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Right-to-work states and job creation
Thomas Molitor
There is a growing body of evidence showing that right-to-work (RTW) states enjoy faster economic and employment growth than non-RTW states. There are 22 states in the union that have adopted RTW laws, and New Mexico is not one of them.
“Right-to-work” laws ban the practice of requiring union membership as a condition of employment. This right is assured by Section 14(b) of the Federal Labor Management Relations Act (better known as the Taft-Hartley Act) of 1947. Since 1947, 22 states have adopted RTW laws.
Between 1995 and 2005, private-sector jobs in RTW states increased by a net 20.2 percent. That’s a 79 percent increase over private-sector jobs experienced by non-RTW states over this period.
Right-to-work states allow citizens to decide whether they want to join a union and prohibit discrimination against those who don’t. By ensuring membership in unions as voluntary, RTW has allowed companies in RTW states such as our neighbor, Texas, to attract and retain companies that create good jobs at a much faster pace than New Mexico.
Am I building an anti-union argument here? No, quite the contrary. What could be more fundamental than the freedom to associate with other men and women, or not to associate, as each man and woman’s conscience and reason dictates?
Of course unions should be allowed to exist, as long as they are voluntary agreements between people involved. In fact, we don’t need more regulations on unions and on employers and employees. We need fewer regulations on the kinds of employment agreements people can reach, and allow people to choose whom they wish as their representative, if they so choose.
Freedom of choice is a far better system. If a worker feels the union can represent them and they agree with the politics (or do not care), they are free to join the union. Likewise, an employee can choose not to join a union at all.
In fact, a freer market will open up, giving employees a choice of which union will best represent their interests with the dues they pay.
But at every stage the agreements should be voluntary. Employees should be free to join or not to join, and employers should be free to bargain with unions or not. Let freedom of choice and a more competitive market sort out value. The free and open market, not the heavy, restrictive hand of the government, will determine the best employment atmosphere, allowing for maximum freedom for employers and employees.
As it happens, right-to-work states have higher disposable income and faster economic growth. They create more jobs, and have more income equality and lower poverty rates than non-RTW states.
For these reasons, I am strongly in favor of New Mexico becoming a right-to-work state.
As always, the principle of liberty and freedom will provide the maximum number of opportunities and options for New Mexicans in determining their destiny.
Molitor is a Republican candidate for the state House of Representatives, District 23.
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macquigg, we agree on Michael Sanchez, Linda Lopez and Speaker Lujan, but Ken Martinez challenged Lujan for the speaker’s position (forget which year–2009?) and Denish sent a Senate bill to Richardson once that he was trying to duck and got slapped down for it. That’s all I can think of at the moment.
Republicans against ethical reform? Can’t think of any examples at the moment, but Rep Dennis Kintigh is a good example of the corruption of the system. He beat Dan Foley in a $230,000 primary, most of his money was from 5–6 oilmen. But Dennis is really a pretty nice guy, he’s the one trying to end the corporate welfare for the film industry. I wouldn’t trust him on energy bills though.
BTW one of the reasons, from my birds-eye point of view, that Republicans were willing to desert Foley, besides the incident on the basketball court, is because he (and Sen Adair) lobbied Richardson to save the Dean Baldwin Paint company, which was hiring illegal workers AND not paying the city of Roswell back the loans it was given. They got a 5-year extension on the loan payback. Rabid R’s consider that consorting with the enemy. I consider it to be more corporate welfare. Run government like a business? Hah!
Wedum,
Very well, Democrat Senator John Arthur Smith. I am sure there are others, but it is very early in the morning, and I am yet to finish my first cup of coffee.
The part you don’t seem to understand is that I would have nearly as hard of a time naming Republicans I respect, as Democrats. An alarmingly small number of them are actually willing to get their noses bloodied in the fight over standards, accountability and transparency. I will say their resistance is more passive aggressive than Democrats who will actually stand up and kill the necessary legislation.
After literally decades of reflection, I believe there are more important and fundamental issues than those which can be categorized under labels like Republican or Democrat. I would vote for a Democrat with character and courage in a heartbeat over a Republican with neither. I have written on a number of occasions, that I would vote for Denish if I really believed that she represented the best chance to end the corruption and incompetence.
I simply do not share your party based bigotry. If I seem to come down inordinately hard on Democrats, it is purely coincidental-they just seem to be standing in the way of ethical reform with more regularity than Republicans. Senator Michael Sanchez, Democrat, Representative Ken Martinez, Democrat, House Speaker Ben Lujan, Democrat, Senator Linda Lopez, Democrat, Senator John, one camera Sapien, Democrat, …, Democrat.
Point to a Republican obfuscating ethical reform and I will treat him/her with the same contempt I feel for a Democrat, Libertarian, Green, Tea Partier, or any other political affiliation, who stands in the way of fundamental ethics reform.
Will Macquigg please mention a living elected Democrat that he respects? Maybe even two? I am not asking that he vote for him/her. It is possible to respect someone without agreeing with them on various issues.
Mr. Molitor writes something that sounds great, but his solution denies the very thing which he espouses – choice. The so-called “right to work” laws which he claims provide freedom, are actually “right to deny colleagues the right to effectively organize,” or “the imposition by the state that no employer or employee union reach an agreement which opponents of unions would not want for them to reach.”
What these laws do is to prevent a union and an employer from AGREEING to require either union membership ( or “fair share” payments the the “fair share” of representation provided to non-members). In other words, he wants the state to remove the permissive right of employers and employees (through their elected representatives) to reach agreements with which he doesn’t like.
To form a union, employees must go through an arduous process frought with high risks for the active leaders, and even for individuals supporting their efforts. “Authorization” cards and elections may be required. Through those efforts, employees CHOOSE their representative. Once an agreement for a bargaining unit is reached with the employer, all employees in that unit, union members or not, are provided representation rights from which they benefit. IF AN EMPLOYER AGREES, then non-union employees can be required to either pay dues or their “fair share” of the costs of representing them for their benefit. Employers benefit from having orderly processes for solving employee grievances and for negotiating with the group as a whole, rather than experiencing a difficult hodge-podge of employment terms and conditions.
So called “right to work” laws would stop this democratic process. Does Mr. Molitor really want to limit the freedom of employers to benefit from such freedom of choice by their employees?
Truely loving one’s country includes working to make it better, not blind, unqualified approval.
Your argument is weakened by your manifest blind, unqualified approval of Democrats, and your blind, unqualified disapproval of Republicans, and your ad hominem attacks on anyone that disagrees with your rigid thinking.
Perhaps you should start practicing the introspection you preach.
RFoutz pulls out that old “love it or leave it” drivel. I doubt if she has ever been a parent. Truely loving one’s country includes working to make it better, not blind, unqualified approval.
wendum are you really complaining that teachers don’t make enough. What? is a free market based economy of supply and demand not mesh with your ideologies. Well sir if this country was founded on a free market and I don’t appreciate people like you trying to change it. If you don’t like it, leave. If you want better teachers then pay more and better teachers will come. if someone wants to earn more, they can be a better teacher or get a degree in something that pays more, but a teaching degree is quick and easy to get; the market is flooded and thats why pay is low.
Unions once had a place, but they have single handedly destroyed the automobile industry in this nation and there is not place in America for a lack of freedom to choose.
Right to work is just another name for freedom to choose. This is just another basic civil right that the government and unions, in alliance, have worked hard to take away from the citizens. If the progressives have their way it is just another freedom and right they will take away as they progress their agenda for America.
I remember fighting these so called right to work battles in the 70′s when Bruce King was Governor. It was a conspiracy against working people then, and it still is. These debates now arise when times are bad, as if to say working people caused the problems. We all know it was the CEOs, bankers and greedy Wall Street hucksters who caused this. So this guy Molitor is now willing to shift the blame. Incredible.
“Right to work” –for less. The decrease in the number of union workers goes hand in hand with the disappearance of the middle class.
Some interesting figures from a Washington Post article “What Washingtonians make,” published last fall:
Christopher Kardelis
(25)
Garbage Collector
Fairfax County
$28,675
Matthew Berson
(26)
Regional Airline Pilot
Odenton
$33,750
J.W. Marriott, Jr.
(77)
CEO, Marriott International
Bethesda
$9,989,268
John J. Sweeney
(75)
Outgoing President
AFL-CIO
Washington, D.C.
$272,250
Thomas J. Donohue
(71)
President and CEO
U.S. Chamber of Commerce
Washington, D.C.
$3,157,188
Wayne R. LaPierre
(59)
CEO and Executive Vice President
National Rifle Association
Fairfax County
$673,617
Alexander Ovechkin
(23)
Hockey Player
Washington Capitals
$9 million
The Rev. Patrick Riffle
(27)
Priest
Olney
$22,254
Dr. John F. Williams
(61)
Provost and Vice President for Health Affairs
George Washington University
Washington, D.C.
$772,500
James Webb
(63)
U.S. Senator
Virginia
$174,000
Steny H. Hoyer
(70)
U.S. Congressman, House Majority Leader
Maryland
$193,400
Sonia Sotomayor
(55)
U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Washington, D.C.
$208,100
Emily Koerner
(25)
Public School Teacher, Fourth Grade
Washington, D.C.
$43,650
Melissa Manaker
(47)
Private School Teacher, Eighth Grade
Alexandria
$35,870
Note that a 25-year-old teacher doesn’t make much more than a 25-year-old garbage collector. This is our vanishing middle class.
Transparency,
You’re dead-on with your observation that unionism has shifted from private to public. I have a research report that is dated February, 2010, that shows an overall (public/private) union average membership of 13.6 percent nationwide. The figure in New Mexico is 10.5 percent, ranking it 31st among states. But the public-sector unionization rate in NM is 65.3 percent, ranking it number one in the nation in public-sector job unionization.
Molitor is mostly correct. However, unions have shifted their influence from the private sector to the public sector where growth is occurring exponentially, particularly when Democrats are in power.
Unions ONCE served a place in American Free Enterprise by creating better working conditions, pay and so forth. What good are unions today?
Unions, for example, do not promote better curriculum and merit based pay for school teachers and guess what… our public schools are failing in NM and nationwide. How hard is it to figure out?
The real question expands to the Governor’s race where the pen can be wielded. Will Diane the Dem Denish sign Right to Work legislation? Of course not, even though she continues to opine on how she is all for small business. Take it another step, will she repeal Little Davis Bacon… no.
Really, if you want to increase what the private sector brings, you have to take down the ‘government can do it all mindset’. Until then… biz as usual in the land of manana…