Will Congress Hand Big Labor More Power to Punish Professional Firemen Who Also Volunteer?

Sooner State No Longer Exporting Young Employees and Entrepreneurs to Other States

On September 25, 2001, a Right to Work Amendment to the Oklahoma Constitution was adopted. Oklahoma is the 22nd and, at this writing, the latest state to enact a Right to Work law. Oklahoma’s Right to Work law, which bars the extraction of forced union dues and fees from workers as a condition of employment, was the product of years of concentrated effort by thousands of citizens.

When Oklahoma Right to Work legislation was introduced back in 1993, it was supported by just 34 of 101 state representatives and 12 of 48 state senators. Because of Big Labor’s huge clout in Oklahoma City, the forced-unionism status quo seemed to be unassailable. The tide turned only because, from the 1994 through the 2000 elections, 28 pro-forced unionism legislators who had refused to change their positions were replaced by Right to Work supporters.

Almost immediately after the Sooner Right to Work law was adopted, union bosses, who had up to then been shrilly predicting that such a law would swiftly lead to disaster, moved to prevent the law from having any impact at all. When the Right to Work law had been in effect just seven weeks, Big Labor lawyers launched an underhanded bid to overturn it. This legal attack kept the Right to Work law’s future under a cloud for more than two years.

For many years, U.S. Labor Department data have shown that states with Right to Work laws on the books have far faster private-sector job growth than states that do not protect employees from federal policies authorizing the termination of workers for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union.

Between 1996 and 2006, private-sector jobs in Right to Work states increased by a net 19.8%. That’s an 87% greater increase than the relatively small increase in private-sector jobs experienced by non-Right to Work states over this period. (See the tables on pages three and four for details. Oklahoma, which adopted its Right to Work law in 2001, is excluded from this calculation. However, between 2003, when the Sooner Supreme Court rejected two Big Labor lawsuits designed to overturn the Right to Work law, and 2006, Oklahoma job growth was 6.1%, well over half again as fast as in non-Right to Work states.)

The Right to Work job-growth advantage becomes even more critical in times when the national economy is recovering from a recession.

Over the five years from 2001 to 2006, private-sector jobs in forced-dues states barely increased at all. Over this entire period, private-sector employment went from 68.41 million to 69.25 million, a gain of just 1.2%. Meanwhile, private-sector jobs in Right to Work states increased by 2.6 million, or 6.3%, between 2001 and 2006. (Since Oklahoma was a Right to Work state for the entire period, this time it is included.)

‘Tax Freedom Day’ Comes 10 Days Earlier in States That Bar All Forced Union Fees

Iowans most recently celebrated “Tax Freedom Day” on April 18, 2006. For Americans as a group, last year Tax Freedom Day came eight days later than in Iowa, on April 26.

The term Tax Freedom Day was coined and popularized by the nonpartisan, Washington, D.C.-based Tax Foundation. As a 2006 Tax Foundation press release explained, it is “the day when Americans … finally have earned enough money to pay off their total [federal, state and local] tax burden for the year.”

Monitoring when Tax Freedom Day falls is an easy way to gauge the American citizen’s heavy tax burden, which on average comprises nearly a third of his or her income. However, residents of different states often have tax burdens that are significantly less or more onerous than the national average.

More than 11 years ago, union operatives submitted an internal report to the AFL-CIO Executive Council that assessed how Big Labor might destroy existing state Right to Work laws and stymie the National Right to Work Committee’s increasingly effective efforts to pass new laws. [..]

‘Freedom to Associate of Necessity Means as Well Freedom Not to Associate’

Constitutional scholars and the man in the street alike understand that any genuine personal right must include the freedom to refrain from exercising that right. That’s why the First Amendment guarantee of freedom of the press doesn’t just bar Congress from forbidding a newspaper to publish a particular opinion. It also bars Congress from ordering a newspaper to publish that opinion.

The Supreme Court of Maine succinctly stated this fundamental principle in its 1955 Pappas v. Stacey decision: “Freedom to associate of necessity means as well freedom not to associate.” But federal labor law, like many state laws that are modeled after it, doesn’t protect employees’ freedom in the commonly accepted sense of the word. It recognizes the right to join a union. At the same time, however, it authorizes and promotes the firing of employees for refusal to join or pay dues to a union that is certified by government bureaucrats as their “exclusive” (actually, monopoly) bargaining agent.

Twenty-two states have laws that apply the right-to-refrain principle to labor-management relations. These laws, known as Right to Work laws, bar the firing of employees for favoring a union or for refusing to join or pay dues to a union. If a worker’s freedom to affiliate with a union merits government protection (and the overwhelming consensus is that it does), then the freedom not to affiliate with a union must be equally protected.

An Ohio Right to Work law would deter the exploitation of employees as a means to anyone’s end by protecting employees from both employers and union officials who would deny them freedom of association.

There is overwhelming evidence that Right to Work laws are economically beneficial. Here’s how David Littmann, the former senior vice president and chief economist for the Detroit-based Comerica Bank and current senior economist for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, summed up the evidence this February in testimony before the Michigan House Tax Committee on Restructuring: “Economic growth in right-to-work states has so convincingly and consistently eclipsed the average growth for non-right-to-work states that it makes the whole argument for workplace flexibility a non-controversial subject.”

Between 1995 and 2005, U.S. Department of Labor data show private-sector job growth in Right to Work states exceeded private-sector job growth in non-Right to Work states as a group by 79% and in Ohio alone by nearly 500%. Over the same period, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show real personal income growth in Right to Work states exceeded overall personal income growth in non-Right to Work states by 39% and exceeded Ohio’s meager increase by 142%. Meanwhile, U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that, from 1994 to 2004, the number of citizens covered by private health insurance grew by 11.5% in Right to Work states, slightly more than double the aggregate growth in non-Right to Work states. In Ohio, over the same period, the ranks of the privately insured actually declined by 0.2%.

State Right to Work laws have a long track record of helping below-average economies turn into economic leaders. The experiences of the two states that most recently enacted Right to Work laws, Idaho and Oklahoma, are good examples.

In the decade before its Right to Work law first took effect in 1986, Idaho’s employment growth was barely more than half the national average, according to the U.S. Labor Department. But over the past two decades, Right to Work Idaho repeatedly topped the nation in job creation. Between 1995 and 2005, private-sector jobs in Idaho increased by a net 30.3%, more than double the nationwide figure and nearly ninefold Ohio’s paltry job growth.

Oklahoma’s economic performance was also sub-par before its Right to Work law was approved in 2001. In the decade leading up to the law’s enactment, real personal income growth in the Sooner State was six percent below the national average. However, since the state Supreme Court unanimously rejected two Big Labor lawsuits designed to overturn the Right to Work law in December 2003, thus reassuring businesses and individuals it would remain on the books, Oklahoma’s economic picture has gotten brighter and brighter.

From the first quarter of 2005 through the first quarter of 2006, real personal income in Oklahoma grew by 2.9% — roughly double the national average and nearly three times as fast as the overall average of the 28 forced-dues states. According to the U.S. Commerce Department, personal income in the Sooner State is now growing faster than in every single forced-dues state. A wide array of businesses have recently made or announced major new investments in Oklahoma.

For example, this June, Mercury MerCruiser, a manufacturer of stern-drive marine engines, broke ground on a 23,000-square-foot expansion of its die-casting operations in Stillwater, Okla. The $13.5 million expansion is adding new jobs for machinists and die-cast operators. And in July, the newly formed MG Motors announced it was reviving the famous British MG brand, with headquarters in Oklahoma City. Assembly and distribution will be located in Ardmore, and research and development will be in Norman at the University of Oklahoma. MG Motors will create hundreds of jobs with a payroll in excess of $30 million.

Federally-sanctioned forced union dues have predictable economic consequences. Among them are Big Labor’s use of rigid work rules and cultivation of the “hate the boss” mentality to cement its power over employees. Right to Work laws protect the freedom of both private- and public-sector employees to keep and hold a job without forking over dues or fees to a union that is recognized as their monopoly- bargaining agent.

Unless they are protected by a state Right to Work law, independent-minded employees have no power to fight back against greedy and tyrannical union bosses by withholding their financial support. And when employees have no personal freedom of choice, union bosses have little incentive to tone down their class warfare. Employees are consequently far less likely to reach their full productive potential and reap the accompanying benefits.

That’s a key reason why almost every economic and demographic indicator shows that forced union dues inhibit growth, and why Wachovia Vice President and Senior Economist Mark Vitner told Site Selection magazine in 2004 that Right to Work laws are “vitally important” for economic development.

Legislators in economically lagging Ohio will be gravely remiss if they do not, in the near future, consider enactment of state Right to Work legislation, which will protect the individual employee’s freedom and, history indicates, bring major economic benefits.

# # #

Nothing here is to be construed as an attempt to aid or hinder the passage of any bill before any legislative body.

Just since 2000, an estimated net total of 637,000 young Americans who are now 21-30 years old have relocated from a state in which employees may be fired for refusal to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union to a state with a Right to Work law that prohibits such unjust firings.

Forced Unionism Reduces Employers’ Ability to Furnish Pension Coverage

Forced-unionism apologists often concede that job growth, both overall and private-sector in particular, is far more brisk in Right to Work states than in non-Right to Work states. But after making such concessions, they invariably claim that the jobs created in Right to Work states aren’t good jobs with good benefits.

However, data compiled by the Washington, D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in a long-term, ongoing study of the trends in private-sector pension access in the 50 states debunk one of

For many years, U.S. Labor Department data have shown that states with Right to Work laws on the books have far faster private-sector job growth than states that do not protect employees from federal policies authorizing the termination of workers for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union.