Forced Unionism vs. Private Health Insurance

Forced Unionism vs. Private Health Insurance

Between 1999 and 2009, the number of people with job-based private health insurance grew by 570,000 in Right to Work states, but declined by 7.74 million in forced-unionism states. Big Labor can't explain why. Image Credit: sph.umd.edu (Source: October 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Big Labor Bastions See Steep Decline in Job-Based Benefits On average, residents of Right to Work states have higher real, spendable incomes than their counterparts in non-Right to Work states. And Right to Work states have a much better track record of creating and sustaining private-sector jobs that come with health benefits. The evidence confirming these two points comes from the U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) and Bureau of the Census (BOC), as well as the nonpartisan Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC). Last month, the National Right to Work Committee's research affiliate, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, conducted an analysis of the BEA-reported 2009 disposable (after-tax) income data for each of the 50 states. The Institute adjusted the data to account for interstate differences in living costs with the help of a quarterly index created and reported by MERIC. The analysis found that, in 2009, the cost of living-adjusted disposable income per capita for the 22 Right to Work states was $35,543. Productive, Well-Compensated Jobs Disappearing in Forced-Unionism States
Forced Union Dues-Funded Incumbent Protection

Forced Union Dues-Funded Incumbent Protection

Will Big Labor Machine Rescue Unpopular Union-Label Politicians? (Source: September 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Over the past two years, Big Labor bosses have repeatedly succeeded in getting their favored federal politicians in competitive U.S. House districts and states to cast "politically difficult" votes. Top AFL-CIO union official Richard Trumka is going all out this fall to help U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) retain the power to keep pushing forward his forced-unionism agenda in 2011 and 2012. Credit: Mark Wilson/Getty Images North America Early in 2009, for example, union lobbyists twisted arms to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress for controversial "stimulus" legislation. Since it became law, the "stimulus" has bilked taxpayers of hundreds of billions of dollars to ensure that bloated, unionized government payrolls stay bloated, but furnished no detectable help for America's private sector. And, more even than President Obama or any other elected official, top union officials are responsible for Congress's narrow votes to reconstruct America's enormous health-care system in late 2009 and early 2010. As the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics reported March 22, 2010, "in the final push before the vote," many union bosses and union operatives "displayed their clout through threats to withhold endorsements from lawmakers who failed to back the bill. They also vowed to support primary challenges or third-party bids against incumbents who opposed" ObamaCare. Now polls indicate that voters across the country are poised to punish vulnerable U.S. representatives and senators for doing what Big Labor told them to do.
White House Deference to Big Labor Impedes Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Efforts

White House Deference to Big Labor Impedes Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup Efforts

(Source: July 2010 Forced-Unionism Abuses Exposed) Roughly three months after BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil platform exploded, killing 11 workers and instigating the biggest offshore oil spill ever to occur during peacetime, the Obama Administration faces mounting charges that, in order to avoid offending politically powerful union officials, it has obstructed operations to clean up the spill. A wide range of critics are focusing on the White House’s refusal, in the days after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico from the sunken rig, to suspend the 90-year-old Jones Act.  The Jones Act requires all shipping between U.S. ports or in U.S. coastal waters to be carried in U.S.-flagged ships that are owned and crewed by U.S. citizens. But presidential administrations can grant blanket waivers of the Jones Act during national emergencies.  In recent years, the George W. Bush Administration temporarily suspended the Jones Act to assist recovery efforts after Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. However, top bosses of the AFL-CIO-affiliated Seafarers International Union (SIU), with the backing of the entire AFL-CIO hierarchy, oppose a blanket waiver.  Rather than cross Big Labor, and thus potentially risk losing some of its massive, forced dues-funded political support, the Obama Administration has required all foreign vessels that wish to participate in the cleanup and believe they may need a waiver to apply for one individually. 
Again, Reid-Pelosi Plan to Expand Government Employee Forced Unionism

Again, Reid-Pelosi Plan to Expand Government Employee Forced Unionism

Excerpt from NRTW President Mark Mix Op-Ed in the Washington Times (to read the full version, click here): Today, Big Government, not the private sector, is Big Labor's bread and butter. That's why union officials push relentlessly for higher taxes and bigger government and seem completely unconcerned that the policies they advocate will slash overall private-sector job growth in future years. Just three decades ago, less than a third of all employees subject to "exclusive" union bargaining worked for the government. Earlier this year, the U.S. Labor Department reported that for the first time ever, a majority of unionized workers across America are now government employees. The outsized power and privileges of government union bosses clearly are a major force behind the unsustainable growth of government payrolls. According to data furnished by respected labor economists Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson, nonunion government employment nationwide actually fell by 2 percent, but Big Labor-controlled government employment grew by nearly 4 percent from 2007 to 2009. Incredibly, nearly all Democrats and many Republicans on Capitol Hill appear eager to make matters even worse by rubber-stamping legislation (H.R. 413 and S. 3194) that would federally grant public-safety union officials monopoly bargaining privileges over state and local public employees nationwide.