Right to Work Equals Jobs for Pennsylvania

2013-RTW-mapRight to Work will bring much needed jobs to Pennsylvania, Jack Markowitz correctly argues in the Pittsburgh Tribune:

Lacking the best ammunition, Pennsylvania is no sharpshooter at bagging new jobs, Matthew Wagner will tell you.

“We offer tax breaks,” he said. “Then we don’t see the tax benefits for years, if ever.”

There’s such an obviously better way, he says: Make Pennsylvania a “right-to-work” state. Like 24 others by now, as one by one, they have seen the light. Why else have foreign auto plants flocked to the Sun Belt, for example?

And what else but a right-to-work jurisdiction do most company decision-makers — 70 percent — say is the kind of place they’d prefer to locate?

To put it bluntly, it translates to weaker unions.

Workers can’t be forced to join a union as a job condition or to pay union dues, a growing political sticking point. Millions in dues collections get bundled to elect candidates favored by union leadership but not necessarily by Joe Lunchbox. And in Pennsylvania, compulsory dues collections approach a half-billion dollars a year.

All walks of life would prosper more if we went right-to-work, says Wagner.  Read more