In Least-Unionized States, Ranks of Insured Have Increased by Nearly Three Million Since 1999

Critics of the major government-run health-care proposals now being hammered out by congressional Democrats and the Obama Administration charge they would destroy private employers’ ability to furnish employees with health insurance at a manageable cost. Ultimately, critics charge, the proposals being discussed would leave employees and their families with no alternative to a government-run insurance policy.

It is outside the expertise of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research to assess the validity of these charges.

However, anyone with a knowledge of the rankings of the 50 states according to the share of private-sector employees who are under “exclusive” union representation, and multi-year U.S. Census Bureau data regarding the number of insured people in each state, can see that another leading legislative objective of congressional Democrats and the White House definitely does threaten job-based private health insurance nationwide.

This legislative goal is enactment either of the cynically mislabeled “Employee Free Choice Act” (S. 560 and H.R. 1409), or of Trojan Horse “compromise” legislation that would, through different means, also help Organized Labor secure monopoly-bargaining power over millions of additional workers and hundreds of thousands of now-independent small businesses.

S. 560 and H.R. 1409 were introduced in Congress March 10, respectively by Big Labor Sens. Ted Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and by Congressman George Miller (D-Calif.). In addition to making it far easier for union officials to obtain “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining control over employees, this legislation would, in non-Right to Work states, also make it far easier for Big Labor to browbeat employers into consenting to fire employees who refuse to join or pay dues or fees to a union.

The Kennedy/Harkin/Miller scheme’s best-known provision would rewrite federal law concerning “card checks.” Under current law, union bosses are already able to acquire monopoly power to negotiate employees’ pay, benefits, and work rules solely through the collection of signed “union authorization cards.” Consequently, individual workers under the peering eyes of union organizers may be intimidated into signing not just themselves, but all of their nonunion fellow employees, over to union-boss control.

However, as stacked as current law is in favor of Big Labor’s forced-unionism power, employers nevertheless retain the right to stand up for their independent employees against union-boss intimidation tactics. But S. 560 and H.R. 1409 would empower union officials to impose forced unionism through card check automatically, with no recourse for any pro-Right to Work employee or employer.

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Federally Mandated Union Monopoly Over Public-Safety Employees Dangerous For Taxpayers

Union-label Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is expected soon to bring to the U.S. House floor legislation that would federally mandate union monopoly bargaining over state and local public-safety employees across the country. H.R. 413, the Police/Fire Monopoly-Bargaining Bill, was introduced in January by Congressman Dale Kildee (D-Mich.). Mr. Kildee’s cynically misleading label for the measure is the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act of 2009.

H.R. 413 would rewrite the public-sector labor laws of the vast majority of the 50 states to make them more supportive of so-called “exclusive” union bargaining in the public sector.

In states that don’t currently authorize public-safety monopoly bargaining, H.R. 413 would impose it, denying localities the option to refuse to grant a single union the power to speak for all front-line employees, including those who don’t want to join. And in most states that already authorize public-safety union monopoly bargaining, H.R. 413 would widen its scope.

For example, under current Massachusetts law, state police and other state government union officials wield monopoly power to negotiate employees’ pay with state agencies, but do not have any control over employees’ health insurance plans. But H.R. 413 would force Massachusetts legislators either to rewrite state law to grant government union officials monopoly-bargaining power over the health plans of all public-safety workers employed at the state level, or allow federal bureaucrats to do the same thing for them.

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Stan Greer from the National Institute of Labor Relations Research explains the problems with Colorado’s Senate Bill 180, which would override local control and mandate collective bargaining for police officers and firefighters. SB 180 would deprive many public servants of the right to choose their own workplace representation (and in some cases force them to pay for it), while not necessarily solving issues related to public safety equipment. Data also indicate that states with higher public-sector unionization mean higher tax bills for their residents.

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Western, Southern and Midwestern States Rank in Top Eight For 2003-2008 Employment Gains

For many years, U.S. Labor Department data have shown that states with Right to Work laws on the books have far faster private-sector job growth than states that do not protect employees from federal policies authorizing the termination of workers for refusal to pay dues or fees to an unwanted union. The latest available data show Right to Work states retain a wide job-growth advantage.

Between 2003 and 2008, private-sector jobs in the 22 Right to Work states increased by an aggregate 9.1%. That’s 2.5 times as great as the relatively small increase in private-sector jobs experienced by the 28 non-Right to Work states over this period. (See the tables on pages three and four for details.)

The correlation between a state’s Right to Work status and job growth is extraordinarily strong. Among the eight states with the biggest gains in private-sector employment over the past five years, seven – Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, Idaho, Arizona, Texas and North Dakota – have Right to Work laws. These states are located in the West, the South, and the Midwest. Montana was the only non-Right to Work state to rank among the top eight – and its job gains were outpaced by all five of the Right to Work states in the West, where Montana is located.

Meanwhile, seven states had private-sector job growth of less than two percent or negative job growth over the past five years. All seven – Indiana, Maine, Michigan, New Jersey, Ohio, Rhode Island and Vermont – are forced-dues states.

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Federally-sanctioned forced union dues have predictable economic consequences.
Among them are Big Labor’s use of rigid work rules and cultivation of the “hate the boss” mentality to cement its power over employees.

Right to Work laws, now on the books in 22 states, protect the freedom of both private- and public-sector employees to keep and hold a job without forking over dues or fees to a union that is recognized as their “exclusive” (actually, monopoly) bargaining agent.

Unless they are protected by a state Right to Work law, independent-minded employees have no power to fight back against union bosses by withholding their financial support. And when employees have no personal freedom of choice, union bosses have little incentive to tone down their class warfare. Employees are consequently far less likely to reach their full productive potential and reap the accompanying benefits.

That’s a key reason why a wide array of demographic and economic indicators, including young- adult migration, show that forced union dues inhibit growth.

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For years, scientific opinion polls have shown that Americans overwhelmingly oppose federal labor laws that empower union officials to represent all employees in a company unit and deny union nonmembers the right to bargain for themselves. But Organized Labor’s top priority in the 2009-2010 Congress, the inaptly named “Employee Free Choice” Act, would rewrite federal labor law to make it even easier for union officials to secure monopoly-bargaining privileges over employees.

Well aware that the American people oppose monopoly unionism, union officials are citing as the key reason for passing it its alleged value as an economic stimulant as the nation seeks to pull itself out of a recession. However, even a cursory look at the contrasting economic track records of states in which a relatively high share of employees are under union monopoly bargaining and states in which monopoly bargaining is relatively rare shows this case is phony.

The record shows that the prevalence of union monopoly bargaining is correlated with lower real incomes, higher living costs, slower growth in jobs and job benefits, and higher unemployment. The evidence is overwhelming that enactment of federal legislation that is designed to put millions of additional workers under union monopoly-bargaining control would be economically harmful, not beneficial.

If Congress really wants to help the U.S. economy recover and restore opportunities for employees and businesses, it should instead revise federal labor law to ensure that it respects the ability of each individual employee to choose whether or not to be represented by and furnish financial support for a labor union.

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Census Data Indicate Needs of College-Educated, Non-College Educated Employees Are Similar

Stanley Greer, program director at the National Institute for Labor Relations Research discusses union politics and Big Labor’s massive fundraising apparatus with National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation VP Stefan Gleason. Greer pegs the amount of money (largely funded with dues collected under from workers forced to pay) that Big Labor will be spending on this election at $1.2 billion or more, and explains the many ways union bosses funnel money to their hand-picked candidates.

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And 1.3 Million Are Forced to Pay Union Dues, as Well as Accept Union Monopoly Bargaining

Education observers of all political stripes recognize that officials of the 3.2 million-member National Education Association and the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers teacher unions, as well as officials of state and local NEA and AFT affiliates, wield enormous clout over how America’s schools are run.

In a paper distributed last year, for example, Dr. Terry M. Moe, a political science professor at Stanford University and a prominent scholar in the field of education policy, concluded, citing his latest and previous research, that NEA and AFT union officers “use their power to shape the structure and ultimately the performance of government [schools].”

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