Dr. Moe: As long as monopolistic teacher unions “remain powerful,” effective schools “will be short-changed.”

Stanford Professor Lambastes Monopolistic Teacher Unionism

(Source: July 2011 NRTWC Newsletter)

On June 1, Tennessee achieved a legislative milestone when its elected officials effectively repealed a 33-year-old state statute authorizing and promoting union monopoly-bargaining control over teachers and other K-12 public school instructional employees.

Under the new K-12 reform law approved by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Bill Haslam (R ), no union or other organization will be handed a legally protected monopoly over all “employee” input in discussions with school boards over working conditions.

Once this law, known as the Collaborative Conferencing Act, takes effect, teachers who choose not to join any union will, for the first time in decades, have a voice in discussions throughout Tennessee regarding salaries, benefits and grievances.

Tennessee revoked teacher union bosses’ monopoly-bargaining privileges last month largely thanks to persistent lobbying by the roughly 46,000 National Right to Work Committee members and supporters in the Volunteer State.

And, according to Stanford University political scientist and education specialist Terry Moe, the Tennesseans who helped pass the Collaborative Conferencing Act have done an enormous favor for their state’s schoolchildren.

From Children’s Standpoint, Union Boss-Perpetuated Salary Rules ‘Make No Sense at All’

In his new book Special Interest: Teachers Unions and America’s Public Schools (Brookings Institution Press), Dr. Moe documents how teacher union monopoly bargaining, still statutorily enshrined in more than 30 states, impairs school outcomes while sharply raising the cost to taxpayers.

In practice, charges Dr. Moe, “exclusive” union bargaining routinely produces “key decisions that depart from — and are systematically biased against — what is best for kids and effective organization.”

One example among many are so-called “single salary schedules” that furnish teachers with extra pay for additional degrees and course taking, even though “research has consistently shown” that simply accumulating degrees and/or additional course credits, “does not make teachers more effective.”

From “the standpoint of what is best for children,” such Big Labor-perpetuated salary rules “make no sense at all” (emphasis Dr. Moe’s). But teacher union officials ferociously defend “single salary schedule” rules, because they keep educators dependent on the union for securing better pay and career advancement.

Monopolistic Unionism Can Never Be ‘Reform Unionism’

In today’s America, Special Interest goes on to point out, many education policymakers and other leaders “recognize that teacher unions are standing in the way of effective schools,” but mistakenly believe that union officials “can be persuaded to do good things with their [monopolistic] power.”

This is the false hope of what is commonly called “reform unionism.”

Of course, in the current political environment, with millions of Americans demanding major changes in schools that consume a higher and higher share of taxpayers’ incomes even as school enrollments and standardized test scores stagnate, it often behooves teacher union bosses to feign openness to reform.

But “when the details are ultimately hashed out,” supposedly “reformist” teacher union bosses like American Federation of Teachers (AFT/AFL-CIO) union czarina Randi Weingarten “will ultimately weaken, limit, and dissipate reform” to protect core teacher union institutional interests.

“National Right to Work Committee members and supporters have long known that eliminating teacher union monopoly bargaining and forced union dues is an indispensable precondition for achieving genuine, significant education reform,” commented Committee Vice President Mary King.

“But Terry Moe is to be commended for thoroughly explaining how monopolistic teacher unions are destroying educational opportunities for millions and millions of schoolchildren and ripping off taxpayers.

“I’m hopeful that Special Interest will receive a wide distribution, and inspire even more freedom-loving Americans to press their state legislators to emulate their counterparts in Tennessee by prohibiting union monopoly bargaining in public education.”

Enacting a Right to Work law in Kentucky would be a boon for jobs and economic prosperity — but don’t just take our word for it.  The Bowling Green Daily News agrees:

Gov. Steve Beshear and the Democrat-controlled House are beholden to labor unions in this state and for that reason, year after year we continue to lose companies and jobs to other Southern states because Kentucky is not a right-to-work state.

Right-to-work laws protect workers’ freedoms by not forcing them to pay dues to a union upon becoming employed or throughout employment. Nearly any citizen in a right-to-work state is protected by a state’s right-to-work law.

Labor unions make up less than 9 percent of Kentucky’s workforce, so it would make sense that Beshear and the House would have more concern for the majority of the workforce. Sadly, they don’t. They need the unions, who contribute millions of dollars every election year through political action committees or other ways to encourage the governor and those in the House to follow part of their agenda, which is not allowing Kentucky to become a right-to-work state.

Kentucky is the only Southern state not to have a right-to-work law. For that reason, many companies don’t even consider our state when choosing plant locations.

Business 101 would tell you that this is simply bad business. The governor and House are hindering our state because they ignore reality. Shame on them. It reflects poor leadership and it holds our state back when competing for jobs that could be coming to Kentucky.

Simpson County Judge-Executive Jim Henderson is a strong supporter of the right-to-work concept.

Henderson said on a number of occasions during the process of trying to get a company to come to Franklin, it was eliminated because of not being a right-to-work state. He said it was communicated through correspondence and other means of communication that not having a right-to-work law is why companies aren’t coming to his city.One only has to look at companies such as Nissan North America. The company admitted that one reason it decided to move its headquarters from California to Tennessee and not Kentucky was because of the lower business costs. Interestingly enough, the average Kentuckian has to work 13 months to make what an average Tennessean can in one year.

The number of jobs created in right-to-work states compared to forced union states like Kentucky are revealing.

According to Freedom Kentucky, between 1996-2004, Georgia brought in more than 500,000 new jobs, Virginia more than 400,000, North Carolina nearly 275,000. Tennessee brought in more than 125,000 new jobs, South Carolina around 125,000 and Kentucky brought in less than 100,000 jobs in that time.

These numbers show a significant problem. A big reason for us underperforming is companies want to do business in right-to-work states. Those who make plant location decisions vote with their wallets.

Bryan Sunderland, vice president of public affairs for the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce, said his organization wants Kentucky to become a right-to-work state.

“We do agree it would be a positive aspect for us to look at. A lot of companies don’t look at us because of that. All right-to-work states have that advantage over us in competing for jobs,” Sunderland said.

“It’s part of our legislative agenda. Not being a right-to-work state is absolutely a factor in bringing jobs here. In some cases, it’s a primary factor,” Sunderland said.

State Rep. Jim DeCesare, R-Bowling Green, is a big proponent of Kentucky becoming a right-to-work state. DeCesare has introduced legislation in the House only to see it die in committee.“Less than 10 percent of our workforce is union, and out of that they’re controlling the whole state and where we go. The right-to work-states are the ones getting the jobs,” DeCesare said. “I’m for allowing people to have the option to join a union or not. Some union employees don’t like their money going to political candidates, but they have no choice.”

State Rep. Mike Wilson, R-Bowling Green, has also been a strong proponent for making Kentucky a right-to-work state. State Rep. Jody Richards, D-Bowling Green, unfortunately believes that Kentucky doesn’t need to be a right-to-work state.Richards, Beshear and others are part of the problem that is holding us back.

State Sen. David Williams, R-Burkesville, who is running against Beshear for governor, gets it and believes that we should be a right-to-work state.

Unions like to talk about their right to join together and organize. This is well established and protected and very few people would question this freedom of association.If, however, there is a freedom of association, there has to be a corollary freedom not to associate and therein lies the essence of the argument for a right-to-work law.

As Right to Work legislation finds its way back to the top of the legislative agenda in the state capital, Andrea Neal looks at the benefits of enacting a Right to Work bill in the Hoosier State:

It doesn’t take an economist to spot the common thread in these recent economic development headlines:

• Chattanooga, Tenn., July 29: “Volkswagen hires 2,000th employee.”
• Shreveport, La., July 28: “NJ-based bag manufacturer to build Louisiana plant.”
• Decatur, Ala., July 21: “Polyplex to build $185 million plant.”
• West Point, Ga., July 7: “Kia builds vehicle No. 300,000.”

All four stories have Southern datelines. All come from states with right-to-work laws, which prohibit labor contracts that [force] employees to join a union or pay a union representation fee.

This is the issue that prompted the five-week House Democratic walkout during the 2011 Indiana General Assembly. The Democrats — a minority in both House and Senate — had no other leverage. So when a right-to-work bill came up unexpectedly in a session that was supposed to be about the budget, redistricting and education, they bolted. Republicans capitulated and took the legislation off the table.

In 2012, it will return with a vengeance, and this time Democrats can’t avoid it. Right-to-work has been promised a full public airing. The Interim Study Committee on Employment Issues, chaired by Sen. Phil Boots, R-Crawfordsville, is taking a first crack this summer and hopes to recommend a bill by November. Gov. Mitch Daniels, who didn’t support the bill last session, has hinted he might this time around.

The debate goes back to 1935 when Congress passed the National Labor Relations Act protecting employees’ rights to form, join and be involved in unions. One section of the law permitted contracts that made union membership a condition of employment. Congress modified that language in 1947 when it said states could prohibit these. In response, 22 states passed right-to-work laws. Indiana is one of 28 that currently does not have such a law.

Predictably, at last week’s study committee hearing, business interests favored right-to-work while union leaders opposed it. The economists were divided. Richard Vedder, of Ohio University, summarized research showing that right-to-work states have higher rates of employment, productivity and personal income growth. Marty Wolfson, of the University of Notre Dame, testified that right-to-work laws result in lower wages and benefits.

Their conclusions are not mutually exclusive. If you grant Wolfson’s point, the policy question remains: Which is better? A state with higher wages for some but a weaker economy overall or one with lower wages for some and more vibrant growth, not to mention freedom of choice for the worker?

Companies are voting with their feet. To the extent that manufacturers are expanding in the United States — and few are — they are choosing the South and West where right-to-work is prevalent.

It should come as no surprise to Indiana legislators that expanding industries favor that kind of relationship. The legislative choice is between protecting unions as we know them or protecting the long-term interests of Hoosier workers.

This year, Right to Work proponents have scored a series of remarkable, though still mostly very tenuous, state victories over government union kingpins.

In March, Wisconsin and Ohio became the first states ever to revoke government union bosses’ privilege to get workers fired for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union after previously passing a law authorizing compulsory unionism.

The following month, Right to Work Oklahoma passed legislation denying government union bosses the legal power to force municipal officials to recognize them as public employees’ “exclusive” bargaining agents.

And now Right to Work Tennessee has achieved another milestone by effectively repealing the mislabeled “Education Professional Negotiations” Act, which authorized and promoted union monopoly-bargaining control over teachers and other K-12 public school instructional employees.

Union lobbyists rammed public school monopoly bargaining through the Tennessee Legislature in 1978. Big Labor puppet Gov. Ray Blanton (D) then eagerly signed the measure.

As a consequence of the Blanton law, educators in 92 Tennessee school systems, roughly two-thirds of all the districts in the state, are currently forced to accept union monopoly bargaining in order to keep their jobs.

The monopoly-bargaining system, now statutorily imposed on some or all state and local government employees in 36 states, hands union officials “exclusive” power to bargain over wages, benefits, and working conditions.

‘We’re Putting the Entire Education System at Risk’

Even public employees who choose not to join a union must work under contract terms negotiated by union bosses, or quit their jobs. Independent-minded employees are stripped of any freedom to negotiate with employers on their own behalf.

Of course, in Tennessee and other Right to Work states with public-school monopoly bargaining, educators are at least protected from being forced to pay tribute for Big Labor “representation” they never asked for. But that only limits the damage somewhat.

Even more than other public institutions, K-12 schools are corrupted by union monopoly control over employees. Arne Duncan, secretary of education for pro-forced unionism President Barack Obama, admitted as much in a speech delivered, of all places, at the National Education Association (NEA) teacher union’s 2009 convention in San Diego, Calif.

While he carefully avoided condemning monopolistic teacher unionism per se, Mr. Duncan bemoaned the fact that contracts blessed by union officials wielding monopoly-bargaining privileges have “produced an industrial, factory model of education that treats all teachers like interchangeable widgets.”

Mr. Duncan cited, for example, contract rules that base teachers’ pay entirely on how many years they’ve been on the job and how many years of higher education they have under their belts, regardless of what subject they studied or how well they learned it.

“School systems pay teachers billions of dollars each year for earning credentials that do very little to improve the quality of teaching,” Mr. Duncan charged.

“At the same time, many schools give nothing at all to the teachers who go the extra mile and make all the difference in students’ lives.” At another point in the speech, he warned: “[W]e are not only putting kids at risk, we’re putting the entire education system at risk.”

Asking Teacher Union Bosses to Stop Abusing Their Government-Granted Privileges Won’t Work

“Two years ago, Arne Duncan did a pretty good job of showing how teacher union monopolists are killing hopes of reform in school districts around the country,” said National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

“But merely identifying the symptom is no cure for the malady. And the Obama Administration’s education ‘reform’ program blithely assumes teacher union bosses will stop abusing their government-granted privileges if ‘friends’ like Arne Duncan ask them to enough times.

“The fact is, NEA and other teacher union bosses have a vested interest in teachers being treated as ‘interchangeable widgets.’ That forces educators to rely on the union elite, rather than their own efforts, to enhance their job security and improve their pay.

“Contrary to Mr. Duncan’s view, you can’t bring about genuine reform by ‘working with’ teacher union monopolists. Instead, your first step must be to take away their monopoly privileges. And Tennessee has just taken this step.”

Under the Professional Educators Collaborative Conferencing Act of 2011, approved by the Tennessee Legislature and signed into law by Gov. Bill Haslam (R) June 1, many school boards will meet regularly with designated teacher representatives and discuss working conditions.

For the First Time in Decades, Nonunion Teachers Will Have a Voice

But in stark contrast to the current practices in the vast majority of Volunteer State school districts, no Tennessee Education Association (TEA/NEA) or other teacher union boss will in the future have a legally protected monopoly over all “employee” input in those discussions.

Instead, any educator organization, including nonunion groups opposed in principle to monopoly bargaining and forced unionism of all kinds, that receives the support of at least 15% of a school district’s instructional employees will send representatives to the discussions.

The newly enacted law also prohibits teacher union bosses (or anyone else) from using schools’ taxpayer-funded payroll-deduction systems to fund electioneering activities.

Once the Collaborative Conferencing Act takes effect, teachers who choose not to join any union will, for the first time in decades, have a voice in discussions with school districts throughout Tennessee regarding salaries, benefits, working conditions and grievances.

Mr. Mix said a large share of the credit for this very positive development is due to the roughly 46,000 National Committee members and supporters in Tennessee.

National Committee Members and Allies in Tennessee Opposed Phony ‘Compromise’ Schemes

“While Tennessee’s Capitol in Nashville is now dominated by Republicans who owe little or nothing to Big Labor, many GOP legislators, especially in the House, prefer to appease rather than confront the teacher union hierarchy,” Mr. Mix explained.

“Consequently, after a Tennessee Senate panel approved legislation [S.B.113] repealing union monopoly bargaining in public education this year, House Republican leaders publicly complained this measure was too ‘radical.’

“Republican politicians in the state House wanted instead to pass legislation merely limiting, somewhat, the scope of teacher union officials’ monopoly-bargaining privileges.

“The fact is, this would have accomplished relatively little, but not lessened the furious reaction of the teacher union hierarchy by even one whit.

“Mobilized by the National Committee, pro-Right to Work Tennesseans deluged their legislators with postcards, e-mails, and phone calls every time they heard news of a possible GOP sellout on monopoly bargaining in public education.

“Thanks to the grass-roots activism, House Republicans and Gov. Haslam ultimately went along with Senate Republicans on the core issue of education reform.

“In the future, teacher union bosses will no longer be able to cajole Tennessee school systems into granting them legal monopoly privileges, or have the legal power to force school officials to recognize them as educators’ ‘exclusive’ bargaining agents.”

But Mr. Mix cautioned that Right to Work supporters will need to monitor closely implementation of the new law once current monopolistic school contracts expire.

‘Collaborative Conferencing’ May Not Be an Ideal Solution

“Instead of eliminating monopoly bargaining simply by empowering individual teachers to negotiate with school officials on their own behalf, ‘collaborative conferencing’ continues to favor groups over individuals,” he said.

“The new Tennessee system is far preferable to what it replaces, because teachers who dissent from Big Labor ideology and policies will have the legal prerogative to select their own representative for discussions over working conditions.

“However, there is a danger that teacher union chiefs will successfully wield their political clout to intimidate school boards into circumventing the law and effectively shutting out nonunion educator groups from the ‘collaborative conferences.’

“In the coming years, National Right to Work will take every appropriate step to ensure that, under the Collaborative Conferencing Act, nonunion Tennessee educator groups truly have equal access to air their concerns with school officials, as the language of the law promises.”

June 2011 issue headlines:

Committee Mobilizes Against NLRB Power Grab — Obama Bureaucrat Eager to Tell Businesses Where They May Expand

Teachers Aren’t ‘Interchangeable’ in Tennessee — Volunteer State Teacher Union Bosses Losing Monopoly Privileges

Right to Work Good For Pay and Benefits — Private-Sector Compensation Growth Lags in Forced-Unionism States

Union Bosses Out For Revenge in Wisconsin — Pro-Right to Work Legislators Targeted in July ‘Recall’ Elections

Michigan Renounces Day-Care Forced Unionism — But Union Dons May Get to Keep $4.5 Million Wrung From Providers

Right to Work Bill Introduced in U.S. House — Would Bar Firing Employees For Refusal to Bankroll Unwanted Union

In an age of belt-tightening, there is no reason to pay inflated dollars for construction contracts all to please Big Labor.

Indiana has already blown its chance to move to the top five next year, but New Hampshire, Missouri, and Maine still have the opportunity to turn their migration around.

For the seventh year in a row, a survey of chief executives has ranked California as the nation’s worst state in which to do business.

More than 500 U.S. CEOs polled by Greenwich, Conn.-based Chief Executive magazine based their opinions on numerous factors, including regulations, tax policies, work force quality, education resources, quality of living and infrastructure.

While the Golden State came out on the bottom, Texas topped the magazine’s “Best & Worst States” list for the seventh consecutive time.

Texas was followed, in order, by North Carolina, Florida, Tennessee and Georgia.

Ranking 46th through 49th in the rankings were Michigan, New Jersey, Illinois and New York, respectively.

See more details in Friday’s edition of The Sacramento Bee.

Even though reality continues to fly in the face of Big Labor propagandists in Washington and in college academe like the University of Missouri’s Judy Ancel, there remain politicians from the President on down who continue use ever means possible, other than allowing people to choose whether or not to pay to a union, compel union membership onto people against their will. The NLRB v. Boeing (Case No. 19-CA-32431) case is just a recent example.

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.

In a letter to Mr. Wamp, Mark Mix requests that Mr. Wamp remove his name from the legislation: “If (the legislation) becomes law, Tennessee legislators would be forced to write state laws giving broad new powers to public safety union bosses over public safety employees in order to comply with the demands of the federal government.”

Perhaps most disturbing is the fact that Wamp is using his voice in Washington to impose big labor’s agenda on Right to Work states. In Tennessee where the state legislature has opposed this very same concept again and again, Wamp is running for governor.  If he won’t stand up for his state’s Right to Work law, who will?

It’s a good question. The fact is, the secret ballot is so engrained as part of our democracy it seems like lunacy to ditch it. But Big Labor is buying and trying.

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.

I thank the legislatures that worked with all of us in such a bipartisan way to maintain Tennessee’s other competitive advantages: the right to work law, one of the nation’s best 4-lane highway systems and a fair workman’s compensation system.

Crain’s suggests the state enact Right to Work zones. That, of course, is not an equitable solution as some workers would be protected from Big Labor coercion and others would not be, based solely on the location of their place of employment.

What was the cause of their suggestion? Michigan’s loss of a near $1 billion automobile facility to two Right to Work states — Tennessee and Alabama.

Where will Volkswagen build its new U.S. plant? That’s the $788 million question.

By late last week, sister publication Automotive News was reporting the automaker was leading toward Huntsville, Ala., and Chattanooga, Tenn.

Michigan tried hard, with its $18.7 million “Choose Michigan” program of loans and tax credits, but it wasn’t enough.

According to Crain’s:

To many manufacturers, Michigan suffers from the perception that organized labor calls the shots. Labor strikes, including this year’s shutdown at American Axle and Manufacturing Holdings Inc., don’t help that image.

Perception?

In this case, clearly perception is reality.

All workers deserve the same protections from forced unionism. And if Michigan would take that step, the whole state would benefit from new jobs and new economic growth.

The editors of Crain’s have taken a small step in the right direction, but it is still a step indeed.

Mealand Ragland-Hudgins of the Tennessean.com chose the 25th anniversary of the plant’s production start to report on how it came about:

The first Nissan vehicles rolled off the factory floor in June 1983, essentially becoming a catalyst for thousands of additional auto industry jobs to follow.

“Nissan led the way for Tennessee’s emergence into the auto industry,” said U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., who was governor when the state courted Nissan as a major employer. He said Nissan also considered Kentucky as a location for the assembly plant, but chose Tennessee because of its state’s “right-to-work law” and because of its investment in a four-lane highway system.

What people forget is just how risky any new investment in the auto industry was at that time. But the promise of a brighter future in Right to Work Tennessee made the risks worthwhile.

The Japanese automaker’s decision came as much of the nation was coping with a deep recession.

“Up until that time the automobile companies had all stayed in the Midwest,” Alexander said. In 1981 and 1982, the Big Three automakers — General Motors, Ford and Chrysler — were enduring record high layoffs of full- and part-time employees amid a slow economy. Layoffs totaled nearly 270,000, according to newspaper reports.

Read on to learn more about this historic event.