Posted on 08/31/2007 3:25:16 AM PDT by Big Labor Hater
Why America needs a national right-to-work law editorials and opinion By DEROY MURDOCK Scripps Howard News Service Thursday, August 30, 2007
Americans will skip work Monday to celebrate what really should be called Leisure Day. But this Labor Day, an estimated 7.2 million privately employed Americans (and even more public-sector workers) could relax more thoroughly if they were not compelled to join labor unions and/or pay union dues as job requirements. That's why the time is now for the National Right to Work Act.
Rep. Joe Wilson and Sen. Jim DeMint, both South Carolina Republicans, have sponsored legislation to restore Americans' right to choose whether to join unions and to pay union dues.
"The National Right to Work Act simply erases the forced-dues clauses in the (1935) National Labor Relations Act and (1926) Railway Labor Act without adding a single letter to federal law," Wilson told House colleagues as he introduced his measure last January.
"Passage of this bill would return to working Americans the freedom of choice that never should have been stripped from them in the first place. Furthermore, passage of the National Right to Work Act would dramatically increase both the freedom and the prosperity of all Americans." Wilson's bill features 83 House co-sponsors.
Beyond the boost in individual liberty that Wilson and DeMint advocate, abundant evidence demonstrates that America's 22 right-to-work (RTW) states significantly outperform the overall U.S. economy, while forced-unionism states trail both.
-- For instance, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that between 1982 and 2004, manufacturing establishments expanded 4.5 percent in RTW states. While they shrank 5.3 percent nationwide, they shriveled in forced-unionism states: down 9.3 percent.
-- From 1995 to 2005, private, non-farm employment advanced 20.2 percent in RTW states, ahead of the 14.5 percent national average and 11.3 percent hike in forced-unionism states.
-- RTW states saw $50,571 average, real household income in metropolitan areas in 2002. That year, the $48,310 U.S. figure trumped its $46,431 counterpart in Big Labor states.
-- In 2004, 71 percent of households in RTW states owned their homes, versus 69 percent across the USA, and 68 percent in mandatory-unionism states.
-- RTW residents more broadly enjoy medical coverage. Between 1995 and 2005, the Census Bureau reports, the number of individuals carrying private health insurance climbed 11.9 percent in those states. The 7 percent national average once again outstripped the 4.4 percent increase in compulsory-unionism states. Meanwhile, the number of children with private insurance rose 9.3 percent in RTW states and 2.9 percent, on average, across America. But in forced-union states, the number of boys and girls with private coverage actually slipped 0.5 percent.
So, do RTW laws catalyze greater prosperity, or are RTW states the kinds of jurisdictions that cut taxes, deregulate, preserve property rights and otherwise encourage capitalism? More pastorally, are RTW laws the animal feed that fattens the chickens, or are they the roosters that believe their crowing summons the sunrise?
"States with right-to-work laws tend strongly to have other pro-growth policies," says Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee (nrtw.org). "But right-to-work laws themselves play a very important role in fostering a good climate, both for enacting other pro-growth policies in the first place and for maintaining them in the face of strong opposition from Big Labor."
Mix adds that in non-RTW states, "union campaign operatives use a huge chunk of the forced dues they grab to elect politicians who are beholden to Big Labor's agenda of higher taxes, more government spending and straight-jacket regulation of business."
Conversely, Mix maintains, union bosses in RTW states lack access to compulsory dues, thus limiting their spending and activity to promote statist politicians and policies.
Nevertheless, and especially on this holiday, Big Labor still sings the praises of unionism.
"More than 97 percent of union workers have jobs that provide health-insurance benefits, but only 85 percent of nonunion workers do," the AFL-CIO crows. "Unions help employers create a more stable, productive work force -- where workers have a say in improving their jobs."
These are appealing arguments. Union bosses should have enough faith in themselves and what Big Labor offers that they can attract U.S. employees through persuasion rather than coercion.
That is all the National Right to Work Act asks.
(New York commentator Deroy Murdock is a columnist with Scripps Howard News Service and a media fellow with the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace at Stanford University. E-mail him at deroy.murdock(at)gmail.com.)
Unions were once needed. They became greedy and tried to bankrupt the business they worked for. The business moved to the right to work states where they payed lower wages and improved profit margins. The business then got greedy and petitioned the government to open the borders to pay even cheaper wages or moved to China.
Laws can be changed too easily.
Is there a bad side to a RTW law? I don't know nearly enough workplace law (even anecdotes) to comment. I know I work in an RTW state as a teacher and the unions here have little to no power, more a trade organization. The NEA is only strong in the heavily Democratic areas.
Can anyone with knowledge on RTW vs At will shed some light on this?
Since RTW was voted in many workers would blame the RTW law for every thing the company does that they don’t like. They claim that our RTW law included all kinds of oppressive powers for businesses that they didn’t have before.
I thought I understood that RTW here simply made joining a union optional. I strongly support this, and when union supporters whine about it undermining union’s effectiveness and membership I support it even more.
I study up on these subjects so I can discuss them accurately most of the time, but I couldn’t find details about this.
Could someone tell me if our RTW law here in Oklahoma did change any other workplace rules, or just basically made the membership optional. Or tell me where to browse to find out. Lots of sites tell you about Right-to-work, but I want to find out about Oklahoma’s law specifically.
Thanks.
Unions are dead in the US. It doesn’t matter as all Manufacturing can be done cheaper overseas.
A large part of what the Republicans blew when they had control.
Is there anything that prevents them from moving to a different employer? I mean, if you don't like it, move on. Too many folks in this country seem to forget who the job belongs to, i.e., the employer, not the employee......
Leave it to the states.
The old right to work for less movement never dies but it lies.
I think such a measure is best addressed state by state, not as a federal matter.
Why is this a Federal issue?
(The needed “right to work” laws are for government employees. Nah, let’s just criminalize government employee unions.)
Parasitic socialists disdain freedom of choice. They want CONTROL of individuals, productivity, life.
Yes, it is a Federal infringement on a state's rights. The Fed's would be correct if they pass a law affecting forced membership in a union for Federal employees. Beyond that, it is the Fed's taking power from the states. The reasoning doesn't make it right. If a state wants the economic benefit of RTW the people of that state can approve it.
I understand the negativity of the Feds demanding this - but is there a downside to the RTW concept?
Sorry, that doesn’t work when you consider the equal protection clause of the constitution that so many liberal lawyers are eager to invoke. If as a citizen of the USA I am promised equal treatment before the law, then the law (Federal/State/Local) cannot enfranchise/disenfranchise any particular group vis a vie another. Simply stated, individuals in Union states are treated as a second class citizens in preference to union members. This is simple discrimination by the state. The reason the state practices this discrimination is simply because the unions are easiest source of fast cash for campaign donations. Theorectically, the constitution protects the minority from the majority relative to individual rights. In union states this is ignored. Either you are for equality or you are not. The union states are clearly not interested in treating its citizens equally.
The preponderance of evidence indicates that a state's economy prospers when RTW is the state law. On the other hand, the economies of the "Rust Belt" states where private sector unions wield inordinate power are in the tank.
I am happy to live in a state, Texas, with RTW. I am happy to have left a state, Michigan, where unions were trashing the economy. I have family and friends in Michigan. I would never dream of taking away thier right to continue to trash their economy. They have the democratic right to act stupid.
Your “states’ rights” concept is totally wrong.
The federal government imposed forced unionism on the states with the passage of the 1935 National Labor Relations Act and the 1920s Railway Relations Act.
A National Right to Work Act would simply delete a number of lines from those two laws and most importantly remove the federal authorization for forcing workers to pay dues to a union. After its passage, then a state could pass a law imposing forced unionism on citizens. But, as it stands right now, the federal government has imposed forced unionism on the states.
Sure, any state as of now can pass a RTW law, but, shouldn’t a worker in a state have the right to work. Forced unionism is imposed on the states by the federal government.
This bill takes power away from the federal government by stripping forced dues authorization from those two 1920s and 1930s pieces of legislation.
It just made union membership optional. No laws were changed to give employer's more control over workers. The Right-to-Work movement took about twenty years to get passed, and I still remember going to the Oklahoma State Fair and seeing the unions give out yardsticks and plastic bags stating how RTW would crush worker's benefits.
When the GM (General Motors) plant in Oklahoma City finally shut down for good, public sympathy was minimal. It used to be that people were concerned about the GM worker's annual temporary layoffs, but the vile stuff spouted by the unions over the years and awareness about the incredibly generous benefits the GM workers had been receiving shut the sympathy down quick this time. It was understood that the UAW had made plant unprofitable to operate. (That and the fact that the unions had made GM cars too expensive to sell well.)
We live in a free country. If employees feel they are being abused by their employers, they are free to look for better opportunities. Finding another job is not easy, but life can be hard sometimes. Real men and women rise to the challenge.
(Side note: I was in the Teamsters for awhile. Everybody got semi-annual raises, regardless of whether they were good or crappy at their jobs. The union reps would come by practically begging someone to say something bad about their managers so the reps would have something to do. We were treated fine, and had no complaints. Reps would get pissed.)
I agree that this is a state issue and should not be federalized.
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