home state, Wisconsin, did something that
few people, myself included, ever thought
that it would do. Wisconsin became a
right-to-work state.
The Republican-controlled state legislature
drafted and passed the bill that would go on
to make the Badger State the twenty-fifth
state to become a right-to-work state,
and Republican Gov. Scott Walker
signed the bill into law on the aforementioned
Monday. Right-to-work laws do the following:
*It protects workers from having to join unions
and pay them for representation in order to
obtain or maintain employment. Wisconsin
workers never again need fear dismissal for
refusing to do so. This law protects their
right to freedom of association, a
constitutionally guaranteed right under the
First Amendment.
*It makes for a more conducive atmosphere
for job creation in states that enact them.
Right-to-work laws have, on average, made
for job growth that was 11.5% higher in
those states which enacted these laws than
in those states which have not done so in
the period from 1977 to 2012, according
to data from the Competitive Enterprise
Institute's Richard Vedder and Jonathan Robe,
takes into account factors such as population
growth and changes in employment in the
manufacturing sector. Their studies have
shown that, for instance, California's
per capita income would have been at least
$3,700 per annum greater in 2012 had it
had a right-to-work law since 1977.
More employers will seriously consider
moving to or expanding in right-to-work
states, while start-up businesses will
increase in these states; the opposite will
be the case with the states that don't have
these laws.
*The dollars in workers' wages in right-to
-work states go farther in purchasing
power than in non-right-to-work states.
Although union bosses and liberals
in general claim that right-to-work laws
decrease workers' wages and diminish
workers' standard of living, it is only
because they think that these laws are
the only factors that affect a state's
economy and its cost of living .
The research by Vedder and Robe
has been very thorough, and
consequently has shown that although
wages for some jobs in some right-to-work
states are lower on average, the resultant
low prices for goods and services produced
there make for a dollar that stretches farther
than in non-right-to-work states.
For example: In Mississippi, the median
wage is $13.57 per hour, while in New York
the median wage is $19.45. However, due
to the higher prices of goods and services
produced there, not to mention New York's
astronomic taxes, a dollar goes not nearly as
far for New York workers. Moreover, workers
can, in right-to-work states negotiate for
themselves higher wages and more generous
overall compensation packages because they
are not lumped together with all the other
workers at their company or in their job
category as unionized workers are. Workers
thus can sell their employers on their superior
job performance in bargaining for increased
compensation as well as for more plentiful
opportunities to ascend the company
ladder via promotions to position with
more pay and more responsibility, something
that is anathema to many unions. After all,
imagine their horror over one of their rank-
and-filers becoming (gasp!) management!
And furthermore, despite what union bosses
swear to be true, union membership has
fallen in greater numbers in states without
right-to-work laws than in those with them.
Vedder and Robe discovered that union-
member workers have diminished by 6%
in the former while declining only 4% in
the latter since 2007. The union chiefs
cry that right-to-work laws make it almost
impossible to organize workers in workplaces,
but all they do is give workers freedom of choice
as to whether or not pay money to get money.
And many American workers in union shop
jobs have complained in vain for many years
about their dues being spent on things that they
never were given a say in whether or not to
have their dues money so utilized; some of
these workers have subsequently been harassed
by their union officers for speaking out, some
of these have even been subjected to the threat
of violence. Funny how freedom of choice is
something that, for the most part, left-wingers
and their chums find so frightening that they
go all out to deny people that particular freedom
--- except when it comes to the matter of abortion.
And for these reasons, among others, many
people in states which have long-standing
union ties, with powerful unions calling the
shots in state legislatures and governors'
offices, such as Midwestern states
Michigan (the home of the United Auto
Workers), Indiana, and now Wisconsin have
pushed for and won passage of right-
to-work laws. Even some people who consider
themselves Democrats, or at least politically
left-of-center, have joined the movement to
broaden workers' freedom of choice in the
workplace. And for these very reasons unions
have become afraid; very afraid. As well they
should be, for this spells the end of their
political dominance and importance in the
economy and on our political scene, and the
beginning of a new and exciting era of
political and economic freedom for American
workers.
On, Wisconsin!
MEM
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