In an editorial yesterday, the Wall Street Journal made both the moral and economic case for states to end forced unionism by passing Right to Work laws:

Contrary to much union rhetoric, right-to-work laws don’t ban or bust unions. They simply grant individual workers the right to join or not to join, even once a workplace is organized by a union. Workers who decline to join the union can’t be forced to have dues taken out of their paycheck and thus used to finance union political campaigns. Most right-to-work states are in the South and West, and only Oklahoma has adopted this freedom to choose in the last 20 years.

Right-to-work states outperform forced-union states in almost every measurable category of worker well-being. A new study in the Cato Journal by economist Richard Vedder finds that from 2000 to 2008 some 4.7 million Americans moved from forced-union to right-to-work states.

The study also found that from 1977 through 2007 there was "a very strong and highly statistically significant relationship between right-to-work laws and economic growth." Right-to-work states experienced a 23% faster rise in per capita income over that period. The two regions that have lost the most jobs in recent years, the once-industrial Northeast and Midwest, are mostly forced-union states.

These arguments demonstrate why poll after poll shows that 80 percent of Americans — even rank-and-file union members — support the Right to Work principle. Unfortunately, the Wall Street Journal warns, politicians who claim they agree could instead appease the union bosses:

[Indiana Governor Mitch] Daniels adds that the lack of a right-to-work law "does hold us back economically. There is no doubt about it." He estimates that when competing with Southern states for businesses, "a very large number—perhaps as many as a quarter—of the deals we don’t get a shot at are for just this reason."

This damage has motivated Indiana Republicans, who now control both legislature chambers, to announce that they want to pass a right-to-work law. Unions immediately went to Defcon 1, Democrats are up in arms, and Republicans could yet buckle under this union pressure. Even Mr. Daniels, who has stood up to union opposition in the past, seems hesitant. He told the Indianapolis Star that right to work "may be worth a look," but he added it "is not on my agenda." He’s worried that the issue so antagonizes unions that it could derail the rest of his legislative agenda.

We hope Republicans don’t flinch. Right-to-work laws make states more economically competitive, but the bigger issue is about individual rights. Workers should have the right to join a union but also the right not to. Indiana and other states with new Republican majorities have a rare opportunity to pass a major reform that will reduce union power, help to attract new jobs, and liberate workers from union coercion.

Read the rest of the editorial here (subscription required).

 Gary Davenport with his wife and three children at the U.S. Supreme Court.

As a result of the National Right to Work Foundation’s precedent-setting victory before the United States Supreme Court in Davenport v. WEA, Washington state’s teachers are receiving compensation for the forced unionism abuses and First Amendment rights violations they suffered at the hands of teacher union officials.

In 2001, Gary Davenport, a history teacher at Kentwood High School, and fellow teachers across the state of Washington who refrained from formal union membership, were being forced to pay $500 or more each per year in fees for the Washington Education Association (WEA) union bosses’ so-called “representation” because their state does not have Right to Work protections for its workers.

It was then that Davenport discovered that WEA union officials were illegally using his and some 10,000 other nonmember teachers’ forced union dues for the union bosses’ political agenda.

After a protracted legal battle in various courts, the U.S. Supreme Court finally weighed in. The Court unanimously ruled in favor of the teachers, declaring unions have no constitutional right to collect fees from nonmembers and allowing states to require union bosses to obtain affirmative consent before spending nonmember public employees’ forced fees on political activities.

After the case went back to state court, WEA union bosses finally settled with the teachers and agreed to refund the dues that were improperly confiscated.

The checks (some of which are pictured below) were sent to thousands of Washington teachers last week.

 

For more information regarding the National Right To Work Foundation’s history-shaping legal precedents on behalf of abused workers, click here.

On WSAU-AM Central Wisconsin Morning News, Right to Work President Mark Mix explains why ending union monopoly bargaining privileges is so important as Wisconsin faces widespread, union-instigated protests. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:

As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.  

Over the past week, Right to Work President Mark Mix was interviewed on several radio programs about public sector unionism and the protests in Wisconsin. First, here’s Mix on Savage Nation. Click here to listen or use the embedded player below:

Mix also appeared on the nationally-syndicated Lars Larson show. Click here to listen or use the player below:

Mix was also interviewed for the ‘Coffee and Markets’ podcast. You can listen to that here.

As always, you can also listen to the Foundation’s podcast via iTunes or manually subscribe to the feed.  

Last week, Mark Mix, President of National Right to Work, pointed out in Investor’s Business Daily that the real issue in the ongoing battles between Big Labor and reform-minded public officials in various states across the country is getting lost in the union bosses’ self-serving rhetoric.

As Mix notes, given the media coverage of the battle in Wisconsin:

Americans learning about organized labor’s battles in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states from TV, radio and newspaper reports may understandably be confused about what is at stake, especially if they have no personal experience with unions themselves. From afar, it’s easy to draw the conclusion that public employees’ right to join a union is at stake.

Of course a worker’s right to join a union is not the issue at all. The real issue at stake is that Big Labor enjoys numerous government-granted special privileges at the expense of workers’ individual rights:

…What reform-minded elected officials are seeking to curtail, and in
some cases even abolish, is government union chiefs’ legal power to
force public servants into a union as a condition of employment.

Under the current labor laws of nearly half of the states, government union officials have been explicitly authorized to force all public employees in a workplace to pay union dues or be fired, as long as a majority of their fellow employees (among those expressing an opinion) support unionization.

Such forced-unionism laws, which Big Labor is now fighting furiously to keep on the books in the face of increasingly intense public opposition, actually trample on, rather than protect, employees’ freedom to make personal decisions about unionism.

And that’s the point. So next time you hear union bosses like Richard Trumka shouting about "protecting workers’ rights," it’s important to keep in mind that what he really means is "protecting union bosses’ special powers."

With public attention being paid to state battles over union boss powers, Right to Work proposals have received plenty of attention from national publications. In The Washington Examiner, Right to Work President Mark Mix explains that states are turning to Right to Work laws to jump-start their troubled economies and safeguard workers’ rights:

The logic of state Right-to-Work laws is ironclad: Not only is safeguarding worker freedom the right thing to do,it also yields tremendous economic benefits. Recent studies from the Cato Institute and the National Institute for Labor Relations Research suggest that Right-to-Work states enjoy higher job growth and more cost-of-living-adjusted disposable income for workers than their forced-unionism counterparts.

They also seem to be weathering the recession better than old Midwestern industrial bastions like Michigan, Illinois and Indiana, states that lack protections for individual workers’ rights.

Perhaps the most compelling evidence in favor of state Right-to-Work laws was reported in a Wall Street Journal editorial last year. Citizens are voting with their feet, leaving forced-unionism states in droves for job opportunities with their Right-to-Work neighbors.

Elsewhere, Deroy Murdock lays out the case for a National Right to Work Act:

The NRTWA’s economic rationale is compelling:

? Among America’s 22 right-to-work states (including Florida, Georgia, and Texas), non-farm private-sector employment grew 3.7 percent from 1999 to 2009, while it shrank 2.8 percent among America’s 28 forced-unionism states (e.g. California, Illinois, and New York).

? During those ten years, real personal income rose 28.3 percent in right-to-work states and sank 14.7 percent in forced-unionism states.

? In 2009, cost-of-living-adjusted, per-capita, disposable personal income was $35,543 in right-to-work states versus $33,389 in forced-unionism states. Americans in right-to-work states enjoyed more freedom — and a $2,154 premium.

Notwithstanding that right-to-work states are comparatively prosperous engines of job growth, the case for right-to-work laws is not merely economic, but moral.

“Government has granted union officials the unprecedented power to force individual employees to pay up or be fired and to coerce workers into subsidizing union speech,” says the National Right to Work Committee’s Patrick Semmens. “This fundamental violation of individual liberty — an infringement on freedom of speech and freedom of association — finally would end with passage of the NRTWA.”

If you’re looking for a straightforward introduction to the economic and moral case for Right to Work laws, both pieces are a good place to start. 

In 2009, The Wall Street Journal observed that workers are fleeing forced-unionism states for better job opportunities with their Right to Work neighbors. Now, a study of U.S. Census Bureau statistics from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research indicates that young workers – a demographic that drives economic growth – overwhelmingly favor Right to Work states to further their career prospects:

Twenty-two states currently have Right to Work laws on the books.3 Unless a state has a Right to Work law, federal law authorizes the imposition of forced union dues and fees on its private-sector employees.

In the 17 non-Western Right to Work states, the aggregate 25-34 year-old population increased from 12.965 million to 14.602 million, or 12.7%, over the past decade. Meanwhile, in the 20 non- Western forced-unionism states, the aggregate 25-34 year-old population fell from 16.807 million to 16.036 million, or 4.6%. Western Right to Work states’ total young-adult population grew by 47.0%, compared to Western non-Right to Work states’ 8.3% increase. Even excluding slow-growth California,Western forced-unionism states’ increase was barely more than half that of Western Right to Work states.

In the midst of a prolonged recession, the Institute’s findings also indicate that the success of Right to Work states provides a critical economic safety valve. By encouraging the creation of more jobs, Right to Work protections provide career opportunities for young employees that otherwise might not have existed.

The case for Right to Work has always rested on the importance of safeguarding individual workers’ rights, but the economic benefits of protecting worker freedom are also self-evident. It’s one more reason why states across the country are now considering Right to Work laws. 

Writing in The Daily Caller, Right to Work President Mark Mix explains how Big Labor activism in Wisconsin has dramatized the issue of forced union dues:

. . . millions of Americans are now learning about the bitterness with which union-label politicians are defending their forced dues-funded campaign machines. And now citizens are beginning to understand more clearly than ever before why no union official, whether government or private-sector, should ever have been granted forced-dues privileges in the first place, and why it is absolutely necessary to revoke those privileges in order to clean up our political system.

Thanks to the 14 union-backed Senate Democrats’ attempt to flee the state to deny S.B. 11 proponents a quorum — and the resulting legal battle over the bill — the effort to restore the right to work for most Badger State public employees remains in limbo for now. But the outrageous antics of union-boss politicians like Mr. Hintz and Mr. Danou could prove to be very costly to Big Labor over the long run, and not just in Wisconsin.

Click here to read the whole thing. For more on the Wisconsin labor fight, check out Mix’s recent appearance on Fox News.
 

As we reported before, a group of Delta Air Lines employees — with free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation — are appealing (pdf) a U.S. District Court judge’s decision to uphold a major rule change on how a union is imposed on railway and airline industry workers.

Last June, a U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia judge refused to impose an injunction halting the new unionization election procedures for workers in the shipping and transportation industries which were hastily instituted by the National Mediation Board (NMB).

The NMB — a government agency charged under the Railway Labor Act (RLA) with mediating labor disputes within the railroad and airline industries — voted 2-1 to dictate a new system which stacks the deck in favor of unionization by granting a union monopoly bargaining power over railway or airline industry workers if the union acquires support from just a bare majority of eligible workers in an election, no matter how few actually vote. This means that a small bloc of workers could force union boss "representation" on the whole group rather than having a true majority of all workers deciding for themselves.

The two NMB members who approved the new rule, Harry Hoglander and Linda Puchala are former union officials with the Air Line Pilots Association (ALPA) and Association of Flight Attendants (AFA) unions — two unions that have been pushing for the change — respectively.

Earlier this week, with help from Foundation staff attorneys, the flight attendants carried on their courageous fight and filed a joint appellant brief at the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. To read their appeal, click here.

Regular readers are already up to speed on the Obama National Labor Relations Board’s attempt to punish Boeing for opening a new production line in Right to Work South Carolina – and the National Right to Work Foundation’s efforts to help Boeing employees. Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Arthur Laffer and Stephen Moore explain why the NLRB’s actions are so pernicious:

The Obama administration’s National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint last month against Boeing to block production of the company’s 787 Dreamliner at a new assembly plant in South Carolina—a "right to-work" state with a law against compulsory union membership. If the NLRB has its way, Dreamliner assembly will return to Washington, a union-shop state, along with more than 1,000 jobs.

The NLRB’s action, which Boeing will challenge at a hearing next month, is a big deal. It’s the first time a federal agency has intervened to tell an American company where it can and cannot operate a plant within the U.S. It lays the foundation of a regulatory wall with one express purpose: to prevent the direct competition of right-to-work states with union-shop states. Why, as South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley recently asked on these pages, should Washington have any more right to these jobs than South Carolina?

The National Right to Work Foundation is offering free legal assistance to South Carolina workers affected by this complaint. If you work at Boeing’s Charleston Dreamliner plant, we strongly encourage you to contact us today.