Public Servants' Right to Work in Jeopardy
The experience of state after state shows that public-sector compulsory unionism as well as private-sector compulsory unionism devours job- and income-creating opportunities for taxpaying businesses and employees. Credit: Michael Ramirez/Investors Business Daily Union Bosses Aim to Kill Recent Buckeye State Reform Next Month (Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Over the past decade, the citizens of forced-unionism Ohio have been afflicted with one of the worst-performing state economies in the country. Across the U.S. as a whole, despite the severe recent recession, private employers' inflation-adjusted outlays for employee compensation (including wages, salaries, bonuses and benefits) did increase from 2000 to 2010, by an average of 4.3%. And many states fared much better than that. In the 22 states with Right to Work laws on the books protecting both private- and public-sector employees from being fired for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, real private-sector employee compensation grew by an aggregate 11.3%. Private employees in 20 of the 22 Right to Work states experienced 2000-2010 compensation growth greater than the national average. Unfortunately, in the 28 states without Right to Work laws on the books, private-sector outlays for employee compensation rose only by a combined 0.7%, after adjusting for inflation. Thirteen of the 14 states with the lowest compensation growth lack a Right to Work law. Ohio was one of just five states with negative real private-sector compensation growth over the last decade. In 2010, Ohio's business expenditures for private employee compensation were 6.6% less than they had been in 2000. Region, Job Mix Can't Account For Buckeye State's Shrinking Private Employee Compensation When confronted with such data, apologists for the forced-unionism policies that prevailed across the board in Ohio for decades until this year try to explain them away by blaming the Buckeye State's location in the U.S. Midwest or its historically high manufacturing density for its abysmal economic record. But such excuses won't wash.