Another study has clearly demonstrated that enacting Right to Work laws is a critical factor in creating jobs and a pro-growth environment for your state. Pollina Real Estate has chosen the top 5 states for jobs and according to their report, all five are Right to Work states:
Sixteen state attorney generals try to stand-up to the Obama NLRB attempt to trample states’ rights hours after the NLRB rejected efforts by Boeing employees to be heard. From Associated Press reporter Meg Kinnard:
COLUMBIA — Attorneys general from South Carolina and 15 other states Thursday weighed in on a lawsuit filed by the National Labor Relations Board, alleging that its complaint against Boeing for building an assembly plant in North Charleston after a strike by Washington state workers hurts states’ abilities to keep manufacturing jobs.
Alan Wilson and Greg Abbott, the attorneys general in South Carolina and Texas, respectively, asserted in a brief that “the NLRB’s proposed action will harm the interests of the very unionized workers whom the general counsel’s Complaint seeks to protect.”
“State policymakers should be free to choose to enact right-to-work laws — or to choose not to enact them — without worrying about retaliation from the NLRB,” the two officials wrote.
“It is logical that some employers will simply avoid creating new jobs or facilities in non-right-to-work States in the first place.”
The brief also was signed by attorneys general in Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Kansas, Michigan, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia and Wyoming.
It points out that the attorneys general represent right-to-work and unionized states, although only two of the signers — Colorado and Michigan — fall into the latter category.
South Carolina is a right-to-work state where individual employees can join unions voluntarily, but unions cannot force membership across entire worksites. (more…)
Matt Mayer of the Buckeye Institute debunks the long-term economic growth without Right To Work freedom is sustainable. Mayer uses a Columbus Dispatch reporter Joe Hatlett column that featured Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm to expose the fact that corporate welfare and reduced regulations ignore the “proverbial elephant in the room weighing down” compulsory union states like Indiana, Ohio, Illinois,, and Michigan.
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. (more…)
Mark Perry looks at the economic performance of Right to Work states in comparison to forced unionism states and provides further evidence that Right to Work states foster prosperity. In the economic downturn year of 2009, forced unionism states economic growth fell by 2.42% but in Right to Work states, it only decreased 1.66%.
As Perry states, “In other words, the decline in economic growth growth in forced unionism states (-2.42%) was 0.76% worse in 2009 than the decline in right-to-work states (-1.66%). Further, of the ten states that experienced positive growth in 2009, only two were forced unionism states (Alaska and W. Virginia) and eight were right-to-work states (Nebraska, N. Dakota, S. Dakota, Arkansas, Louisiana, Virginia, Oklahoma and Wyoming). The three top states with the highest growth in 2009 were all right-to-work states: Oklahoma (6.6%), Wyoming (5.4%) and North Dakota (3.9%). “
Pro-forced unionism Labor Secretary Hilda Solis defends Obama’s Solicitor of Labor nominee M. Patricia Smith from Sen. Enzi (WY-R) who declared that she was unfit to lead the Labor Department’s legal team. Enzi and his staff review of Smith’s statements verses the New York record revealed a several cozy relationships with Big Labor that encroached on the freedoms of workers.
Sen. Enzi’s labor committee Deputy Communications Director Michael Mahaffey outlined Smith’s inconsistencies:
“First, Ms. Smith stated that the Wage and Hour Watch program was developed internally and only then did the New York Department of Labor approach outside groups. However, two of the pilot groups, the Retail Warehouse and Department Store Union (RWDSU) along with Make the Road New York, a public interest entity financed in part by unions, were heavily involved in developing all aspects of the program.
They, along with another public interest group, participated in: a) deciding participant eligibility, b) drafting program documents, c) creating training materials and conducting training, d) developing press strategies, etc. The approximately 3000 pages of documents provided by New York in fact show little internal government development of the program.
“Second, Ms. Smith characterized Wage and Hour Watch as an educational program. It does not appear, however, that Ms. Smith’s subordinates, including the Wage and Hour Administrator nominee, Ms. Lorelie Boylan, or the union organizers and public interest groups who helped design the program concurred. For example, documents describe the program as an “enforcers” program, and email as well as a training document describe participants as community enforcers. There appears no question that those who created the program considered it enforcement. (more…)
Montana Democrats endorsed a party platform this week that specifically rejects workers’ choice and the Right to Work. Montana’s neighbors: Idaho, North Dakota and Wyoming, have all benefited from the enactment of a Right to Work law. Surrounded by a sea of worker choice states, the Democratic Party of Montana just hung up a sign on the state that says “closed for business.”
This is not a theoretical debate. Just ask the working folks of Kentucky who lost a billion-dollar investment by VW to neighboring Tennessee — a Right to Work state.
The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council’s “Small Business Survival Index 2007” has ranked South Dakota, Nevada and Wyoming as the best three states in the nation for job creation and small business entrepreneurship. Not surprisingly, all three states have enacted Right to Work laws. In fact, of the top ten states for business, eight are Right to Work states.
Nevada, in particular, has been a beneficiary of its status as a Right to Work state. Ranked second on the study, the Silver State borders California where Big Labor dominates the political and business environment. Businesses seeking to create jobs and escape the regulatory burdens and high taxes of California have found a much better entrepreneurial environment in Nevada.
As reported in the Reno Gazette, the Index cited “Nevada for its lack of personal and corporate income taxes and other costs as well as for being a right-to-work state,” as the main reasons businesses are thriving.