The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has released a telling study comparing Right to Work states with forced-unionism states in a variety of statistical categories. The statistics, provided by various governmental departments and agencies as well as respected non-profits, show the stunning economic and personal benefits families enjoy from their states' popular Right to Work laws.

The last five years of available data shows that workers in Right to Work states not only enjoy higher non-farm private-sector job growth (9.1% versus 3.6% from 2003-2008), but their real personal incomes are also growing faster (15.8% vs. 9.1% from 2003-2008) and they enjoy a higher disposable income ($34,878 vs. $32,811 in 2008) than their counterparts in forced unionism states.

Families in Right to Work states also benefit from lower taxes and are more likely to buy a home, send their children to college, and gain private, employment-based health insurance for parents and children alike.

While Right to Work is about employee freedom in the workplace, NILRR's analysis shows that rolling back coercive union power has undeniable economic benefits as well.

To view the full details of NILRR's report entitled "Right to Work States Benefit From Faster Growth, Higher Real Purchasing Power -- 2009 Update," click here.

The alarming trend of politicians forcing workers into union ranks continues in Illinois as Governor Pat Quinn -- in order to win Big Labor's political support -- is resurrecting the sordid legacy of disgraced Governor Rod Blagojevich (and Gray Davis of California) subverting workers' rights to benefit forced dues-hungry union bosses.

Quinn recently signed an executive order arbitrarily reclassifying state-reimbursed in-home health-care providers as state employees -- thereby opening them up to forced unionism under state law.  Service Employee International Union (SEIU) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union organizers, armed by the state with the addresses of Illinois's nearly 3,500 in-home health-care providers, are competing to corral home health-care providers into compulsory union membership by going door-to-door to solicit support for their respective unions.

Pam Harris, a mother who stays home to take care of her son with special needs, was visited by two aggressive out-of-state SEIU organizers at her front door.  Understandably, Ms. Harris is worried that the Detroit-style labor relations that destroyed America's auto industry could also destroy her right to care for her son as she wants. (To say nothing of the union dues she will be forced to pay for the "privilege.")

Because she does not live in a state with Right to Work protections, if SEIU union bosses are successful in corralling all home health-care providers into forced dues membership, Ms. Harris will be forced to pay tribute to union bosses just to continue to take care of her own son -- even if she refrains from formal union membership.

However, as many Freedom@Work readers may already be aware, this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Just last month, National Right to Work President Mark Mix reiterated in the Wall Street Journal NRTW's previous warnings that union bosses are working to unionize the health-care industry and that under Obamacare, the very thing that is happening in Illinois will happen nationwide:

Following [the Davis/Blagojevich] playbook, pending government-run health care bills create a "personal care attendants workforce advisory panel" that will likely impose union affiliation on hundreds of thousands of folks like Ms. Harris to qualify for a newly created "community living assistance services and support (CLASS)" reimbursement plan.

Ms. Sebelius will be taking her marching orders from the numerous union officials who are guaranteed seats on the various federal panels (such as the personal care panel mentioned above) charged with recommending health-care policies. Big Labor will play a central role in directing federal health-care policy...

Last week, the pro-worker think tank National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) released a Fact Sheet entitled “Negative Employment Growth Since November 2001” that details how highly-unionized states are suffering a "lost decade" in terms of private-sector job growth, while the least-unionized states have benefited from a nearly 1.5 million private-sector job growth:

As of 2001, the year of the last national recession prior to the current one, 9.7% of private-sector employees nationwide were under “exclusive” union representation. But in 16 states – Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania,. Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin – 11.0% or more of private-sector workers were unionized.

From November 2001, the trough of the last recession, through June 2009, the most recent month for which non-preliminary, state-by-state payroll jobs data are available at this writing, these 16 heavily unionized states suffered an aggregate private-sector job loss of 990,000 – or 2.2% of their November 2001 total. Ten of the 16 states, or nearly two-thirds, had fewer private-sector jobs in June 2009 than they had had nearly eight years earlier.

...

The overall job losses in states with average private-sector unionization were far smaller than in heavily unionized states, and the 16 states which had private-sector unionization of 6.0% or less in 2001 actually gained jobs.

These low union-density states are: Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas, Utah and Virginia. They gained an aggregate of nearly 1.5 million private-sector jobs from November 2001 through June 2009. That constitutes a 4.5% increase.

Even with recent setbacks taken into account, fifteen of the 16, or 94%, of the lowest union-density states have experienced net job gains since November 2001.

Putting aside the inherent abuse of workers' rights, the data clearly indicates that job growth is negatively impacted by Big Labor's government-granted monopoly bargaining special privileges.  Yet NILRR's findings should come to no surprise to regular Freedom@Work readers, as we reported recently:

NILRR recently found an especially strong correlation between a state’s Right to Work status and its job growth, while employees in Right to Work states are benefiting from faster job growth and higher real purchasing power than their compulsory unionism counterparts.

History clearly demonstrates how union monopolists have hindered the creation of new jobs with costly operating procedures and wasteful work rules, especially during times of financial hardship.  Meanwhile, union bosses use their monopoly bargaining and other special forced-dues privileges to fill their political coffers while proliferating Big Government-mandated regulations on job providers and higher taxes on employers and employees alike. 

As the current economic downturn continues, many states across the nation are starting to find it increasingly difficult to stay afloat after having capitulated to the union bosses' extortionate demands.  Last week, the Wall Street Journal cited the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) -- an anti-compulsory unionism think tank that exposes the harm forced unionism inflicts on workers -- when discussing Big Labor's contribution toward the severe financial difficulties California, New York, and New Jersey are experiencing and the migration of workers leaving these forced-unionism states:

Powerful unions. Mr. Obama believes union power is a ticket to the middle class. The middle class is getting creamed in all three of these "progressive" states, where organized labor is king. The unionized share of the workforce is 20% in California, 19% in New Jersey and 27% in New York compared to 13% across the country. All three are non-right-to-work states, have super-minimum wage requirements and provide among the nation's most generous public-employee pensions.

Workers in these paradises are indeed uniting -- by leaving. New York ranks first, California second and New Jersey third in moving vans leaving the state. A study by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found that over the past decade these and other high-union states (mostly in the Northeast) had one-third the job growth of states with low union penetration.

NILRR recently found an especially strong correlation between a state’s Right to Work status and its job growth, while employees in Right to Work states are benefiting from faster job growth and higher real purchasing power than their compulsory unionism counterparts.

Perhaps it's also worth revisiting a Wall Street Journal article penned late last year by National Right to Work President Mark Mix, reminding us that a massive expansion in forced unionism power played a key role in making the Great Depression longer and deeper.

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR) recently published a fact sheet discussing U.S. Census Bureau data from 1999 to 2007 that shows the "Card Check" Forced Unionism Bill and similar legislative "compromises" actually endanger workers' access to health insurance.

According to NILRR's observations:

As of 1999, according to economists Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson, 10.2% of private-sector employees nationwide were under “exclusive” union representation.  In 10 states -- Alaska, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Washington -- 14% or more of private-sector employees were unionized. From 1999 to 2007, these states suffered an aggregate decline of 3.0%, or 1.44 million, in the number of people with private, job-based health insurance.

The 22 states with 1999 private-sector unionization of between 7.0% and 13.9% also experienced an overall decline in access to job-based insurance, but the decline was substantially less
severe. The employment-based insurance rolls in these states -- Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota,
Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming -- fell by 843,000, or 1.2%, from 1999 to 2007.

Meanwhile, the 18 states with 1999 private-sector unionization of no more than 6.9% -- Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North
Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont and Virginia -- had a very different experience. These least-unionized states enjoyed an increase of 2.96 million, or 5.2%,
in the number of people with job-based private health insurance.

NILRR sums up their findings by stating, "there is a strong negative correlation between the growth in the ranks of the privately insured within a state and the share of its private-sector employees who are subject to union monopoly bargaining."  In other words, in states where union bosses are more likely to hold their grasp on private-sector workers in the workplace by claiming monopoly bargaining privileges over them, the more likely the number of those employees and their families receiving private health insurance from their employer will decrease -- i.e. forced unionism threatens workers' access to private-sector job-based health insurance. 

Enter Big Labor's latest compulsory-dues power grab: card check forced unionism.  Card check forced unionism (and similar legislative "compromises" being floated in the U.S. Senate right now) intends to help Big Labor herd more workers into compulsory unionism by making it easier for union bosses to use coercion and intimidation to claim monopoly-bargaining power over millions of additional workers.  However, NILRR's research illustrates that President Barack Obama and Congressional compulsory unionism advocates are working steadily to sell out not only workers' rights -- but also their well-being -- to continue to dole out paybacks for Big Labor's political support.

For more on NILRR's findings, click here.

Seven Employees Force Settlement with Teamster Local Union Brass

Right to Work Attorneys help employees after union officials levy more than $200,000 in confiscatory fines

Chicago, IL (May 29, 2009) – With free legal aid from the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, seven employees who refused to abandon their jobs during a strike forced a settlement with a local union after union officials levied exorbitant and illegal retaliatory fines against them.

The employees, truck drivers for industrial laundry company Lechner and Sons, filed unfair labor practice charges with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) against Teamsters Local Union 731, an affiliate of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters union, after Local 731 union officials hit the employees with fines ranging from $13,946 to $40,000 each for not abandoning their jobs during a strike. None of the employees were truly voluntary members of the union during the strike.

In July 2006, Local 731 union bosses ordered the employees to abandon their jobs during a so-called “sympathy strike” involving a different bargaining unit of workers at the plant where the strike occurred. After the strike ended in June 2007, union brass claimed the power to use fines to discipline non-striking employees.

(Continue reading this news release...)

(Click here to see a copy of a Teamsters Local 731 strike fines notice in which Teamster union bosses claimed the power to use $40,000 worth of fines to discipline one of the non-striking employees.)

Thursday's Detroit News extensively quotes National Right to Work president Mark Mix in an informative piece about why Michigan needs a Right to Work law.

Right to Work protections in 22 states ensure that no worker can be compelled, as a condition or employment, to join or pay dues to an unwanted union.

The militant United Auto Workers (UAW) union, which is notorious for launching intimidating card check organizing campaigns and whose unions bosses frequently whine about Right to Work, is particularly dominant in Michigan, where its forced unionism relationship with the "Big Three" automakers in Detroit has been a major cause in Michigan's economic depression (and yet, the Obama Administration is rewarding UAW union brass with a majority stake in Chrysler).

But as Mix tells the Detroit News, the struggle for employee freedom in Michigan won't be easy even though the forced unionism economic devastion is so patently obvious:

Mix, nonetheless, remains optimistic. He said interest is picking up in all the Rust Belt states because workers are wondering if what they've been promised is really going to happen or if their benefits will even be held intact. The Chrysler bankruptcy and soon to be GM filing has raised some union worker eyebrows, he said.

Of course, Michigan isn't likely to become the 23rd state to change its ways, but that doesn't stop Mix and his colleagues from answering worker phone calls.

"There is hope," Mix said. "Freedom in the workplace always wins -- even in Michigan."

Click here to read the rest of the article.

The Detroit Free Press reports that the Detroit Federation of Teachers union is threatening to have up to 70 teachers fired for not paying forced union dues.  A school district error is mainly responsible for the mix up. 

Yet, because of the clerical error, union official Mark O'Keefe stated that the "fair" thing to do would be to fire the teachers who fail to pay the full union dues.

No, Mark.  The "fair" thing to do is to not require teachers to pay ANY union dues as a condition of teaching Detroit's schoolchildren.

Last year, Freedom@Work reported on the allegations of corruption against Tyrone Freeman, former boss of the largest Service Employees International Union (SEIU) affiliate in California. Freeman spent nearly three-quarters of a million dollars of rank-and-file workers' forced union dues on his wife's and mother's companies and on a luxurious fat-cat lifestyle. The Los Angeles Times later reported Freeman's SEIU affiliate "charity" failed to spend a single cent on its charitable mission in two of the four years it has been in existence.

Today, the Los Angeles Times reports another SEIU union official corruption scandal, this time executive vice president of the SEIU's Illinois-Indiana health care affiliate and national SEIU union board member Byron Hobbs.

Hobbs is accused of billing the union for $9,000 for personal expenses. The LA Times continues its report by putting the latest scandal in context:

...[former Freeman Chief-of-Staff] Rickman Jackson, was removed as head of the SEIU's largest Michigan local, because he allegedly received improper lease payments for his Bell Gardens house.

Annelle Grajeda, president of both a second L.A. local and the SEIU's state council, has been on leave since August, when the union began investigating whether she had improperly used her influence to keep her ex-boyfriend on the county payroll...

Last month, the union imposed a trusteeship on an Oakland-based local and fired its officers, accusing them of misusing dues money to wage a political battle against SEIU President Andy Stern.

And of course, who can forget that it was a SEIU union boss who was engaged in pay-to-play talks with former [and corrupt] Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich -- to allegedly buy Obama's then-vacant U.S. Senate seat.

Unfortunately, the people most hurt by union boss corruption are the rank-and-file workers, especially in forced unionism states. Right to work laws, allow workers to hold union officials more accountable by exercising because workers can cut off union dues if they don’t like union officials' so-called “representation,” politics, corruption, or fat-cat lifestyles.

Union bosses’ illegal scheme violates employees’ constitutional rights

Harrisburg, PA (February 9, 2009) – Three Centre Area Transportation Authority (CATA) employees filed a federal suit challenging two Pennsylvania laws that unconstitutionally prohibit workers from leaving union ranks.

National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorneys, providing CATA employees Brenda Hall, Karen Ilgen, and Martha Hoy with free legal aid, filed the suit today in the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Union officials rebuffed the employees’ repeated requests to resign from formal union membership in the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) local affiliate 1203B and District Council 83 unions.

Local 1203B and District Council 83 union officials are using the Pennsylvania Public Employee Forced Unionism Law and the Public Employee Relations Act as justification to compel the employees into continuing formal union membership and require the CATA illegally to extract full union dues from the employees.

As well as challenging the state law, the employees are suing for their right to retroactively object to formal union membership and obtain refunds. The employees are backed by decades of case law and U.S. Supreme Court decisions.

Click here to read the rest of the Foundation's press release.