From PolitiFact:

“Actually, what Americans are looking for is someone who can get this country working again,” Perry replied. “And we put the model in place in the state of Texas. When you look at what we have done over the last decade, we created 1 million jobs in the state of Texas. At the same time, America lost 2.5 million.”

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney hinted as much in the debate, saying: “Texas is a great state. Texas has zero income tax. Texas has a Right To Work state, a Republican Legislature, a Republican Supreme Court. Texas has a lot of oil and gas in the ground,” Romney said.

In December 2000, Texas had 9,537,900 jobs, while the other 49 states and the District of Columbia had 123,032,200, Perry spokesman Mark Miner said. And in July 2011, Texas had 10,619,800 jobs while the rest of the county had 120,577,500. So, Miner said, Texas had 1,081,900 more jobs than it did in late 2000 while the rest of the country had 2,454,700 fewer jobs.

“Danaher’s closing,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., lamenting the loss of a plant that had employed 330 people in his state. “Now those jobs are going to Arkansas and to Texas.”

It was April 2005. Neal was taking the opportunity during a House committee hearing on competition with China to complain instead about how Massachusetts was losing jobs to states with less-hostile business climates.

The Ways and Means Committee chairman in 2005, California Republican Bill Thomas, mildly rebuked Neal’s deviation from the topic, saying Massachusetts had shot itself in the foot with high taxes and compulsory union membership.

“At some point perhaps the good citizens of Massachusetts will pick up the drift,” Thomas said.

Businesses often consider government interference when they make decisions about where to locate. One instance of such interference is the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, which established a regimen of special treatment for labor during an era when nearly one in three employees was a union member.

Today, unions have lost relevance for more than 93 percent of American workers in the private sector, but this law remains with us, harming the ability of American businesses to compete. To see its results, we need only look south and west, to the success of our nation’s 22 right-to-work states.

Section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947 allows states to pass right-to-work laws, which bar union membership from being used as a condition of employment. In practice, these laws make unions significantly less powerful and less disruptive than did the original NLRA rules, and with tremendously positive economic results for everybody concerned.

A recent study by the staff of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed to some revealing data. Between 1993 and 2009, right-to-work states created jobs twice as quickly as states where forced unionism is permitted, and they enjoyed 10 percent faster growth in personal income. Right-to-work states account for only 40 percent of the U.S. population, but they hosted 60 percent of the nation’s new businesses from 1993 to 2009.

Such data contrasts mightily with facts such as this: Unions spent $400 million to elect President Barack Obama and Democrats in 2008 largely because of promises to use the federal government to restore labor to its former strength. The centerpiece of that effort was card check, which would have abolished secret ballots in workplace-representation elections if it hadn’t failed in Congress.

So now the Obama campaign to rescue dying unions is focused on the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB, controlled by Obama appointees, has filed a complaint against Boeing for expanding its manufacturing operations into DeMint’s right-to-work state. Obama is only trying to help his union campaign donors — as usual — but this effort is bound to backfire.

Right-to-work states are demonstrating daily that workers, their families and taxpayers all benefit when employees have the freedom to choose whether to join a union. There are 22 such states now and odds are that more are coming, which will be good economic news for them and the country.

From Matt Mayer’s post:

“With Michigan bleeding jobs and tax revenues, Granholm said she followed the corporate playbook in her attempt to close a huge state budget deficit and make Michigan more competitive. ‘In listening to the business community, I cut takes [sic] 99 times, and I ended shrinking government more than any state in the nation. In my two terms, I cut more by far than any state in the nation. And yet, we still have the highest unemployment rate.

There was no correlation.’ Granholm conceded that streamlining business regulations and lowering taxes — Kasich’s economic recovery mantra — are helpful, but they aren’t a panacea…[l]abor costs, help with start-up costs and proximity to markets are other factors.”

Hallett and Governor Granholm fail to mention why streamlining regulations and lowering taxes aren’t helping the northern states (located within 50 percent of the U.S. population and with low start-up costs) compete against the southern and western states. Instead, Hallett ignores the obvious answer and pleads for an end to corporate pork (with which we enthusiastically agree).

The reason Michigan and Ohio can’t compete is that the southern and western states already have fewer regulations and lower taxes, so “catching up” with those states still leaves the proverbial elephant in the room weighing down the northern states. Plus, those states are also pushing for lower taxes and fewer regulations, so the northern states are perpetually behind them. The elephant, which Governor Granholm does hint at, is labor costs, or, more specifically, unionized labor costs (see: General Motors and the United Auto Workers).

As I noted in Six Principles for Fixing Ohio, “Of course, tax and regulatory burdens also impact a state’s economy. Although many of the forced unionization states have heavy tax burdens and many of the worker freedom states have light tax burdens, some heavily taxed worker freedom states (Idaho, Nevada, and Utah) had the strongest sustained job growth from 1990 to today.

Similarly, a few moderately taxed forced unionization states still had weak job growth (Indiana, Illinois, and Missouri). The combination of both a heavy tax burden and forced unionization is deadly when it comes to job growth, as 11 of the 15 worst performing states are ranked in the top 20 for high tax burdens.” If Ohio and the other states from Missouri to Maine want to truly compete with Texas, Georgia, and South Carolina, then those states need to enact laws that protect the rights of workers not to join a labor union to get a job.

After all, depending on the National Labor Relations Board to protect unions from competing is not a long-term strategy for success; rather, it is a short-term finger in the dike as the flood of worker freedoms washes over the dike. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ data over the last twenty-one years shows why Right to Work laws result in more jobs.

From 1990 to 2011, states that protected the freedom of workers not to join a union to get a job netted 10,742,600 jobs — even after the massive housing and construction job losses in states like Nevada, Florida, and Arizona — as forced unionization states (including Ohio) netted just 6,715,500 jobs.

Keep in mind that the vastly superior net job growth in worker freedom states was done despite having nearly 60,000,000 fewer residents! Over twenty-one years, forced unionization states had private sector job growth change of just 11 percent compared to 34 percent in worker freedom states.

 A Democrat Congressman from Massachusetts is raising the stakes in the nation’s fight over the future of public employee unions, saying emails aren’t enough to show support and that it is time to “get a little bloody.”

“I’m proud to be here with people who understand that it’s more than just sending an email to get you going. Every once and awhile you need to get out on the streets and get a little bloody when necessary,” Rep. Mike Capuano (D-Ma.) told a crowd in Boston on Tuesday rallying in solidarity for Wisconsin union members.

Capuano’s comments come at a time when there is heightened sensitivity to violent rhetoric in the wake of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords’ (D-Az.) shooting in January.

(Source: July 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

If you want to make a Massachusetts taxpayer shudder, just say the words “Big Dig.”

For years now, the “Big Dig,” officially referred to as the Central/Artery Tunnel Project, has been widely recognized as a poorly constructed, extraordinarily expensive boondoggle.

The “Big Dig” tunnel system was conceived in the 1970′s to replace Boston’s aging elevated six-lane Central Artery and improve access to Logan Airport and Boston Harbor. In 1987, Congress voted to furnish federal taxpayer funds, and ground was first broken in 1991.

To the dismay of independent construction employees and firms and Right to Work advocates, Massachusetts politicians announced that the “Big Dig” would be subject to a union-only “project labor agreement” (PLA).

Construction firm owners who wished to bid on the project, whether unionized or union-free, would be forced to impose restrictive union work rules on employees and to fill positions through discriminatory union hiring halls.

In 1991, project managers estimated the “Big Dig” would cost $2.6 billion and take seven years to complete. Thirteen years and nearly $15 billion after ground had been broken, the tunnel system was open, but still not complete.

Then, in November 2004, Boston media outlets reported that the “Big Dig” had experienced 1400 leaks in its tunnel wall as well as a wide array of other costly-to-repair damage.

New Taxpayer-Funded PLA Example of What ‘Makes People Crazy About State Government’

The “Big Dig” finally concluded at the end of 2007. It ended up costing $22 billion, including $7 billion in interest, which won’t be paid off until 2038.

In Massachusetts today, public anger about construction defects, missed deadlines, and enormous cost overruns in the “Big Dig” PLA remains intense enough that it represents a significant problem for 2010 GOP gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker.

During the 1990′s, when Mr. Baker was Massachusetts’ chief budget writer, he supported borrowing an additional $1.5 billion for the “Big Dig.” Bay State taxpayers, who are still paying off that debt, don’t see that as a point in his favor!

However, Charlie Baker is singing a different tune about union-only PLA’s nowadays. In a campaign event last month, he blasted a June 14 decision by University of Massachusetts officials to foist a PLA on $750 million (at least) in new taxpayer-funded construction at UMass’s Boston campus.

Flagrantly discriminating against the roughly 80% of Massachusetts construction workers who aren’t unionized while accepting bids for publicly funded construction is the kind of thing “that makes people crazy about state government,” said Mr. Baker.

He pledges to ban PLA’s in state contracts if elected.

Gov. Patrick: ’96% of the Construction’ Is Being Done ‘by Union Workers’

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented: “Charlie Baker is surely a slow learner when it comes to the ill effects of union-only PLA’s. It took him an awfully long time to realize they’re unfair and anti-taxpayer.

“On the other hand, Democratic Gov. Deval Patrick, now seeking reelection, appears to be a ‘never learner’ when it comes to PLA’s.

“Despite the ‘Big Dig’ fiasco and the many other examples of huge delays and excessive costs in Massachusetts PLA’s over the past two decades, Mr. Patrick continues to be a cheerleader for these special-interest schemes.

“This March, Mr. Patrick actually boasted about the fact that, even though the vast majority of Bay State construction workers have opted against unionization, ’96% of the construction’ on a hospital PLA in Worcester ‘is being carried out by union workers’!

“Because of Mr. Patrick’s cluelessness, and because independent gubernatorial candidate Tim Cahill is dodging the PLA issue, Mr. Baker’s current outspoken stance against PLA’s may well resonate with Bay State voters, despite his past.

“Mr. Baker is savvy enough to see, finally, that public opposition to PLA’s is intense, even in a traditional union stronghold state like Massachusetts.

“And that should give pause to President Barack Obama, who up to now has been relentlessly promoting union-only PLA’s at the federal level, and will have to campaign in all 50 states if he chooses to seek reelection in 2012.”

In Massachusetts, according to Mr. Chesto:

Everyone who does business in Boston knows that if you want to build a commercial project of any size in the city, you’ve got to go through the Menino administration and its Boston Redevelopment Authority.

But if the claims made by operators of the Courtyard by Marriott in Dorchester are true, you may have to get a union’s approval as well.

According to a lawsuit that has been filed, the Jiten Hotel Management Firm was trying to get approval to build a hotel but they could not get the attention of the Boston Development Authority. A Jiten vice president, working with then-Brockton Mayor Jack Yunits, lined up a meeting with Boston Mayor Tom Menino in Brockton to discuss the problem.

At the meeting, according to the suit, Menino said the hotel operators would need to sign a card-check agreement with Local 26 to ensure the hotel’s work force would be unionized.

Such an agreement allows a union to be recognized as long as it collects authorization cards from the majority of affected workers. Approve the agreement, the suit says Jiten was told, and the hotel is a go. Jiten had already plowed $3 million into the project, so Jiten president Nayan Patel signed the agreement. The next day, the BRA approved the hotel.

So let’s be clear — in order to get jobs created in Boston you must grease the palms of the union who in turn grease the palms of the politicians. It’s a vicious cycle that harms taxpayers and workers.

Does “the politics of hope” mean scrapping the right of American workers to cast a ballot in private?

Does Barack Obama really want his image to include the systematic dismantling of union elections in the workplace?

Well, apparently so. Obama’s campaign is now inextricably knotted up with the campaign by organized labor to strip workers of their right to vote in private on whether they want to unionize.

The so-called Employee Free Choice Act has become labor’s top priority, with a labor advocacy group this week launching a $5 million ad campaign. And as the Herald reported on Sunday, local union affiliates are mobilizing the troops to press the case for the bill now before Congress.

The legislation would require employers to immediately recognize a union upon receiving cards signed by a majority of eligible workers. But under current law the signed cards lead to a workplace election, supervised by the National Labor Relations Board. With a secret ballot.

Labor’s motives are clear. Union membership, with the exception of government unions, is declining. Naturally organized labor wants to reverse that trend. And hey, more power to ’em.

But just as workers have a right to organize, they have a corresponding right not to organize. And the card-check system essentially strips them of that right.

And heaven help the politician who ends up on the wrong side of this issue. At least one union has resorted to thuggish threats. At the Democratic National Convention last week, the head of the Service Employees International Union told The Associated Press that any Democrat or Republican who reneged on support for “free choice” would “paint a target” on their backs this election season.

Threats and intimidation. Not exactly the change we’ve been waiting for.

Patrick’s draft regulations, which could go into effect as soon as October, would encourage the state to use less expensive civilian flaggers or electronic signs on roads with a 45 mph speed limit or less, and the AFL-CIO isn’t happy about it.

AFL-CIO spokesman Tim Sullivan, who blasted the plan as unsafe and questioned the cost savings, said the union would fight the regulations. “Who’s going to pay for these flagmen to be trained, who’s going to pick up their unemployment insurance? We just don’t think the cost savings are there,” Sullivan said.

This, of course, raises a more important issue in the eyes of David Tuerck of the Beacon Hill Institute. Under Massachusetts Prevailing Wage Law, the state pays about $40 an hour to police officers who do flag work. Union activists note that the law would require civilians to be paid the same amount — thus create no savings to the taxpayers.

Tuerck correctly argues, “By making this argument, the unions have done us a service. If a law compels the state to spend the equivalent of $80,000 a year for someone to flag down oncoming traffic, then it’s time to rethink the law.”

The ABC notes:

Despite receiving federal funding, the Big Dig was subject to a union-only project labor agreement (PLA) that required project contractors and subcontractors agree to recognize unions as the representatives of their employees on the job, use the union hiring hall to obtain workers, pay union wages and benefits, and obey the union’s work rules, job classifications and arbitration procedures. . . .

This union-only funding orgy was estimated to cost $2.8 billion dollars, but costs have exploded to over $22 billion.

Union-only jobs cost taxpayers millions of dollars every year — but as in the case of the “Big Dig” — millions easily add up to billions.

Rather than admitting that they were going to lose the election, the bitter Teamsters proclaimed the election would not go forward because it was “not going to be free or fair.”

Free or Fair?

Apparently the Teamsters knew, if the drivers got a chance to vote in a secret ballot election, they were going to lose.

Free or fair now means one-on-one intimidation by union operatives to get a worker to sign a card forcing the union in without an election.

If they ever enact their Card Check Scam Bill, elections won’t be either free or fair because there won’t be any.

Crocodile tears indeed!

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.

As the Globe opined, “Impaired firefighters pose a serious potential risk to the public and themselves.”

It is unconscionable that Congress is even considering allowing its public safety responsibility to be subject to negotiations with Big Labor self-interest.

Read more about the Police and Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Act here.