From the Richmond Times by NRTW President Mark  Mix:

Weathering an economic downturn is never easy, but some states are managing better than others.

Despite the recession, Virginia boasts a modest unemployment rate, and its average hourly wages top the national mean. What’s the Old Dominion’s secret? One factor that sets Virginia apart from its less fortunate neighbors is the state’s popular Right to Work law.

Virginia’s Right to Work law ensures that no employee can be forced to join or pay dues to a union just to get or keep a job. Protecting employee choice has always been the most important argument in favor of Right to Work, but Virginia’s economic performance is another point for worker freedom.

Recent studies from the Cato Institute and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research indicate that right-to-work states enjoy higher job growth and more disposable income (after adjusting for families’ cost-of-living) than their forced-unionism counterparts.

Eight of the top 11 states for wage and salary growth enjoy right-to-work protections. Meanwhile, 13 of the 14 worst performers lack right-to-work laws.

Workers and their families are also voting with their feet: According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, the young adult population in forced-unionism states has basically stagnated since 1980. Virginia, on the other hand, continues to attract a stream of new workers and entrepreneurs.

Protecting worker freedom also prepares states to handle a difficult recession better than their forced-unionism counterparts.

Virginia’s robust job and wage growth compares favorably with the sluggish performance of union-dominated states like Michigan, Illinois and Wisconsin.

Not only that, but Virginia has been mercifully free from the type of political disruption plaguing forced-unionism states that try to tighten their belts by curbing the excesses of monopoly unionism.

Wisconsin and Ohio legislators endured disruptive protests and vicious, union-backed political campaigns because they had the temerity to challenge Big Labor’s public-sector stranglehold, an arrangement that drives up the cost of government while handing taxpayers the bill.

In states without public sector right-to-work protections, union bosses often funnel nonunion workers’ forced dues into coordinated political campaigns to protect and expand their special privileges.

As a result, every attempt to rein in government spending is met with fierce opposition from government union operatives, who will do almost anything to defend their forced-dues revenue stream.

The “Battle of Madison” in Wisconsin may have grabbed national headlines, but Richmond managed to avoid a similar showdown.

Virginia legislators were free to adjust their budgets to difficult and rapidly-changing economic conditions without the threat of massive, forced-dues-funded union politicking hanging over their heads.

Protecting worker freedom will always be at the core of Virginia’s longstanding Right to Work law. But in the midst of the worst recession in recent memory, the tangible economic benefits of Right to Work are worth appreciating, too.

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.

The arrogance of Big Labor never ceases to amaze. No wonder taxpayers, including private sector union members, have turned against the greed and entitlement mentality of government unions.

Americans overwhelming choose Right To Work freedom when they are given the choice. As Diana Furchtgott-Roth points out in her Real Clear Politics article, people prefer the choice to job or not a join a union:

The American people have been voting with their feet, the Census Bureau announced on Tuesday, leaving states with heavy union influence and choosing to live in “right to work” states with higher job growth where they cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment.

But the National Labor Relations Board, now dominated by Obama appointees, is deaf to the preferences of voting Americans. It wants to do everything in its administrative power to tilt the playing field towards unionization-even if it means higher unemployment and lost jobs.

As a result of geographic shifts in population uncovered by the 2010 Census, nine congressional seats will move to right-to-work states from forced unionization states. Some winners are Texas, Florida, Arizona, Georgia, and South Carolina, while losers include New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, and New Jersey. Over the past 25 years job growth in right-to-work states has been over twice as high as in unionized states.

Legislators Look at ‘Oklahoma Model’ For Stronger Economic Growth

It’s been more than seven decades since The Grapes of Wrath, both the John Steinbeck novel and the Hollywood movie it inspired, established the desperate migration of “Okies” from the Dust Bowl to the orchards of California as an icon of the Great Depression.

Times have certainly changed.

As an October 12 USA Today feature story noted, since 1999, “the number of Californians departing the Golden State for Oklahoma has outnumbered those going the opposite direction by more than 21,000 . . . .”

The net influx of people into the Sooner State from California and many other states with sub-par or abysmal job and income growth records is, as USA Today put it, “a sign of Oklahoma’s growing economic prowess.”

To explain the state’s recent record of economic success, the USA Today feature specifically mentioned Oklahoma’s low and relatively stable housing costs, its concentration of aerospace and defense technology expertise, and its oil and natural gas reserves.

But as important as these assets are, Oklahoma had them all in the early 1990′s, when its long-term job and income growth still trailed the national average.

The real turning point for Oklahoma’s transition from an economic laggard to an economic leader was in 1992 — when the National Right to Work Committee teamed up with local grass-roots activists to map out a multi-year campaign to pass a Sooner Right to Work law.

Benefits of Right to Work Campaign Were Evident Long Before State Law Was Passed

“In the early 1990′s, the ‘Dust Bowl’ was already a distant memory, but Oklahoma’s job climate still seemed pretty dry,” commented Matthew Leen, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“From 1984 through 1994, the decade before the Committee program to pass a Right to Work law in Oklahoma was initiated, private-sector employment in Oklahoma increased by less than a third as much as the national average, according to the U.S. Labor Department.

“Over that same decade, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show Oklahoma’s real personal income grew by just 2.3%, less than a tenth of the nationwide percentage gain.

“But in 1994, the seeds of change were planted when, thanks to the lobbying and citizen-mobilization efforts of the Right to Work movement, 12 new avowed foes of compulsory unionism were elected to the Oklahoma Legislature.

“Also in 1994, unabashedly pro-Right to Work candidates were elected as governor, lieutenant governor, and labor commissioner.

“It would take additional years of hard work, spanning the 1996, 1998, and 2000 election cycles, for grass-roots activists to get to majority support for the Right to Work in both legislative chambers.

“But the benefits of the Right to Work campaign were evident long before a state law could be passed.

“As more and more union-label legislators were replaced with Right to Work advocates during the 1990′s, the state’s political climate became more amenable to private-sector job and income creation in a host of ways.

“From 1995 to 2001, the year the Right to Work law was finally adopted, private-sector employment in Oklahoma grew by 15.2%, 14% more than the overall national increase.Sooners’ real personal income grew by 24.1%, outpacing the national average.”

Right to Work Edge Clear In Region After Region

“Unfortunately, the adoption of the 2001 Right to Work Amendment prohibiting the termination of employees for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union did not immediately break Big Labor’s grip over roughly 65,000 private-sector Sooner workers,” Mr. Leen continued.

“Until 2003, union lawyers kept the Right to Work Amendment tied up in court. But since the state Supreme Court rejected Big Labor’s anti-Right to Work lawsuit late that year, Oklahoma has had one of the strongest economies in the country.

“From 2003 through 2009, real income in Oklahoma grew by nearly twice as much as in the U.S. as a whole. The U.S.’s private-sector employment was flat over that period, but Oklahoma’s grew by 4.4%.”

The outstanding recent gains of Oklahoma are of a piece with the long-term economic performance of all 22 Right to Work states, including those whose forced-dues bans have been on the books for decades.

For example, from 1999 to 2009, the five Midwestern Right to Work states (Iowa, Kansas, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota) experienced aggregate private-sector job growth of 2.3%. Over the same period, the seven Midwestern forced-unionism states (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Ohio, and Wisconsin) lost 8.1% of their private-sector jobs.

More and More Citizens Recognize Their States Require Fundamental Reform

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that forced-unionism states are lagging behind Right to Work states by all the most significant economic measures. Big Labor’s counterproductive work rules and fomentation of the “hate-the-boss” mentality lead to slower revenue growth in the unionized businesses themselves.

That translates into smaller compensation increases for employees and less job growth or, very frequently, job losses.

On top of that, union bosses funnel a huge portion of the forced dues and fees they collect into efforts to elect and reelect state and local, as well as federal, politicians who support more forced unionism, higher taxes, and more red-tape regulation of business.

“More and more citizens of Big Labor-controlled states like Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Maine recognize that their states require fundamental reform in order to get their economies back on track,” noted Mr. Leen.

“That’s one important reason why avowed Right to Work supporters running in slow-growth states racked up a net gain of hundreds of state House and Senate seats in this year’s elections.”

“The fact is, compulsory unionism impedes private-sector job creation and income growth in every part of the business cycle. It’s clear that the national recession’s end won’t suffice to turn Wisconsin, Missouri, Indiana, Pennsylvania and Maine around.

“On the other hand, the experiences of Oklahoma and many other Right to Work states furnish strong evidence that economically troubled states could greatly accelerate their job and income growth by passing Right to Work legislation.”

‘Getting There Is Half the Fun’

Mr. Leen added: “There is a second important point illustrated by the ‘Oklahoma model’: Getting there is half the fun.

“Long before forced union dues and fees were banned in Oklahoma, the state’s economy was already benefiting greatly from the campaign to pass a state Right to Work law.

“From 1994 through 2000, the number of union lackeys in the Oklahoma Legislature diminished in each election cycle thanks in large part to the Right to Work candidate survey program.

“That means, with each election cycle, the Legislature was less apt to hinder job and income growth by approving new unreasonable taxes and regulations. And the Legislature became more apt to reform existing anti-growth policies.

“Even if Big Labor had somehow in the end managed to block enactment of Oklahoma’s Right to Work law, the benefits of ‘getting there’ would have remained.

“Unfortunately, this isn’t true when well-meaning would-be reformers skip over the process of building Right to Work legislative strength and instead try to abolish forced union dues willy‑nilly in a ballot initiative.

“Over the past half century, the track record of efforts to pass new Right to Work laws through ballot initiatives is poor. And unlike legislative lobbying campaigns, ballot initiatives do nothing to improve the quality of a state’s elected officials.

“Concerned citizens who want to transform their state into ‘another Oklahoma’ should look not just at the content of the Sooner Right to Work Amendment, but also at the eight-year process by which it became law.”

Wisconsin Governor-elect Scott Walker has laid out an ambitious agenda, such as turning the department of commerce into a public-private partnership and lifting the cap on school vouchers. But his boldest idea may be rescinding the right of government employees to collectively bargain.

Mr. Walker floated the idea last week in response to union opposition to his modest proposal to require employees to contribute 5% of their pay to their pensions and to increase their health-care contributions to 12% from as low as 4% today. Even along the Left Coast most state workers contribute 10% of their salary to pensions. The Republican estimates that these changes would save the state $154 million in the first six months. Over two years they’d reduce the state’s $3.3 billion budget gap by nearly 20%.

The ability of public workers to form unions and bargain collectively is a phenomenon of the last century when state and local governments were relatively small. But it has proven to be a catastrophe for taxpayers, as public unions have used their political clout to negotiate rich deals on wages, pensions and health care. California governor-elect Jerry Brown greased the wheels for his state’s long fiscal decline when he allowed collective bargaining during his first stint in the statehouse in the 1970s.

Republican Governor Mitch Daniels of Indiana and then Governor Matt Blunt of Missouri rescinded collective bargaining by executive order in 2005, and the change made it easier to cut spending and restructure government services. In Wisconsin, the legislature would have to rewrite the Employment Labor Relations Act, but Republicans will control both the assembly and senate and have the political incentive to go along with Mr. Walker.Rescinding public collective bargaining rights restores a better negotiating balance between taxpayers and government employees who ostensibly work for them. Political officials are no longer on both sides of the bargaining table—representing taxpayers in negotiations with the unions while seeking union cash and endorsements when running for re-election.

Twelve states including North Carolina and Virginia don’t allow government workers collective bargaining rights, and another 12 allow it only for some unions. These states by and large have managed to hold down their pension liabilities better than have those where public employee unions essentially run the government—see Illinois, New Jersey and California.

Republican leaders are often reluctant to challenge government unions so directly because it means a big political battle, but now is the time to strike when the public understands the need for reforming government. Mr. Walker’s proposal is the kind of big structural reform that can make other reforms easier to accomplish. We hope it’s the start of a national trend.

Grass-Roots Right to Work Efforts Expanding in Midwestern States

All across America, Right to Work states have long benefited from economic growth far superior to that of states in which millions of employees are forced to join or pay dues or fees to a labor union just to keep their jobs.

But over the past decade, the contrast between Right to Work states and forced-union-dues states has been especially stark in the Midwest.

Four Midwestern forced-unionism states — Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana — suffered absolute private-sector job declines over the past decade that were worse than those of any of the other 46 states. Midwestern forced-unionism states (the four just mentioned, plus Missouri, Wisconsin and Minnesota) lost a net total of 1.88 million private-sector jobs.

Combined, these seven forced-unionism states had 8.1% fewer private-sector jobs in 2009 than they did back in 1999.

Meanwhile, the five Midwestern Right to Work states (North Dakota, Nebraska, South Dakota, Iowa and Kansas) experienced an overall private-sector job increase of 2.3%.

Moreover, from 1999 to 2009, real personal income in Midwestern Right to Work states grew by 17.3% — an increase two-and-a-half times as a great as the combined real personal income growth in Midwestern forced-unionism states.

State Right to Work laws prohibit the firing of employees simply for exercising their right to refuse to join or bankroll an unwanted union.

At this time, 22 states have Right to Work laws on the books. However, because of intensifying grass-roots efforts in many of the remaining 28 forced-unionism states, the number of Right to Work states could be on the rise over the course of the next few years.

Recession’s End Won’t Suffice to Revive Big Labor-Controlled States

“More and more citizens of Big Labor-controlled states like Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana recognize that their states require fundamental reform in order to get their economies back on track,” observed National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix.

“The fact is, compulsory unionism impedes private-sector job creation and income growth in every part of the business cycle. It’s clear that the national recession’s end won’t suffice to turn Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana around.

“On the other hand, there is strong evidence that economically troubled states could greatly accelerate their job and income growth by passing Right to Work legislation.”

One recent example of such evidence is a scholarly article by eminent economist Richard Vedder. A professor on the faculty of Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, and a specialist in labor, taxation and education issues, Dr. Vedder is the author of more than 100 academic papers as well as several books.

One of his books, coauthored with fellow Ohio University economist Lowell Galloway, is the acclaimed Out of Work. It received the Sir Anthony Fisher International Memorial Award and was also a Mencken Award Finalist.

In his article entitled “Right to Work Laws: Liberty, Prosperity, and Quality of Life,” appearing in the Winter 2010 edition of Cato Journal, Dr. Vedder reported the results of a regression analysis he did to test the economic impact of Right to Work laws.

Right to Work Law ‘Would Have Increased Per Capita Income by an Extra $2760′

Specifically, Dr. Vedder sought “to relate the rate of growth in real per capita personal income from 1977 to 2007 for the 48 contiguous U.S. states to the existence” of Right to Work laws.

The analysis controlled for each state’s tax burden, the share of its adults with college degrees, land area, and several other variables.

Dr. Vedder found “a very strong and highly statistically significant . . . positive relationship between” Right to Work laws and economic growth. He elaborated: Suppose two states both “had per capita income of $24,000 in 1977.”

Real per capita income in the state without Right to Work protections “would have risen to $36,000 in 2007, compared to $38,760″ in the Right to Work state. Right to Work protections “would have increased per capita income by an extra $2760 — or over $11,000 annually for a family of four.”

Dr. Vedder concluded: While alternative models “might offer somewhat different conclusions, . . . based on existing evidence, a strong case can be made” that Right to Work laws “have a positive impact on U.S. living standards.”

But despite all the evidence of Right to Work laws’ economic benefits, and despite the fact that nearly 80% of Americans who regularly vote support the Right to Work as a matter of principle, passing a state Right to Work law is never easy.

Unions that file federal disclosure forms rake in a total of roughly $20 billion a year in (mostly forced) dues and fees, government grants, rents, interest, and other revenues. And union bosses deploy a huge share of that money for politics and lobbying.

Freedom-Loving Citizens Must Be Mobilized to Pass More Right to Work Laws

If freedom-loving citizens are to counter successfully the might of the union political machine and prevail upon their elected officials to adopt a state Right to Work law, they must first be mobilized.

For years, grass-roots efforts to pass Right to Work legislation in the Midwest have been assisted by state groups like the Lansing-based Michigan Right to Work Committee and the Indianapolis-based Indiana Right to Work Committee.

In state after state this summer, these groups are mobilizing pro-Right to Work citizens to contact their legislative and executive candidates with thousands of postcards, letters, and phone calls urging them to oppose forced unionism.

Already, many politicians who were riding the fence have decided to take a stand in favor of Right to Work.

“Michigan, Ohio, Illinois and Indiana have long had reputations as Big Labor strongholds,” commented Mr. Mix. “Union bosses remain very powerful in much of the Midwest, largely because of their government-backed domination of public-sector employment.

“However, when a state’s private-sector job gains are paltry or negative during periods of nationwide economic growth, and its job losses are out-sized during recessions, then its citizens eventually get fed up.

“Once a critical mass of ordinary people become determined to change the way their state operates, union special interests can’t stop them.

“That’s why, in 2010, the pressure on Great Lakes state politicians to support Right to Work is mounting, even in Michigan, of all places!”

Right to Work Laws A Matter of Principle

Mr. Mix added that a desire to make their states more economically successful is not the sole motivation for supporters of state Right to Work legislative efforts:

“The Right to Work is a matter of principle as well as economics. Right to Work laws’ fundamental purpose is to protect the employee’s personal freedom of choice.

“Commitment to principle helps explain why so many National Committee members who live in a state that already has a Right to Work law are eager to offer their assistance to efforts to pass such laws in the remaining 28 forced-unionism states.

“No American should be forced to join or bankroll a union as a condition of employment. That’s why the Committee also continues to work for passage of national Right to Work legislation repealing all federal labor-law provisions that authorize forced union dues and fees.

“Effectively, that would make all 50 states Right to Work states.”

It doesn’t take a Sherlock Holmes or an Hercule Poirot to deduce that state policies promoting “exclusive” union bargaining and forced union dues and fees in the public sector have played a major role in driving multiple states to the verge of insolvency this year.  All it takes is the willingness to look at, and respect, the facts.

In 2009, according to respected labor economists Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson, 41% of public employees nationwide were subject to a contract negotiated by their employer with a union monopoly-bargaining agent.

However, in 22 states, none of which authorize forced union dues for government employees and most of which don’t authorize public-sector union monopoly bargaining, either, fewer than 30% of public servants were unionized.  Not one of these 22 low public-sector-unionization states was to be found on Business Insider’s list, published just last month, of the nine states “most likely to default.” 

And Business Insider ranked Illinois, California, Michigan, New York, New Jersey, Nevada, Massachusetts and Wisconsin as the worst default risks for a totally objective reason:  Traders who wish to buy protection against the possibility of default by these nine states have to pay higher premiums (technically known as “CDS spreads”) than do traders seeking protection against default risk for any of the other 41.

The Hirsch-Macpherson data show that an average of 61% of public-sector employees in the nine worst default-risk states were under union monopoly bargaining in 2009.  That is, overall public-sector unionization was 20 percentage points higher than in the typical state.  All but one of these states, Nevada, had public-sector unionization at least 15% higher than the national average in 2009.  Nevada was also the only one of the nine not to authorize public-sector forced union dues and fees.

In the nine worst default-risk states, from 1999 to 2009, aggregate private-sector jobs fell by 4.2%, but heavily unionized state and local government jobs increased by 9.0%.  Since annual state and local government employee compensation costs nationwide come to $1.1 trillion, or half of all state and local government spending, it’s not hard to see that the Big Labor-driven, seemingly relentless growth in government payrolls is a fiscal catastrophe for states like California, Illinois, and New Jersey.

But to Gerald McEntee, president of the mammoth American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union (AFSCME/AFL-CIO), even calling attention to the fact that for years government payrolls have grown while private payrolls have shriveled is tantamount to an “assault on public employees.”

In a commentary bearing that heading, prepared last month for readers of the Huffington Post, among other audiences, Mr. McEntee thundered that the only acceptable solution to the intimidating fiscal problems faced by states like California, Illinois, and New Jersey is for elected officials to squeeze even more taxes out of beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses.

For Mr. McEntee, the idea that state budgets might be balanced largely by rolling back unwarranted increases in government payroll expenditures that occurred over the past decade isn’t even worthy of discussion.  But for all his bluster, he can’t keep New Yorkers, for example, from noticing that, while the number of Empire State pupils enrolled in K-12 public schools fell by more than 121,000 between the 2000-01 and 2008-09 school years, schools added 14,746 teachers and 8655 non-teaching professionals to their payrolls.

Gerald McEntee and his government union cohorts can’t prevent the facts from getting out.  Nor can they do much about the fact that public sentiment in state after state is turning strongly against public-sector union kingpins who fight elected officials’ attempts to get government employee compensations costs back under control.

But the government union hierarchy could have the last laugh if fed-up taxpayers and their allies limit themselves to going after bloated public-sector payrolls, unsustainable public pension plans, and other symptoms of monopolistic unionism, rather than the problem itself.

State laws empowering government union officials to negotiate the contract terms for all the front-line employees at a public agency, even those who haven’t joined the union and want nothing to do with it, are behind the messes in Sacramento, Springfield and Trenton.  Closely related state labor laws that authorize the firing of public servants for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union make matters even worse.

Long-term solutions to state budget crises will require addressing the core problems of union monopoly bargaining and forced union dues in the public sector.

(Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

Nationwide unemployment hovers near 10%.  (U.S. DOL reports unemployment rate of 9.9% for April 2010) Across America today, there is widespread hardship resulting from most businesses’ lingering inability to hire more workers profitably even as the country emerges from the 2008-2009 recession.

What is the response of Big Labor politicians in Washington, D.C.? Sadly, they appear determined to make matters worse.

Last month, union-label U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill (Mo.) admitted to the Hill, a D.C. Beltway publication, that she and other members of her chamber’s Democratic majority were working behind the scenes to concoct an “alternative” version of the mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act” for floor action this year.

In its current form, this legislation (S.560/H.R.1409) is designed to help union bosses sharply increase the share of all private-sector workers who are under union monopoly control by effectively ending secret-ballot elections in union organizing campaigns.

However, the National Right to Work Committee and its allies have mobilized massive public opposition to the measure, greatly lowering its prospects for passage in its current form.

Monopoly Unionism Negatively Correlated With Private-Sector Job Growth

In response, as Ms. McCaskill recently acknowledged, Big Labor politicians and union lobbyists are now concocting new legislation designed to accomplish the same objective through somewhat different means.

“The Committee and its 2.5 million members have led the opposition to S.560/H.R.1409, because this scheme would greatly exacerbate the harm caused by the current forced-unionism provisions in federal labor law,” commented Right to Work Vice President Doug Stafford.

“The ‘Plan B’ forced-unionism expansion legislation now being hammered out by Big Labor Sen. Tom Harkin [D-Iowa] and cohorts like Claire McCaskill would greatly intensify workplace elections’ bias in favor of union organizers. In the end, it could prove even more harmful than ‘Plan A.’

“And experience indicates enactment of either ‘Plan A’ or ‘Plan B’ would drastically reduce employment opportunities in addition to taking away the freedom of now-independent workers.

“For example, as a group, the 10 states with the highest shares of their private-sector employees under union monopoly-bargaining in 2004 suffered a private-sector job decline of 2.5% over the following five years.

“Meanwhile, the 10 states with the lowest private-sector unionization experienced an aggregate private-sector job gain of 1.9%.

“Incredibly, the avowed goal of S.560 lead sponsor Harkin and other Big Labor politicians in Congress is to ‘level the playing field’ by bringing all states down to the level of forced-unionism strongholds like Illinois, Michigan, and New Jersey.”

Union Bigwigs Calculate ‘Plan B’ Can Muster Necessary 60 Senate Votes

Mr. Stafford continued: “Rewriting federal labor law to make Texas’s private-sector unionization rate as high as California’s is today would certainly be a radical move.

“But union bigwigs like incoming Service Employees International Union [SEIU] chief Mary Kay Henry believe that, by dropping S.560′s ‘card check’ provision and modifying others, they can muster the 60 votes they need to bring up this power grab for a final Senate roll call.

“If that happens, it will be virtually impossible to stop the bill from being passed and sent to the White House.

“That’s why Right to Work supporters must not let their guard down.

“However, as long as Committee members and supporters keep turning up the heat on Congress with their postcards, phone calls, signed letters and petitions, I’m confident ‘Plan B’ as well as ‘Plan A’ can be defeated.”

Mr. Stafford urged Right to Work members to continue contacting their senators and congressmen through the Congressional Switchboard, 202-224-3121 and 202-225-3121, asking them to oppose S.560/H.R.1409 and all similar legislation on all votes.

Andy Stern is living in a world of delusion.  According to the soon-to-be retiring union boss and President Obama confidant, forced unionism “is the greatest middle-class, job-creating mechanism that we have ever had in America that doesn’t cost tax payers a dime.”

Is he kidding?  From Project Labor Agreement kickback schemes to bailouts of mismanaged union pension funds, Big Labor has become a drain on taxpayers.  Who was it that was rallying in front of the capitol building in Illinois this week chanting for higher tax rates for government union member raises?  Public workers union bosses are bankrupting the country.  Mr. Stern, who do you think pays their salaries and benefits packages?

(Source: March 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)

For years, the climate for private-sector employees and business owners in Right to Work Iowa has been far superior to that of neighboring forced-unionism Illinois.

For example, from 2003 to 2008, the latest year for which annual U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics employment data are available at this writing, the number of private sector jobs grew by 6.2% in Iowa, more than double Illinois’s 2.7% increase.

Over the same period, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show personal income in Iowa grew by a healthy 11.1%, more than half again as much as it did in Illinois.

Right to Work Iowa has also made it through the recent severe national recession in considerably better shape than forced-unionism Illinois.  Preliminary data put Iowa’s December 2009 unemployment rate at 6.6%, far below Illinois’s 10.8%.

So how are Quad City Area AFL-CIO operative Tracy Kurowski and other union bosses proposing to give Hawkeye State employees a “jolt,” as Ms. Kurowski put it in a recent commentary she penned for the pro-Big Labor “Blog for Iowa”? By making Iowa more like slow-growth, high-unemployment Illinois, of course!

‘Forced Union Fees Are The Last Thing’ Iowa Employees and Firms Need

Ms. Kurowski and other union bosses are twisting the arms of state legislators in Des Moines to adopt H.F. 2420, legislation that would force roughly 18,000 state government employees who have chosen not to join a union to fork over an estimated total of roughly $5.3 million a year in forced union fees, or be fired.

In her “Blog for Iowa” commentary, Ms. Kurowski characterized this power grab as a “start” towards the union hierarchy’s goal of corralling all kinds of front-line public and private employees into unions.

And she freely admitted that Illinois, where roughly 800,000 workers are currently forced to fork over union dues or “agency” fees as a job condition, was Big Labor’s role model for Iowa.

Ms. Kurowski quickly brushed aside concerns that Illinois’s net private-sector job and personal income growth are far slower than Iowa’s, and that its unemployment rate is much higher. The “sky hasn’t fallen,” she sneered.

“Tracy Kurowski’s screed makes it plain that, despite their sporadic and half-hearted denials, union bosses see H.F. 2420 as a major step towards complete destruction of Iowa’s popular, 63-year-old Right to Work law,” commented Matthew Leen, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.

“Ms. Kurowski has also made it plain that Iowa and national union bosses care nothing about the human consequences of their plans. All they care about is increasing their personal and political war chests by making union fees mandatory.

“But forced union fees are the last thing hardworking Iowa employees and firms need.”

Big Labor Knows Its Iowa ‘Window of Opportunity’ Will Likely Close Soon

It’s now been more than three years since freshly-elected Iowa Democratic Gov. Chet Culver, after saying nothing in public about the forced-unionism issue during the 2006 campaign, suddenly declared his support for gutting Iowa’s Right to Work law.

“Mr. Culver’s almost nonstop pandering to Big Labor, perpetuated this winter with a new executive order promoting anti-taxpayer, union-only ‘project labor agreements’ in public works, is a major reason for his gully-low poll numbers,” remarked Mr. Leen.

“So far, stiff opposition from freedom-loving citizens, mobilized by the National Committee and its allies in the state, has denied Mr. Culver the opportunity to sign legislation forcing Iowa employees to bankroll a union in order to work.

“But before Iowa voters can replace Mr. Culver with a pro-Right to Work governor, union bosses seem determined to use every trick in the book to at least get a ‘start’ on overturning Iowa’s ban on forced union dues and fees.

“Knowing their forced-unionism ‘window of opportunity’ will likely be closed after November’s elections, union bosses will fight furiously to ram through H.F. 2420 early this year.”