Vague ‘Job Growth’ Talk Won’t Rescue Languishing Big Labor-Controlled States

Vague ‘Job Growth’ Talk Won’t Rescue Languishing Big Labor-Controlled States

(Source: November 2010 Forced-Unionism Abuses Exposed) Just a few months ago, millions of Americans were dismayed by reports, based on official U.S. Labor Department Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) data, that from 1999 through 2009 our country endured a “lost decade” in private-sector employment. In this context, the term “lost decade” refers to annual BLS statistics showing that in 2009 there were 107.95 million private-sector jobs nationwide, roughly 370,000 fewer than in 1999, when there were 108.32 million. Americans are right to be deeply concerned by such national data, but they can easily mislead us. Exactly half of the 50 states actually experienced a net gain in private-sector employment during the “lost decade,” and the five biggest absolute gainers, Arizona, Florida, Texas, Nevada, and Virginia, added a combined total of more than 1.6 million private-sector jobs. Meanwhile, California, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio, the five states shedding the most private-sector jobs, lost a net total of more than 1.9 million. The five biggest job gainers have one common characteristic: They all have Right to Work laws on the books that prohibit the firing of employees for refusal to join or pay compulsory fees to an unwanted union. Not one of the five biggest job losers has such a law. Consequently, workers in these states are routinely forced into a union as a job condition. Aggregate private-sector employment in the 22 Right to Work states increased by 3.7% during the “lost decade,” even as it fell by 2.8% in the 28 forced-unionism states. The sharp disparity is no coincidence. Leading labor economists such as Dr. Richard Vedder of Ohio University have shown repeatedly that forced unionism hinders job creation.

Good Advice

Labor can spend a billion dollars but the American people clearly rejected their scare tactics and messages.  Now, Bruce Walker has made a persuasive case in favor of pushing new Right To Work laws as a way to protecting workers, creating jobs and promoting prosperity: The 2010 landslide means that Republicans in the House can stop any new legislative initiatives by the Democrats and that Senate Republicans, if united, can stop almost anything Democrats want to do in that body as well. House Republicans can also send to the Senate bills that will put political pressure on Obama and Senate Democrats, like a complete extension of the Bush tax cuts. But at the federal level, Republicans cannot actually do anything without Democrats caving in.  The situation is very different at the state level. Republicans now control both houses of the state legislature and the governorship in a number of states. Republicans now have complete control of state government in twenty states compared to a paltry seven states before the midterm election. Crucially, Republicans now control all state government in five industrial rust belt states: Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. This control will allow Republicans to draw congressional districts and also, just as importantly, state legislative districts -- a real political blow to Democrats. Unlike the federal government, a party that actually controls the state legislature and governorship can enact laws -- the filibuster is an odd creature almost unique to the United States Senate. There are many things Republicans in control of state governments should do:  limit spending, cut tax rates, reduce regulation. But there is one reform that stout-hearted Republicans running those five rust belt states should definitely do: pass Right To Work laws. The Taft-Hartley Act allows each state the option of enacting right to work laws, which allow workers to not join a labor union as a condition of employment. Twenty-two states have adopted right to work laws, and these states closely resemble the twenty-two states that Obama lost in 2008. Although the leftist establishment media gets a disproportionate amount of attention from conservatives, along with risible "civil rights" leaders and surreally silly academicians, the real political muscle of the Left comes from organized labor -- meaning the bosses who run with those vast empires called "labor unions" and who use the forced dues from members to engage in constant war against conservatives.
Idahoans Commemorate Right to Work Anniversary

Idahoans Commemorate Right to Work Anniversary

Gem State Politicians Eager to Be Associated With Successful Law (Source: September 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) Back in the 1970's and 1980's, as they successfully pressed first for passage of a state law prohibiting forced union dues and fees, and then to prevent Big Labor from overturning this law in a statewide referendum, Idaho Right to Work activists had few friends in the political establishment. Last month, former National Committee President Reed Larson joined with grass-roots Right to Work activists and elected officials in Idaho to applaud the Gem State's 25-year-old ban on forced union dues and fees. Credit: Courtesy of Gary Glenn The Gem State's union-label Democratic governors during those decades, Cecil Andrus and John Evans, were unabashed cheerleaders for compulsory unionism. Meanwhile, establishment Republicans' relationship with the Right to Work movement was often frosty. For example, 1986 GOP gubernatorial nominee David Leroy tried to have it both ways during his campaign, announcing late in the game that he would oppose efforts to reinstate the then-fledgling Right to Work law if Big Labor succeeded in overturning it. (Ironically, this craven attempt at self-preservation probably cost Mr. Leroy the governorship.) Also in 1986, Republican James McClure, then Idaho's senior U.S. senator, poured cold water on both local and national pro-Right to Work efforts, publicly declaring: "I've urged Republicans not to raise the issue for years. I think it's a bad political issue for us, and it's a real motivational issue for the union people." But after Idahoans upheld their Right to Work law by a solid 54% to 46% margin on November 4, 1986, and also reelected their staunchly pro-Right to Work junior U.S. senator, Republican Steve Symms, on what was otherwise a bleak day for GOP U.S. Senate candidates, Mr. McClure admitted he had been wrong. Most Idaho Politicians Have Finally Decided to Stop Arguing With Success In 2010, 25 years after the Idaho Legislature overrode Gov. Evans's veto and adopted a state Right to Work law prohibiting the termination of workers for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, most of the Gem State's politicians have finally decided to stop arguing with success.