'Compulsory Unionism Continues to Impede Black Americans' Ability to Advance Economically'

Stacy Swimp, a resident of Michigan (which became the 24th and latest state to adopt a Right to Work law just over a month ago) and the president of the Frederick Douglass Society, has published a fine op-ed today decrying cynical efforts by Big Labor  and its allies to “sow racial division” over such statutes, which simply prohibit the firing of employees for refusal to pay union dues or fees.  As Swimp points out (quoting Yale law professor Ralph Winter), during the 1960’s “the political power of unions . . . delayed and impeded antidiscrimination efforts . . . .”  And today, Swimp charges, “compulsory unionism continues to impede black Americans’ ability to advance economically.”  No wonder blacks (along with people of other races) are fleeing forced-unionism states in droves:

. . . U.S. Census Bureau data indicate that Americans of all races are “voting with their feet” in vast numbers against compulsory unionism.  This is actually true to an even greater degree of black Americans.

From 2000 to 2010, the black population of the U.S. increased by 12.3 percent, or 4.27 million.  But 70 percent of the overall increase occurred in the 22 states that had right to work laws on the books at the time, even though slightly fewer than half of all black Americans resided in them in 2000.  (Since Indiana and Michigan became the 23rd and 24th right-to-work states in 2012, they are counted as forced-unionism states in this analysis.)

In other words, from 2000 to 2010 right-to-work states’ black population increased by 17.4 percent, well over double the 7.6 percent increase for forced-unionism states as a group. The 9.8 percentage point advantage in black population growth in right-to-work states even outpaced the 9.0 percentage point edge right-to-work states registered in white population growth.

Guest view of Stacy Swimp: Right to work works for Black Americans