Oklahoma's Right to Work Anniversary -- A Success Story!

Oklahoma's Right to Work Anniversary -- A Success Story!

  In 2001, Sooners defied Big Labor by approving a statewide ban on forced union dues. Since its Right to Work law took effect, Oklahoma has become a national leader in private-sector compensation and job growth.   Oklahoma Celebrates Right to Work Anniversary -- Sooner Experience Reinforces Case For Federal Forced-Dues Repeal (Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) On September 25 a decade ago, one of Big Labor's most formidable fear-and-loathing campaigns ever failed when Oklahoma approved a statewide ban on compulsory union dues and fees and thus became the nation's 22nd Right to Work state. Almost immediately, the very union bosses who had been shrilly predicting that a Sooner Right to Work law would swiftly lead to disaster moved to prevent the law from having any impact at all. When the Right to Work law had been in effect just seven weeks, Big Labor lawyers launched an underhanded bid to overturn it. This legal attack kept the law's future under a cloud for an extended period. The state's attorneys and Right to Work attorneys intervening on behalf of several independent-minded workers prevailed in 2003 when the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously rejected AFL-CIO union kingpins' demand that it overturn the law. Oklahoma's Private-Sector Compensation Growth Has Far Outpaced U.S. Average "Since Big Labor's legal assault on Oklahomans' Right to Work was thwarted, the state has had one of the strongest economies in the country, as measured by a number of key indicators," said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee. "For example, from 2003 to 2010, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show private-sector employer outlays for employee compensation, including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses, grew by 12.2% in Oklahoma, after adjusting for inflation. "Sooners' real private-sector compensation expanded at a rate more than three-and-a-half times as great as the national average of 3.4%, and faster than in 41 other states." Oklahoma Also a Standout For Job Creation
Oklahoma's Right to Work Anniversary -- A Success Story!

Oklahoma's Right to Work Anniversary -- A Success Story!

  In 2001, Sooners defied Big Labor by approving a statewide ban on forced union dues. Since its Right to Work law took effect, Oklahoma has become a national leader in private-sector compensation and job growth.   Oklahoma Celebrates Right to Work Anniversary -- Sooner Experience Reinforces Case For Federal Forced-Dues Repeal (Source: October 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) On September 25 a decade ago, one of Big Labor's most formidable fear-and-loathing campaigns ever failed when Oklahoma approved a statewide ban on compulsory union dues and fees and thus became the nation's 22nd Right to Work state. Almost immediately, the very union bosses who had been shrilly predicting that a Sooner Right to Work law would swiftly lead to disaster moved to prevent the law from having any impact at all. When the Right to Work law had been in effect just seven weeks, Big Labor lawyers launched an underhanded bid to overturn it. This legal attack kept the law's future under a cloud for an extended period. The state's attorneys and Right to Work attorneys intervening on behalf of several independent-minded workers prevailed in 2003 when the Oklahoma Supreme Court unanimously rejected AFL-CIO union kingpins' demand that it overturn the law. Oklahoma's Private-Sector Compensation Growth Has Far Outpaced U.S. Average "Since Big Labor's legal assault on Oklahomans' Right to Work was thwarted, the state has had one of the strongest economies in the country, as measured by a number of key indicators," said Greg Mourad, vice president of the National Right to Work Committee. "For example, from 2003 to 2010, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show private-sector employer outlays for employee compensation, including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses, grew by 12.2% in Oklahoma, after adjusting for inflation. "Sooners' real private-sector compensation expanded at a rate more than three-and-a-half times as great as the national average of 3.4%, and faster than in 41 other states." Oklahoma Also a Standout For Job Creation
Big Labor's War on the Private Sector in Ohio and across the USA

Big Labor's War on the Private Sector in Ohio and across the USA

Stan Greer of the National Right to Work Committee comments on big labor's ongoing efforts to have taxpayers finance their growing payroll costs in Ohio: Over the past four decades, the share of Ohio private-sector employees' pay that is consumed by the Buckeye state's heavily unionized state and local government workforce payroll costs has soared dramatically. U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis data show Ohio's state and local government employee compensation (including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses) amounted to 11.2 percent of all compensation for private-sector employees in 1970. By 1990, the number had soared to 14.6 percent. Last year alone, total state and local compensation rose 7.7 percent, to $29.4 billion — or 17.3 percent of total compensation for private-sector employees. Ohioans' government employee spending burden grew vastly over the past 40 years even as the state's constituencies for several key services furnished by state and local employees shrank as a share of the total population. For example, in 1970, 26.4 percent of Ohio residents were K-12 school-aged (5-17 years-old). By 2010, just 17.4 percent of Ohio residents were in the same age bracket. As of 2010, 46.2 percent of the Buckeye state's public employees were laboring under a contract negotiated by union officials wielding monopoly bargaining power. By comparison, just 9 percent of Ohio's private-sector employees were unionized. Ohio is far from the only state in which business employees and employers are increasingly overburdened by a Big Labor-dominated government sector. But Ohio's private sector is having an especially hard time. While private employer expenditures for employee compensation increased by an inflation-adjusted 4.3 percent from 2000-2010 nationwide, Ohio businesses spent 6.6 percent less on employee compensation in 2010 than they had in 2000. Ohio is one of just five states with negative private-sector compensation growth over the past decade. All five of these economic laggards have something in common: They lack a right-to-work law protecting employees' freedom to refuse to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, without being fired as a consequence. In fact, 13 of the 14 states with the lowest 2000-2010 private-sector compensation growth don't have right-to-work laws. In the 22 states that have right-to-work laws in effect, real private employee compensation over the same period grew by an aggregate 11.3 percent — two-and-a-half times as much as the national average. Meanwhile, private-sector employees in 20 of the 22 right-to-work states experienced compensation growth above the national average. The best news Ohio business employees and employers have had in many years was the passage into law this spring of Senate Bill 5, a government reform package that includes provisions protecting the right to work for all state and local public employees. It also reduces the scope of government union officials' monopoly-bargaining privileges in several other ways. While a full-fledged right-to-work law would do much more to get Ohio back on track, Senate Bill 5 marks a significant step in the right direction. Nearly half of the forced dues-paying employees in Ohio are government workers. A huge chunk of the loot Big Labor rakes in from such workers goes into electioneering and lobbying efforts in support of union officials' tax-spend-and-regulate agenda — greatly impeding private-sector job and income growth. Over the course of the next few years, Senate Bill 5 can begin undoing the damage Big Labor has wrought on Ohio over the years — if union officials' ongoing, multimillion-dollar, forced dues-fueled campaign to overturn it is first thwarted.
Big Labor's War on the Private Sector in Ohio and across the USA

Big Labor's War on the Private Sector in Ohio and across the USA

Stan Greer of the National Right to Work Committee comments on big labor's ongoing efforts to have taxpayers finance their growing payroll costs in Ohio: Over the past four decades, the share of Ohio private-sector employees' pay that is consumed by the Buckeye state's heavily unionized state and local government workforce payroll costs has soared dramatically. U.S. Commerce Department's Bureau of Economic Analysis data show Ohio's state and local government employee compensation (including wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses) amounted to 11.2 percent of all compensation for private-sector employees in 1970. By 1990, the number had soared to 14.6 percent. Last year alone, total state and local compensation rose 7.7 percent, to $29.4 billion — or 17.3 percent of total compensation for private-sector employees. Ohioans' government employee spending burden grew vastly over the past 40 years even as the state's constituencies for several key services furnished by state and local employees shrank as a share of the total population. For example, in 1970, 26.4 percent of Ohio residents were K-12 school-aged (5-17 years-old). By 2010, just 17.4 percent of Ohio residents were in the same age bracket. As of 2010, 46.2 percent of the Buckeye state's public employees were laboring under a contract negotiated by union officials wielding monopoly bargaining power. By comparison, just 9 percent of Ohio's private-sector employees were unionized. Ohio is far from the only state in which business employees and employers are increasingly overburdened by a Big Labor-dominated government sector. But Ohio's private sector is having an especially hard time. While private employer expenditures for employee compensation increased by an inflation-adjusted 4.3 percent from 2000-2010 nationwide, Ohio businesses spent 6.6 percent less on employee compensation in 2010 than they had in 2000. Ohio is one of just five states with negative private-sector compensation growth over the past decade. All five of these economic laggards have something in common: They lack a right-to-work law protecting employees' freedom to refuse to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, without being fired as a consequence. In fact, 13 of the 14 states with the lowest 2000-2010 private-sector compensation growth don't have right-to-work laws. In the 22 states that have right-to-work laws in effect, real private employee compensation over the same period grew by an aggregate 11.3 percent — two-and-a-half times as much as the national average. Meanwhile, private-sector employees in 20 of the 22 right-to-work states experienced compensation growth above the national average. The best news Ohio business employees and employers have had in many years was the passage into law this spring of Senate Bill 5, a government reform package that includes provisions protecting the right to work for all state and local public employees. It also reduces the scope of government union officials' monopoly-bargaining privileges in several other ways. While a full-fledged right-to-work law would do much more to get Ohio back on track, Senate Bill 5 marks a significant step in the right direction. Nearly half of the forced dues-paying employees in Ohio are government workers. A huge chunk of the loot Big Labor rakes in from such workers goes into electioneering and lobbying efforts in support of union officials' tax-spend-and-regulate agenda — greatly impeding private-sector job and income growth. Over the course of the next few years, Senate Bill 5 can begin undoing the damage Big Labor has wrought on Ohio over the years — if union officials' ongoing, multimillion-dollar, forced dues-fueled campaign to overturn it is first thwarted.
New evidence

New evidence "Right To Work boon for Oklahoma"

Families are fleeing compulsory unionism states and moving to Right Work States like Oklahoma.  And, that is not all that is OKay in Oklahoma since it became the 22nd Right To Work state in 2001.  From a recent analysis by J. Scott Moody and Wendy P. Warcholik of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs: On September 25, 2001, Oklahoma voters went to the polls and passed a constitutional amendment—Right to Work (RTW)—which gave workers the choice to join or financially support a union. This made Oklahoma the 22nd state in the union to join the ranks of Right To Work states. Fast forward to today, and opponents of the law are still at work trying to discredit it. A recent study by the [Big Labor related] Economic Policy Institute (EPI), for example, claimed that Right To Work in Oklahoma has been a dismal failure. One of EPI’s most important pieces of evidence is that manufacturing employment is lower today than it was before Right To Work. [However,] the EPI study did not consider whether Oklahoma’s manufacturing industry may have chosen to boost productivity instead of hiring more workers. Chart 1 shows the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the manufacturing industry from 2003 to 2010 using a growth index. Oklahoma’s manufacturing GDP has grown 45 percent in that time period, outstripping that of the average manufacturing growth in in non-Right To Work states (22 percent).
New evidence "Right To Work boon for Oklahoma"

New evidence "Right To Work boon for Oklahoma"

Families are fleeing compulsory unionism states and moving to Right Work States like Oklahoma.  And, that is not all that is OKay in Oklahoma since it became the 22nd Right To Work state in 2001.  From a recent analysis by J. Scott Moody and Wendy P. Warcholik of the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs: On September 25, 2001, Oklahoma voters went to the polls and passed a constitutional amendment—Right to Work (RTW)—which gave workers the choice to join or financially support a union. This made Oklahoma the 22nd state in the union to join the ranks of Right To Work states. Fast forward to today, and opponents of the law are still at work trying to discredit it. A recent study by the [Big Labor related] Economic Policy Institute (EPI), for example, claimed that Right To Work in Oklahoma has been a dismal failure. One of EPI’s most important pieces of evidence is that manufacturing employment is lower today than it was before Right To Work. [However,] the EPI study did not consider whether Oklahoma’s manufacturing industry may have chosen to boost productivity instead of hiring more workers. Chart 1 shows the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the manufacturing industry from 2003 to 2010 using a growth index. Oklahoma’s manufacturing GDP has grown 45 percent in that time period, outstripping that of the average manufacturing growth in in non-Right To Work states (22 percent).