Taxpayers Fleeing Forced-Unionism States

Taxpayers Fleeing Forced-Unionism States

Mark Mix: Forced unionism is "an economic albatross for many states and for America as a whole." Credit FOXBusiness.com National Right to Work Law Could Finally Stop the Hemorrhaging (Source:  January 2012 National Right to Work Committee Newsletter) Perhaps the single most effective tool for measuring the long-term, ongoing migration of taxpayers and income out of forced-unionism states and into Right to Work states is furnished by the Statistics of Income (SOI) division of the IRS. And today any interested person can easily access SOI data through a data bank maintained on the web site of the Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation. Forced-Unionism States Are Losing Massive Amounts of Income as Well as People The SOI records the number of personal income tax filers who move (typically with their dependents, if they have any) across state lines, based on address changes shown on individual tax returns. The SOI data are arranged according to the year taxes are filed. For example, data for the Tax Filing Year 2010 show that a total of 1.35 million personal income tax filers were residing that year in a Right to Work state after residing somewhere else in the U.S. the previous year.
Rouge NRLB Blocking Probe

Rouge NRLB Blocking Probe

House Government Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) accused the National Labor Relations Board of being a “rogue agency” in a letter to its general counsel Monday. The chairman claimed the NLRB knowingly withheld damaging documents relating to his committee’s probe of the agency’s controversial Boeing complaint, the Investors Business Daily Reports: Issa was referring to a cache of emails obtained earlier this month by the watchdog group Judicial Watch through the Freedom of Information Act. He expressed anger that the emails were not turned over to his committee first and said the messages demonstrated the agency’s lack of impartiality. He further alleged that some of them contradicted claims NLRB staffers made as part of his committee’s probe. NLRB spokeswoman Nancy Cleland said the agency had not withheld the emails. She said that the committee’s requests and the FOIA requests that produced the emails were handled separately by different people and that caused confusion. “Because the documents were being produced on separate tracks, the Committee had not yet received some materials at the time they were provided to Judicial Watch. It is the Agency’s intent to provide those materials as part of its next, and fourth, delivery of documents later this week,” Cleland said in a statement to IBD, adding that in the future the committee requests will be given priority over FOIA requests. The 505 pages of emails do not contain especially startling revelations. For the most part, the NLRB staffers appear to be very circumspect in their messages to each other. There are several redacted sections, most citing FOIA exceptions for privacy and attorney work product. Nevertheless in several cases NLRB staffers do offer some personal commentary on the Boeing case and the effect is not unlike listening in at the watercooler. Those messages show the staff to be enthused at the prospect of bringing the aerospace giant to heel and disdainful of their critics on the case. At the time of the Boeing case, its chairwoman was Wilma Liebman, a former Teamsters lawyer. Obama had also appointed former Service Employees International Union lawyer Craig Becker to the five-member board. Only one board member was a Republican.“The unprecedented NLRB decision to attack Boeing seemed abusive on its face and cried out for further investigation. And we suspected it was done at the behest of union interests and not the public interest. The pro-union email traffic we uncovered confirm this,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton, in an email to IBD. NLRB attorney, John Mantz, forwarded Willen a link to a Wall Street Journal op-ed by South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley. The GOP governor was criticizing Obama and his “union-beholden appointees at the National Labor Relations Board” for launching “a direct assault on the 22 right-to-work states across America.”“Deb, have you seen this?” Mantz wrote. Willen didn’t apparently respond, but did forward the link to another attorney, Jayme Sophir, who gave a one-word response: “Ugh.”
Right to Work Bill Introduced in U.S. House

Right to Work Bill Introduced in U.S. House

Rep. Steve King is lead sponsor of H.R.2040, the House version of the National Right to Work Act. Credit: Congressman King’s Office Would Bar Firing Employees For Refusal to Bankroll Unwanted Union (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) With their hopes buoyed by the passage earlier this year of two new state laws barring the extraction of forced union dues from public servants in Wisconsin and Ohio, pro-Right to Work Americans are now preparing to take the offensive in the U.S. Congress. "National Right to Work Committee members and their grass-roots allies in the Badger and Buckeye States stunned Big Labor in March when they successfully lobbied for legislation removing government union bosses' forced-dues privileges," recalled Committee Vice President Mary King. "Now it's time for Committee members and supporters nationwide to show we can lobby just as effectively in support of legislation that would repeal federally-imposed forced union dues and fees." S.504 and H.R.2040 Would Repeal Federally-Imposed Forced Union Dues Ms. King continued: "When it comes to private-sector forced unionism, Congress is the culprit.
Right to Work Good For Pay and Benefits

Right to Work Good For Pay and Benefits

By prohibiting compulsory union dues, state Right to Work laws spur the growth of private-sector employee compensation in the form of wages, salaries, benefits and bonuses, as well as employment growth. Sources: U.S. Commerce Department, U.S. Labor Department Private-Sector Compensation Growth Lags in Forced-Unionism States (Source: June 2011 NRTWC Newsletter) Even union bosses and their apologists sometimes grudgingly admit that long-term private-sector job growth in states that currently have Right to Work laws on the books far outpaces job growth in states that lack such pro-employee statutes. This fact is indeed hard to deny. From 1990 to 2010, according to the U.S. Labor Department, private-sector payrolls in Right to Work states soared by 32.0% -- an increase triple that of forced-union-dues states combined. Over the past decade alone, nationwide private-sector employment fell by 3.3% due to the impact of the severe 2008-2009 recession. But Right to Work states experienced an overall private-sector job increase, while forced-unionism states suffered a 5.5% aggregate job loss. Big Labor tries to downplay the significance of Right to Work states' large, persistent employment-growth advantage by suggesting that the jobs created outside of forced unionism's dominion are "the wrong kind." Unfortunately for union propagandists, however, U.S. Commerce Department data show that Right to Work states also enjoy a large, persistent advantage over forced-unionism states with regard to growth of private-sector employee compensation (including wages, salaries, bonuses and benefits). Real Compensation Grew Nine Times as Much Over Past Decade In Right to Work States
DeMint continues sounding alarm about NLRB's attempted Boeing Coup d'état

DeMint continues sounding alarm about NLRB's attempted Boeing Coup d'état

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint takes on the NLRB again his Human Events column: Like so many federal programs, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has expanded its mission far beyond its original purpose in order to wage ideological battles on the taxpayers’ dime. The NLRB was never meant to micromanage where companies can locate or how many products they can manufacture, as the NLRB under the Obama administration is currently seeking to do. To stop it, Congress should exercise its power of the purse to return the board to its original mission. The NLRB was originally established to oversee union elections and investigate violations of federal labor laws. These days it’s doing less of that than ever. In 1980, the NLRB conducted 8,531 union elections around the country, with a budget of $108 million. In 2009, it oversaw only 1,704 union elections, with a budget of $261 million. Union membership has plummeted by more than 40% since the 1980s. The rapid collapse of organized labor in America’s private sector has reduced the need for union elections—and thus, the NLRB itself—by 80% over the last three decades. Yet its budget—adjusted for inflation—remains essentially unchanged. Hence the board’s recent drift into freelance assaults on economic freedom: While 20% of its budget may be needed to perform its real job, the board seems to be misusing the other 80% for ideological mischief. The current NLRB is expanding its mission far beyond the original intent. Consider what Craig Becker, an NLRB appointee who was rejected by the Senate and then recess-appointed by President Obama, has said. “Just as U.S. citizens cannot opt against having a congressman, workers should not be able to choose against having a union as theirmonopoly-bargaining agent.” Not only has the NLRB launched an unprecedented attack on right-to-work states and job creators, it is now actively silencing nonunion workers in order to give unions a leg up in its legal case against The Boeing Company. This branch of the federal government, charged with protecting workers' rights, is suing a company on behalf of workers who are not in danger of losing their jobs, while refusing to listen to the concerns of three workers whose jobs actually are threatened by the NLRB's own actions. And the NLRB is now suing two states, Arizona and South Dakota, in an effort to overturn democratically passed laws that protect a worker's right to a secret ballot in those states. The NLRB is actually taking the stance that union bosses should be able to force workers to sign cards in public to join a union, a practice known as "card check," instead of making the decision in private without fear of intimidation. This is not enforcement—this is extremism.
DeMint continues sounding alarm about NLRB's attempted Boeing Coup d'état

DeMint continues sounding alarm about NLRB's attempted Boeing Coup d'état

South Carolina Sen. Jim DeMint takes on the NLRB again his Human Events column: Like so many federal programs, the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has expanded its mission far beyond its original purpose in order to wage ideological battles on the taxpayers’ dime. The NLRB was never meant to micromanage where companies can locate or how many products they can manufacture, as the NLRB under the Obama administration is currently seeking to do. To stop it, Congress should exercise its power of the purse to return the board to its original mission. The NLRB was originally established to oversee union elections and investigate violations of federal labor laws. These days it’s doing less of that than ever. In 1980, the NLRB conducted 8,531 union elections around the country, with a budget of $108 million. In 2009, it oversaw only 1,704 union elections, with a budget of $261 million. Union membership has plummeted by more than 40% since the 1980s. The rapid collapse of organized labor in America’s private sector has reduced the need for union elections—and thus, the NLRB itself—by 80% over the last three decades. Yet its budget—adjusted for inflation—remains essentially unchanged. Hence the board’s recent drift into freelance assaults on economic freedom: While 20% of its budget may be needed to perform its real job, the board seems to be misusing the other 80% for ideological mischief. The current NLRB is expanding its mission far beyond the original intent. Consider what Craig Becker, an NLRB appointee who was rejected by the Senate and then recess-appointed by President Obama, has said. “Just as U.S. citizens cannot opt against having a congressman, workers should not be able to choose against having a union as theirmonopoly-bargaining agent.” Not only has the NLRB launched an unprecedented attack on right-to-work states and job creators, it is now actively silencing nonunion workers in order to give unions a leg up in its legal case against The Boeing Company. This branch of the federal government, charged with protecting workers' rights, is suing a company on behalf of workers who are not in danger of losing their jobs, while refusing to listen to the concerns of three workers whose jobs actually are threatened by the NLRB's own actions. And the NLRB is now suing two states, Arizona and South Dakota, in an effort to overturn democratically passed laws that protect a worker's right to a secret ballot in those states. The NLRB is actually taking the stance that union bosses should be able to force workers to sign cards in public to join a union, a practice known as "card check," instead of making the decision in private without fear of intimidation. This is not enforcement—this is extremism.
Right To Work = Jobs

Right To Work = Jobs

BMW plans to expand in Right To Work state of South Carolina As politicians are seeking jobs through stimulus programs, spending sprees, welfare, food stamp programs and bureaucratic mandates, many ignore the upshot enactment of a Right to Work law can have on job creation for fear of angering their big labor benefactors. But the evidence continues to compound that giving workers a choice in joining a union is not only a civil rights issue but an economic growth issue. The Washington Examiner gets it: "Danaher’s closing,” said Rep. Richard Neal, D-Mass., lamenting the loss of a plant that had employed 330 people in his state. “Now those jobs are going to Arkansas and to Texas.” It was April 2005. Neal was taking the opportunity during a House committee hearing on competition with China to complain instead about how Massachusetts was losing jobs to states with less-hostile business climates. The Ways and Means Committee chairman in 2005, California Republican Bill Thomas, mildly rebuked Neal’s deviation from the topic, saying Massachusetts had shot itself in the foot with high taxes and compulsory union membership. “At some point perhaps the good citizens of Massachusetts will pick up the drift,” Thomas said.