Biden ‘Role Model’ States Are Stagnant

Forced-Dues States Collectively Stuck at 2019 Employment Level

According to Big Labor President Joe Biden, his team of advisors, and their apologists in the establishment media, forced unionism makes the economy “work better” for rank-and-file employees and their families.

But you’d never guess that from the latest available annual data on employment in the 50 states regularly collected in the “household survey,” currently overseen by Biden appointees in the U.S. Labor Department (USDOL).

Right to Work States’ Total 2023 Employment 3.2 Million Higher Than Before COVID-19

They show that, in 2023, the aggregate employment for the 23 states that at that time lacked Right to Work laws protecting employees from termination for refusal to join or bankroll a union was stuck at 79.26 million, or roughly 400,000 below what it had been in 2019, four years earlier. 

Meanwhile, the aggregate annual employment for the 27 states that had Right to Work laws on the books in 2023 was 80.98 million. 

That’s roughly 3.2 million above what it had been in 2019, the last full year before the shockingly steep, albeit brief, recession that commenced with the COVID-19 lockdowns.

As Acting Biden Labor Chief Has Acknowledged, ‘The Numbers Don’t Lie’

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented that the Right to Work employment-growth advantage “looks just as strong, if not even stronger,” over longer periods of time:

“For example, the 24 states that had Right to Work laws on the books for the entire decade from 2013-23 racked up a 16.0% gain in employment over that time, according to the USDOL household survey.

“That’s nearly double the relatively paltry 2013-23 increase for the 23 states that have never had Right to Work protections for employees.

“As even forced-unionism cheerleader Julie Su, Joe Biden’s handpicked acting labor secretary, recently acknowledged, ‘The numbers don’t lie.’

“And what the numbers show is that, even as the Biden Administration is singing the praises of the nationwide post-COVID-19 employment recovery, states that already adhere to the anti-worker, forced-unionism policies Mr. Biden wants to foist on the whole country have yet to recover fully.”

Mr. Mix continued: “Part of forced-unionism states’ big employment deficit since 2019 is due to the unaccountable slowness of Big Labor-backed politicians in lifting counterproductive COVID-19 economic restrictions that kept millions unemployed.

“But that’s not the whole story. For example, it doesn’t explain why, according to the latest annual household survey data, employment in forced-unionism states grew by less than half as much, in both percentage and absolute terms, as it did in Right to Work states from 2022 to 2023.”

Anti-Right to Work Stance Shows Politicians Don’t Care About American Employees

The dearth of employment opportunities in forced-unionism states is so severe that there is a long-term, massive out-migration of Americans in their peak-earning years, that is, aged 35-54, from these states.

“Among the 46 states that didn’t change their Right to Work status from 2012 to 2022, the nine states suffering the most severe peak-earning-year population losses in absolute terms are all forced-unionism,” observed Mr. Mix.

“But in the states that had Right to Work laws on the books for the whole decade from 2012 to 2022, there was an overall peak-earning-year population increase of 1.48 million!

“Unfortunately, neither employment data nor Census data nor opinion polls showing lopsided public support for Right to Work matter to Mr. Biden or other Big Labor politicians in Washington D.C., like Democrat U.S. Sens. Jacky Rosen [Nev.] and Jon Tester [Mont.].

“Since he took office in January 2021, Mr. Biden has exhorted Congress, again and again, to send to his desk the so-called ‘PRO’ Act, a package of new special privileges for union bosses including a provision that would wipe out all state Right to Work laws.

“Introduced in this Congress as S.567/H.R.20 by avowed socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders [Vt.] and Democrat Rep. Bobby Scott [Va.], the ‘PRO’ Act would make the forced extraction of union fees from employees as a job condition legal nationwide, ‘notwithstanding’ any contrary provision in any state law.

“The venomously anti-Right to Work stance of D.C. bigwigs like Mr. Biden, Mr. Sanders, and Mr. Scott, and also of ‘PRO’ Act cosponsors like Ms. Rosen and Mr. Tester, makes it plain that, no matter what they say, they don’t actually care about workers.

“The constituency they really aim to please is a handful of well-heeled and powerful union bosses in the nation’s capital.”

Capitol Hill Support For National Right to Work Act Continues to Grow

Meanwhile, thanks largely to National Right to Work Committee members’ and supporters’ persistent lobbying, a growing number of congressmen and senators are publicly supporting taking labor policy in the opposite direction.

As this Newsletter edition goes to press in late April, a total of 158 members of Congress are sponsoring or cosponsoring H.R.1200 and S.532, legislation commonly referred to as the National Right to Work Act.

The number of cosponsors is rising all the time.

And last November 30, a U.S. House Education and the Workforce panel held the first-ever hearing in Congress’ lower chamber on a national Right to Work measure.

Respectively introduced by Congressman Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), H.R.1200 and S.532 would “extend Right to Work protections to employees in all 50 states,” said Mr. Mix.

It would accomplish this objective, he added, simply by “eliminating all the provisions in federal labor laws covering private-sector workers that authorize compulsory union dues and fees.”

---

This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.

To support our cause and help end forced unionism, go here to donate.

---