Wisconsin and Minnesota: A One-Sided Political Competition

Kev3188 said:
IMHO, labor's mistake in Badgerland was a 1-2 punch. First, they chose the electoral path over direct action. At the same time, they allowed the right to drive the public vs. private sector wedge.
+1
 
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FWIW, the site where he signed the bill announced 20-50 new manufacturing jobs would be created in Wisconsin vs. offshore:
Good. Only 249,950 jobs to go, then...

And let's be real for a second; the owner and/or company that holds its employees hostage like that isn't likely doing so to champion worker "choice."
 
Let's be clear. Anti-Union is not always anti-worker.
 
Unions today are not the unions of the Matewan Massacre. They are hide bound, dues grubbing organizations that have their own agenda. An agenda which may or may not resonate with the rank and file.
 
My Dad was a Teamster and they knew what being a union was. More then once I went down on the picket line with him. Never crossed one EVER and have no plans to start now. I also have no plans to EVER join a union either. I'd end up like Jock Yablonski or Joe Kenehan once I challenged the status quo. Union leaders earning CEO level compensation and perks while the rank and file struggle sweat and strain is no organization I wish to be part of. 
 
No one said it better then a retired union leader I know did. "If you treat your people right, there is no need for a union."
 
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...Or as you've often said, "A company gets the union it deserves."

BTW, this seems like as good a time as any to remind people that the movie "Matewan" is well worth the time...

So is researching the roots of/initial reasons behind RTW, and the people that gave it life...
 
'Right-to-Work' Economics

States That Bar Mandatory Union Dues Tend Toward More Jobs but Lower Wages
By
Neil Shah and
Ben Casselman


Dec. 14, 2012 6:51 p.m. ETBy adopting a "right-to-work" law this week, Michigan is joining a group of states where wages tend to be lower, but job growth stronger, than states that don't have the law.
http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324296604578179603136860138
 
Romney‘s claim that ‘right to work’ states get more ‘good jobs’
http://Romney‘s claim that ‘right to work’ states get more ‘good jobs’
 
“And the right course politically at this stage is to have states carry out their own right-to-work legislation. And as you know, right-to-work states, those 22, have created 3 million jobs over the last 10 years. The union states have lost about half a million jobs. So right to work is the way to go if you want good jobs.”
-- Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney at American Principles Project Palmetto Freedom Forum in Columbia, S.C. on Sept. 5, 2011
 
Romney’s comments go to the heart of the right-to-work debate, so they deserve some scrutiny and analysis.
 
Right-to-work states are those that prohibit “closed shops,” which require their workers to become dues-paying union members as a condition of employment. Twenty-two states have outlawed this practice.
 
Romney refers to the 28 states that don’t have right-to-work laws as “union states.” Workers in these states can forego union membership in a unionized workplace, but they still have to pay dues. Labor groups have their reasons for pushing mandatory dues on employees: they don’t want non-members asking for the same benefits and wages that union officials painstakingly negotiated for the workers in their ranks.
 
But is there really a documented link between “good jobs” and these state laws?
 
The Facts
 
We searched the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics Web site to find data on each state’s non-farm, seasonally adjusted employment during the past 10 years. Just as Romney said, right-to-work states have better employment numbers on the whole.

 
Romney’s camp relied on numbers from the BLS household survey. The data, which his team compiled in July, show that right-to-work states experienced a net gain of 3.6 million jobs during the past decade, while “union states” saw a net loss of 900,000 jobs over the same time span.
 
Romney obviously understated the true numbers, but he was still correct in saying that right-to-work states added jobs while the others experienced dips.
 
The former governor based his numbers off the bureau’s household survey rather than its payroll survey, which questions employers and only counts workers who receive pay from those employers.
 
The household survey, which goes out to households, counts unpaid family workers
and the “unincorporated self-employed” among the employed. This is like placing the “employed” label on 16-year-olds who mow their parents’ lawns. These individuals don’t qualify for union membership, so it’s questionable whether their work status matters in the right-to-work debate. (For more on the differences between the two surveys, read the BLS explanation on page four of this document.)
 
Still, Romney relied on the more inclusive household survey, which tends to show higher employment numbers. The less inclusive payroll survey indicates that right-to-work states gained only 1.6 million jobs over the past 10 years while union states lost 2 million, even more than Romney claimed.
 
Romney spokesman Ryan Williams defended the use of the household survey.
 
It “provides a more robust set of data analysis options. For instance, if we wanted to look at changes in the unemployment rate or the labor force for Right to Work vs. Forced Unionization states we would need to be using [the household survey],” Williams said. “The point of our analysis is that Right to Work states have healthier economies and more job creation, so all economic opportunities are relevant, not just those in potentially unionized workplaces.”
 
On the whole, union-friendly states fare worse than right-to-work states when it comes to job creation in the past decade, regardless of which BLS data you look at. But despite Romney’s assertion, those figures don’t prove that right-to-work laws help attract jobs.
 
“It’s the same as saying that states with names that start with the letters ‘n’ through ‘z’ grew faster over the past decade,” said Gordon Lafer, associate professor at the University of Oregon Labor Education and Research Center. “That’s actually true, but it’s not meaningful in policy terms.”
 
Lafer also said that the lower labor standards and wages associated with non-union jobs do not necessarily correlate with employment growth. If that was the driving factor, he said, companies would simply move abroad instead of crossing state borders.
 
Romney’s analysis also fails to recognize that factors other than union policy can affect employment numbers. Jared Berstein, a former Labor Department economist and a senior fellow with the left-leaning Center on Budget Policies and Priorities, said other variables affect the job-growth equation, including natural resources, infrastructure, workforce quality, location, standard of living, schools, tax rates and other policy decisions not related to unionization.
 
“I think it’s important to get away from cherry-picking statistics, because there are so many moving parts,” Bernstein said.
 
The bottom line is that the right set of jobs numbers can favor pro-union arguments just as easily as anti-union arguments.
 
Bernstein and Lafer point to Oklahoma, where manufacturing jobs in Oklahoma peaked at 177,000 in 2000, the year before the state passed its right-to-work legislation.
 
BLS data shows that manufacturing jobs have declined there every year since 2001, with the exception of an 8-percent increase in 2011.One could use those numbers to say that Oklahoma hit the skids after becoming a right-to-work state.
 
“I don’t blame that on Right to Work, and the same is true of vice versa,” Bernstein said.
 
Here’s another example: Texas and Alaska both experienced employment increases of slightly more than 11 percent during the past decade. Both states also have lots of oil, but only one of the behemoths has a right-to-work law.
 
We understand that many people may have a philosophical belief that right to work laws are better for employees, and they frequently cite job growth data to make their case. (Others have argued that strong government unions inhibit job growth.) The counter argument from union advocates is that right to work states have lower wages and benefits.
 
But the fact remains that resources and other factors can affect employment as much as labor laws, and one factor should not be given greater weight than another.
 
The Pinocchio Test
 
Romney’s remarks appeared rooted in actual Labor Department data, even though he spouted some numbers that didn’t match his own analysis. Regardless, the former governor exaggerates the importance of these statistics, and he fails to acknowledge that factors other than labor laws play a role in determining job growth.
 
Romney earns two Pinocchios for his claim that “good jobs” and job growth result from right to work laws. His statistics are technically correct but his reasoning is too simplistic and ultimately could be misleading to ordinary people.
 
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Analysis: The economic benefits and drawbacks of right to work
http://www.mlive.com/business/index.ssf/2012/12/michigan_right_to_work_benefit.html
 
By the numbers
 
Tim Bartik, senior economist at the Upjohn Center for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, said it’s impossible to know whether right to work boosts employment or whether it is a “proxy” for a variety of other policies and political leanings.
 
“For example, if faster-growth southern states tend to adopt Right to Work, then Right to Work may be due to the underlying political culture of states, which happens by chance to be correlated with Right to Work,” he said.
 
...
However, the evidence that RTW leads to a stronger economy is mixed, at best.
 
A Bridge Magazine analysis of state gross domestic product, personal income and jobs data over the past two decades found that RTW states generally had better numbers than non-RTW states.
 
But differences in the two groups of state weren’t eye-popping, except for total job growth. And the economic performance of the 22 RTW states examined varied widely. (Indiana was included as a non-RTW state in the analysis because the measure wasn’t in place in the years studied.)
 
The nation’s economic output, as measured by GDP, grew by 33 percent between 1997 and 2010, adjusted for inflation, according to federal Bureau of Economic Analysis data.
 
Economic output in RTW states grew 39 percent in the period, while output in non-RTW states grew by 30 percent.
 
Output in manufacturing, where supporters say RTW is most beneficial, has barely shifted from non-RTW regions of the country over the past 20 years.
 
RTW states accounted for 38 percent of the nation’s manufacturing output in 2010, up just 1 percentage point from 1997. Half of the RTW states grew less than the national average of 31 percent in manufacturing output during that period.
 
The United States has lost 6.2 million manufacturing jobs since 1990. Nearly three-quarters of those jobs were lost in the 28 non-RTW states. RTW states lost 1.7 million manufacturing jobs in the period.
 
But total employment in RTW states over the past 20 years grew much faster than in non-RTW states as the U.S. population steadily shifted south.
 
Full- and part-time employment grew 30.2 percent in RTW states between 1990 and 2010, compared to just 9.4 percent in non-RTW states.
 
Real per capita income in RTW states over the past 20 years has grown slightly faster than in non-RTW states — 35 percent to 31 percent.
 
But per capita income in non-RTW states was still an average $5,221 above incomes in RTW states, according to the Bridge analysis of federal statistics.
 
...
But many economists say there are numerous other factors in the economic growth of the RTW-dominated southern and western regions of the country.
 
Among those are better weather, cheaper energy costs, lower taxes and less government regulation. Southern states also have used billions of dollars in tax incentives to lure foreign auto plants and other manufacturing investment.
 
Michael Hicks, an economist at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., also cited the “miraculous invention of air-conditioning” as a major factor in attracting population and business investment to states such as Arizona, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.
 
Kev3188 said:
...Or as you've often said, "A company gets the union it deserves."

BTW, this seems like as good a time as any to remind people that the movie "Matewan" is well worth the time...

So is researching the roots of/initial reasons behind RTW, and the people that gave it life...
 
Matewan is an extremely good account of the events. It's very accurate.
 
RTW, and the alphabet soup of government regulatory agencies are all about the politics of their time. RTW is enjoying a revival of sorts due to the public believing the stereotype of the beer gut hangin' out, sleep on the job, lazy, combative union worker. Folks like the Building Trades Council here in PHL do little to debunk that image.
 
IMO you can not impose RTW without eliminating the restrictions placed on unions by the Alphabet soup agencies. It tips the scale totally out of balance in favor of one group over another. Once you get past child labor laws and workplace safety, the free market should be the sole arbiter of wages.
 
Corporations and individuals who own a business seek a maximum return on investment. As they should. Workers seek to earn as much as they can. Also as they should. If creating a union gives them more leverage they should do so. Beyond regulating the union elections, preventing initiation of force and the two areas mentioned the Government should stay out of the way.
 
Does Right to Work Actually Lead to More Jobs?
http://prospect.org/article/does-right-work-actually-lead-more-jobs
 
Only one state has passed right to work since NAFTA: Oklahoma in 2001. (Before that, the most recent was Idaho in 1985.) About a year ago, Lafer and economist Sylvia Allegretto published a report for the Economic Policy Institute* exploring just what had happened in the decade since Oklahomans got their "right to work." The results weren't pretty. 
 
Rather than increasing job opportunities, the state saw companies relocate out of Oklahoma. In high-tech industries and those service industries "dependent on consumer spending in the local economy" the laws appear to have actually damaged growth. At the end of the decade, 50,000 fewer Oklahoma residents had jobs in manufacturing. Perhaps most damning, Lafer and Allegretto could find no evidence that the legislation had a positive impact on employment rates.
 
Right-to-Work Laws, Explained
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2012/03/what-are-right-to-work-laws
 
Who's supporting the recent right-to-work laws?
 
Indiana's legislation appears to have come from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). As Karen Olsson reported in Mother Jones in 2002, ALEC, which is funded by private corporations, industry groups, and conservative foundations, "gives business a direct hand in writing bills that are considered in state assemblies nationwide." The group's model legislation includes Arizona's SB 1070, and a "truth in sentencing" bill that the Corrections Corporation of America helped draft.
 
How do these laws affect the economy?
 
It's hard to say. The most well-known study on the development of manufacturing in states with right-to-work laws was published by Thomas Holmes in 2000. Holmes compared manufacturing growth or decline on the borders between right-to-work states and states without the pro-business legislation. He found that in right-to-work states, manufacturing employment was higher than in "anti-business" states without the laws. These findings have led supporters like Harvard economics professor Robert Barro to conclude that "right-to-work laws—or, more broadly, the pro-business policies offered by right-to-work states—matter for economic growth."
 
However, Mother Jones' Kevin Drum says it's no surprise pro-business states attract more manufacturing:
 
"usinesses prefer locating in states where costs are low and rules are lax — something I think we all knew already. Of course that's what businesses prefer. But it says literally nothing at all about whether the United States as a whole would have higher or lower growth if every state either did or didn't have right-to-work laws."
 
Holmes is careful to note that factors like the expansion of railways and trucking and even the invention of air conditioning all played a part in the stronger growth of manufacturing in the Southern and Sun Belt states. Holmes' findings also don't mean the laws are good for the economy or the worker in a state over time. A 2011 study by the labor-backed Economic Policy Institute found that wages and benefits are lower in right-to-work states than in non-right-to-work states. Oklahoma has actually seen a reversal of the initial growth in manufacturing jobs since its right-to-work law passed in 2001. The EPI report found that in the cases of "higher-tech manufacturing, to 'knowledge' sector jobs, or to service industries dependent on consumer spending in the local economy—there is reason to believe that right-to-work laws may actually harm a state's economic prospects."
 
UW study: Manufacturing jobs earn $8,100 less in right-to-work states
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/uw-study-manufacturing-jobs-earn-less-in-right-to-work/article_ccb3f5c4-6a5e-50b6-b75b-6b498495214a.html
 
A UW-Extension paper estimates that workers in the manufacturing sector earn an average of $8,100 less in states that have right-to-work laws, and that right-to-work states have more poverty and fewer college graduates.
 
"Bottom line, right-to-work states tend to have lower manufacturing wages and overall income levels, higher poverty rartes and lower education levels," reads the UW-Extension right-to-work fact sheet (the PDF is attached) by Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics.
 
If the union is doing their job, then they should have nothing to fear from RTW.

All it does is give the employee the right to choose to associate or not associate.
 
Crash Pad DCA said:
UW study: Manufacturing jobs earn $8,100 less in right-to-work states
http://host.madison.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/uw-study-manufacturing-jobs-earn-less-in-right-to-work/article_ccb3f5c4-6a5e-50b6-b75b-6b498495214a.html
 
A UW-Extension paper estimates that workers in the manufacturing sector earn an average of $8,100 less in states that have right-to-work laws, and that right-to-work states have more poverty and fewer college graduates.
 
"Bottom line, right-to-work states tend to have lower manufacturing wages and overall income levels, higher poverty rartes and lower education levels," reads the UW-Extension right-to-work fact sheet (the PDF is attached) by Steven Deller, a professor of agricultural and applied economics.
 
 
Funny, I think it was GE who has non-union engine facilities in one of the Carolinas.....Tech's were doing some engine mod's in PIT and their non union status was a topic of interest. Seems GE paid them something like $0.23 per hour less with the same or similar work package. They were quite happy and so was GE.
 
How'd VW work out? Union loses, opens an office and charges free dues......LOL
 
I'm sorry, but did I miss the part where the right to vote in a union was in question?

Dayton's statement has nothing to do with RTW.
 

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