taxpayer.  Even after raising taxes at the demand of union activists, the state is still suffering through an economic crisis.  This is the point that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker has been making — we can’t balance state budgets without reforming the power of the union bosses.  The Wall Street Journal notices the difference between Illinois and Wisconsin in a recent Op-Ed:

Run up spending and debt, raise taxes in the naming of balancing the budget, but then watch as deficits rise and your credit-rating falls anyway. That’s been the sad pattern in Europe, and now it’s hitting that mecca of tax-and-spend government known as Illinois.

Though too few noticed, this month Moody’s downgraded Illinois state debt to A2 from A1, the lowest among the 50 states. This wasn’t supposed to happen. Only a year ago, Governor Pat Quinn and his fellow Democrats raised individual income taxes by 67% and the corporate tax rate by 46%. They did it to raise $7 billion in revenue, as the Governor put it, to “get Illinois back on fiscal sound footing” and improve the state’s credit rating.

It’s worth contrasting this grim picture with that of Wisconsin north of the border. Last winter Madison was occupied by thousands of union protesters trying to bully legislators to defeat Republican Governor Scott Walker’s plan. The reforms passed anyway.

In contrast to the Illinois downgrade, Moody’s has praised Mr. Walker’s budget as “credit positive for Wisconsin,” adding that the money-saving reforms bring “the state’s finances closer to a structural budgetary balance.” As a result, Wisconsin jumped in Chief Executive magazine’s 2011 ranking of each state’s business climate—moving to 17th from 41st. Illinois dropped to 48th from 45th as ranked by the nation’s top CEOs.

Yet Mr. Walker, who balanced the budget without new taxes, is the governor facing a union-financed attempt to recall him from office this year. If Wisconsin voters want to see where a state ends up without the kind of reforms that Mr. Walker made, they need only look to the Greece next door.

From The StarTribune article by Jim Ragsdale and Paul  Walsh:

Opponents of the drive to unionize in-home child care providers have filed a second suit aimed at blocking a union vote.

A group of 12 child-care providers, aided by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, filed suit Thursday in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis against Gov. Mark Dayton’s executive order authorizing a union election. The group argues that the order is unconstitutional because it could ultimately require all providers to be represented by the union, whether they want to or not.

The federal complaint says that if either or both unions win the elections in their geographic areas, the union would become the “exclusive” representative of all providers. It said the providers who filed the suit do not want to associate with either union “in any way” and “wish to retain their individual right to choose with whom they associate to lobby the state.”

“In the order, the state is going to designate a representative of these providers for the purposes of petitioning the state,” said William Messenger, an attorney for the foundation, based in Springfield, Va. “It infringes on the freedom of association — the First Amendment protects to right to associate or not associate.”

After an organizing drive by the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Dayton issued an order setting a union election for those providers who care for children with state subsidies — about 4,300 of the state’s 11,000 licensed in-home providers.

The foundation is focused on fighting what it considers “compulsory unionism,” such as workplaces where employees are required to be members. It is providing legal work on the lawsuit for free, Messenger said.

From the related National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation press release:

Minnesota Child Care Providers File Federal Lawsuit Challenging Forced Unionization Scheme

Child care providers fight against Governor Dayton’s dictate that pushes childcare business owners into union

Minneapolis, MN (January 19, 2012) – A group of home-based child care providers have filed a federal lawsuit challenging Governor Mark Dayton’s recent executive order designed to forcibly unionize the state’s providers.

Jennifer Parrish from Rochester filed the suit Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation.

Parrish and other providers seek to halt Dayton’s executive order intended to designate American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials as the monopoly bargaining and political representatives of thousands of providers in the state.

Home-based child care and personal care providers are challenging similar forced-unionization-by-government-fiat schemes in numerous states across the country, including Michigan and Illinois.

Foundation attorneys argue that such schemes violate the providers’ First Amendment rights of freedom of speech, association, and petition of government guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution because the government does not have the power to force citizens to accept the government’s handpicked political representation to lobby itself.

“This union boss power grab scheme is nothing more than pure political payback and was popularized by disgraced Governors Gray Davis of California and Rod Blagojevich of Illinois,” said Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work.  “The forced political association that is occurring in the North Star State as a result of Governor Dayton’s dictate is a slap in the face of fundamental American principles we hold dear.”

The lawsuit is the second legal challenge to Minnesota’s child care provider unionization scheme, but the first in federal

In Wisconsin, Governor Walker’s public union reforms are pummeling the Big Labor narrative by saving taxpayer dollars and teachers’ jobs. Meanwhile, the professional class-warriors who get rich pushing “solidarity” force districts into layoffs by refusing to revisit unaffordable contracts.

After similar reforms failed in Ohio thanks to a smear campaign exceeding $30 million, Ohio’s public workers are enjoying the sort of union victory that’s often accompanied by a pink slip.

A month ago I shared stories from around the state of firings caused by the same union bosses who screeched against Governor Kasich’s “attack on workers.” To the surprise of neither of my website’s readers, this avoidable trend continues.

Voters who opposed reform have caused the very problems Big Labor insisted reform would create:

Marion Police say they are committed to answering the city’s 9-1-1 calls but come the [sic] January 1st, callers could see delays in response times. That’s because the [sic] 15 officers are being cut from the department.

In Lorain, millions in cuts plus millions borrowed from the state aren’t enough:The cuts would be in addition to laying off 18 teachers and nine teachers’ aides, which was approved Wednesday night by board members and would save $1.5 million. The layoffs take effect Jan. 23.

In Wapakoneta, home of Neil Armstrong, the teachers’ union is preparing to strike over a pay freeze and increased benefit costs, although administrators and non-union staff have already taken a pay freeze. The district, like many, has faced difficult financial times. It had $1.2 million of deficit spending last fiscal year and is projected to spend $1.6 million more than its annual revenue this year.

The Gallia County Schools union has also threatened to strike if they’re asked to payanything towards their insurance.

In Hancock County, the Van Buren Education Association threatened a strike when their school board voted to impose a  1.12 percent raise in the 2012-13 school year.

Threatening to strike when asked to pay slightly more towards insurance is a common public union tactic because it works. For Exhibit A in the National Education Association’s top-down mastery of class warfare, refer again to the results of the Ohio union reform campaign.

Exit survey: How un-frozen has your salary been over the past few years? When is the last time you heard a public employer suggest a pay cut? What do you expect will happen to teachers without seniority when local unions squeeze school boards into contracts they cannot afford?

The Fiscal Times

From Bloated Union Contracts Have Busted State Budgets:

Consider the issues making headlines: education reform, busted state budgets, the battle to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, free trade agreements,Occupy Wall Street, the fight to make Indiana a right-to-work state. What these stories have in common is the waning influence of organized labor and the all-out battle by union leaders to hold on.

Take the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top initiative. Education Secretary Duncan recently warned that several states, including New York, might not receive monies earlier awarded through that program because they have not followed through on required reforms. The stumbling block? Teacher evaluations.

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out new education initiatives in his recent State of the City address, among them a proposal to give $20,000 raises to the best teachers, in return for changing the way educators are evaluated. Today, teachers are rated either satisfactory or unsatisfactory; 97 percent fall in the former category. UFT President Michael Mulgrew immediately denounced the plan, describing Mr. Bloomberg as “lost in his own fantasy world of education.”

Mr. Mulgrew may be the one living in a fantasy world. Pressure to boost our country’s public schools is one of the rare priorities on both Republicans’ and Democrats’ to-do lists. Americans are appalled by our plummeting world education rankings, and by our graduates’ lack of preparedness for today’s job market. While the decline in our schools stems from a number of sources, most reformers – including Secretary Duncan – see the intransigence of unions on the “job for life” rules that perpetuate mediocre teaching as a major roadblock to progress.

Likewise, the recession has forced politicians to confront bloated public employee contracts that have torpedoed many states’ budgets. Estimated at over $3 trillion, the underfunding of state and local pension plans has been described as one of our most serious fiscal problems. Voters now understand that unless elected officials overhaul pay and benefits packages they will face soaring taxes or reduced services.

Governor Walker’s efforts to rein in unsustainable public employee costs in Wisconsin (and to reduce a sizeable budget deficit) became the rallying point for terrified union leaders who see their only growth opportunity – public employees – under attack. Though Walker proposed terms that were still more generous than the national averages… Union leaders struck back, rallying workers from across the country to their cause; they are now trying to force the governor from office.

These confrontations have left Big Labor bruised but unbowed, and eager to turn public anger elsewhere. They have nurtured and funded the Occupy Wall Street protests for just that reason, ginning up resentment against the “one percent” and especially against banks and bankers. Better to raise taxes on the wealthy than to cut government payrolls. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which has over one million members and much to lose from widespread government reform efforts, has been especially eager to support the protests. Stephen Lerner, a highly regarded union organizer and former SEIU official, spoke to students at Pace University last March about his plan to “destabilize” the country through civil disobedience, strikes and large-scale protests. Acknowledging that labor was under pressure and needed to stay out of the spotlight, he insisted that students and community groups take the lead. Welcome to OWS.

Happily, the public is not so gullible. On many fronts, Americans see unions as part of the problem, not part of the solution.  Voters can connect the dots, between the interests of the nation…..and defeating the interests of organized labor.

Gigot:  The first big labor fight of the year is taking shape in the Hoosier State. How Indiana’s right-to-work push could change the political and economic landscape in the Midwest.

Gov. Mitch Daniels: The idea that no worker should be forced to pay union dues as a condition of keeping a job is simple and just. But the benefits in new jobs would be large. A third or more of growing or relocating businesses will not consider a state that does not provide workers this protection.

Gigot: He was reportedly booed by protesters in the statehouse hallways for those remarks in his annual State of the State Address this week, but Gov. Mitch Daniels is hoping to make Indiana the first state in more than a decade to approve right-to-work legislation. It would allow individual workers to decide if they want to join a union and ban contracts that require nonunion members to pay dues once their work site is organized. Republican leaders in the state have made it their top legislative priority this year, but Democrats and their union allies aren’t giving up without a fight.

So, Collin, we heard last year, after the brawl in Wisconsin, that somehow this was over for a union reform movement. What’s–why is it happening in Indiana now?

Levy: Well, I mean, I think it is a really interesting situation you see happening in Indiana, because Indiana’s this sort of industrial state of the Midwest. And you have a particular situation now where Indiana is poised to achieve enormous competitive advantages over states in the Midwest like Michigan, like Illinois. These are high-taxed, unionized states. And Gov. Daniels has taken this moment to say, “You know, we’ve already made sort of some significant gains in terms of improving the business climate here. We saw what happened in Wisconsin. But, look, you know, we have an opportunity to lure an awful lot of businesses here if we can make it clear that workers can act as free agents,” you know? Unions are portraying this as a radical change, but it’s really just about worker freedom.

Gigot: Kim, the nearest right-to-work state in the Midwest is Iowa. So how much economic benefit could there be here, really, when you get down to it, for Indiana?

Strassel: It’s huge. When Mitch Daniels talks about this, he is looking at the South. That is where the epicenter of most right-to-work states have been and where there has been a flood of manufacturers who have moved from the North to the South over recent decades to take advantage of those lower-cost, nonunionized states. And if Indiana could do this, it would be a sort of central pole for people to remain in the Midwest and locate and give an enormous advantage over competitors.

Gigot: The last state to try to do this was New Hampshire, believe it or not, which had elected huge Republican legislative majorities in 2010. Tried to pass right-to-work. They did. It was vetoed by the Democratic governor. Indiana Republicans also have big majorities, and it looks like they are poised to do it.

Henninger: And I hope they do. I mean, I think this is really almost a life-and-death issue for Indiana. Twenty percent of Indiana’s workforce is in manufacturing. That’s the highest percentage in the United States.

Gigot: Wow.  Manufacturing is only 11% of the entire U.S. economy.

Henninger: It’s about 20% in Indiana. They make elevators, refrigerators, mobile homes, engines–Cummins Engine is there. They attracted Toyota, they attracted Honda to the state. But if you’re in manufacturing, that’s about half of your costs–labor costs–about half of the total cost of a company. They have got to be competitive with the southern tier of states that we just saw in that map, or those companies will inevitably migrate. There’s a lot of outmigration in Indiana right now. The level of real incomes is falling because all the manufacturing is going to the South. It is a make-or-break deal for Indiana, Paul.

Gigot: Collin, Democrats are trying to play a game of hide-and-seek in Indiana, again trying to go out–leave the state or leave the–not provide a quorum for Republicans to pass this. Is that likely to succeed?

Levy: No, it’s not. And one of the reasons is, if you recall, after the Wisconsin battle last year and the walkout there, you also had about a five-week walkout by Indiana’s Democrats, after which time, Republicans in the Legislature passed a law that said if you’re gone from work for more than three days, guess what, there are consequences. There’s about a thousand-dollar personal fine. So what you’re seeing now are these sort of rolling walkouts, where they’re here for a few days and gone for another day, and so that’s what’s been happening. But I don’t think that that’s going to hold. They–basically, the Democratic leader has acknowledged that this is probably going to go forward.

Gigot: Kim, quickly, what would be the impact nationally, and on the presidential election in 2012, if Indiana passes this?

Strassel: It puts the union issues back in here. And just on the political point, Paul, I want to point out this is different than what happened in Wisconsin. The tough thing for Scott Walker in Wisconsin was union guys could say, “You’re attacking the middle class, taking away benefits.” This is an issue in Indiana that really resonates with Americans that are saying, “Are you going to be forced to join a union and pay dues?” Most Americans don’t agree with that. If Republicans can frame that in a national debate, it definitely helps them.

Who could fault a worker who did not pay dues to the Teamsters? In the past two years the Department of Labor has charged or convicted of corruption 11 Teamsters officers. A government monitor recently accused the union’s president, Jimmy Hoffa, of trying to bribe election opponents with Teamster funds.

Should a worker be fired for not paying union dues? Unions think so. They negotiate contracts that force workers to pay union dues or lose their job.

Some workers object to their union’s political spending. Other workers could earn more than their union negotiated for them. Still others feel their union is corrupt.

Right-to-work has returned to the national agenda. Twenty-two states have passed right-to-work laws that let workers decide whether to support unions or not.  It protects employees’ right to work, whether or not they support unions.

New Hampshire legislators narrowly failed to override their governor’s veto of right-to-work. The Indiana legislature will soon debate whether to make the Hoosier state America’s 23rd right-to-work state.

They should. Right-to-work benefits the economy as well as personal freedom. Unions organize more aggressively in non- right-to-work states. It is worth it to attempt to unionize any business they have a shot at. If a state becomes right-to-work, however, expensive organizing drives at good employers becomes less worthwhile — unions cannot force content workers to pay dues.

Businesses want to know that, if they treat their workers well, unions will leave them alone. Right-to-work makes that more likely — and businesses notice.

Studies show right-to-work laws are a major factor in business location decisions. Most new auto plants have been built in right-to-work states. More investment means more jobs.

Nonetheless, the union movement strongly opposes right-to-work. They want dues. Making dues payments voluntary would cost them millions. The union movement justifies forcing workers to pay dues by arguing non-union employees would otherwise “free ride” — enjoying the benefits of a union contract without paying for it.

However, union contracts do not have to cover non-union employees. The Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed unions’ ability to negotiate “members only” contracts. Unions voluntarily negotiate contracts covering all workers, members and non-members alike.

They do so because union contracts benefit some workers at the expense of others. Unions do not want to let the workers they hurt opt out. Seniority systems, for example, hold back better workers. If a union negotiated a members-only seniority system, high performers would not join. They would opt for performance-based promotions, leaving fewer positions and less money for the union’s members. Unions want everyone under their contract, especially those they hold back.

That may be legal, but workers should not be forced to pay for it. Especially not now, when millions of unemployed Americans need the jobs right-to-work encourages businesses to create. Workers should be allowed to choose whether to pay for Jimmy Hoffa’s union representation.