‘Public-Safety’ Act Would Turn Federalism Upside Down

Capital Research Center - Labor Watch
By Stan Greer

While the press has reported extensively on labor union efforts to accelerate private-sector union organizing by having Congress pass “card check” legislation, it has paid little attention to related efforts in Congress to mandate unionization in state and local government agencies. The union-supported “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” deserves increased public scrutiny.

Union Bosses and Other Compulsory-Unionism Apologists Aren’t ‘Entitled to Their Own Facts’

Now that it appears likely Coloradans will vote this November 4 on a proposed constitutional amendment that would prohibit the firing of employees for refusal to join or pay dues or fees to an unwanted union, union officials and other compulsory-unionism apologists have launched a $25-35 million-dollar campaign (according to their own, undoubtedly low-ball estimate) of lies and distortions to ensure the amendment doesn’t pass.

Valerie Bischoff Wins William B. Ruggles Journalism Scholarship and Lisa Bishara Wins Applegate/Jackson/Parks Future Teacher Scholarship

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research is pleased to announce the winners of its two annual essay contests on the Right to Work issue, the William B. Ruggles Journalism Scholarship and the Applegate/Jackson/Parks Future Teachers Scholarship.

Valerie Bischoff, currently a first-year graduate student at Columbia University School of the Arts, was awarded $2,000 as the 2008 recipient of the William B. Ruggles Journalism Scholarship. Majoring in Film Writing and Directing, Mrs. Bischoff is a 2006-2007 Fulbright Scholar, who has won several other awards including Honors in her undergraduate major, Film and Digital Media, at the University of Santa Cruz. Valerie’s essay reflected how the positive experience of living in a Right to Work state, Nevada, allows her to pursue her educational and career goals. As she concluded:

… [T]he right to unionize should be one of our fundamental freedoms. However, the validity of this right can only be realized if the members of the union are involved because of choice. Thankfully, in twenty-two states, a Right to Work law protects this freedom.

Lisa Bishara, beginning her first year as a graduate student at Ohio State University, took top honors in the Applegate/Jackson/Parks Future Teachers Scholarship. Mrs. Bishara was awarded $1,000 for her prize-winning essay on the vital importance of teachers’ academic freedom and the Right to Work. As an Elementary/Secondary Curriculum and Administration major, Mrs. Bishara plans to become a curriculum specialist with a defined emphasis on the creative arts. As she explained:

… We teach that everyone has choices in all they do. Children are required to serve consequences for their poor choices, and are rewarded for their superior choices. We teach nonconformity, “If your friends jumped off the highest bridge, does that make it the right choice for you?” No, this is not an acceptable answer. We teach that it is important for the child to opt for traveling their own course regardless of that his or her peers take. How, then, are we to allow ourselves to be forced into compulsory unionization? It is important to support voluntary unionism, which emphasizes the importance of choice.

For further information, contact the Institute’s Senior Research Associate Stan Greer, 703-321-9606, or stg@nrtw.org.

Residents of Every Midwestern Right to Work State Are Better off Than Michiganians

Just a few years ago, Colorado State University business professor Raymond Hogler, one of the most prominent academic opponents of state Right to Work laws in the U.S., acknowledged (in a paper coauthored with economist Robert LaJeunesse): “A number of studies present statistical data substantiating the point that right to work states create and retain more manufacturing jobs.”

The Hogler-LaJeunesse concession regarding factory jobs also applies to private-sector jobs in general. Between 2002 and 2007, for example, private-sector jobs in Right to Work states increased by a net 9.6%. That’s nearly triple the relatively small increase in private-sector jobs experienced by non-Right to Work states over this period.

Non-Right to Work Michigan, where Big Labor wields “exclusive” (monopoly) power to bargain with employers over the wages, benefits, and work rules of a higher share of private-sector employees than in all but one other state in the continental U.S., has an especially dismal employment picture. Along with forced-dues Ohio, which suffered a 0.4% private-sector job decline from 2002-2007, Michigan is one of just two states with negative job growth over the five year period. And Michigan’s decline of 5.2% is far worse than Ohio’s.

To continue reading the rest of the article, click on the attachment below.

Unions covered by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA), the Civil Service Retirement Act (CSRA), or the Foreign Service Act (FSA), with total annual receipts of $250,000 or more, are currently required to submit annual financial statements to the US Department of Labor. These statements provide basic information.

The LM-2 Form: This form will tell you when the next union election is, how many members the union has, the salaries of officers and staff, and other useful information, including:

• Whether the union has any subsidiary organizations
• Whether the union has a political action committee (PAC)
• Whether the union discovered any loss or shortage of funds
• Number of members
• Rates of dues and fees
• 7 asset categories such as cash and investments
• 4 liability categories such as accounts payable and mortgages payable
• 16 receipts categories such as dues and interest
• 18 disbursement categories such as payments to officers and repayment of loans obtained
• A schedule of payments to officers
• A schedule of payments to employees
• A schedule of office and administrative expenses
• A schedule of loans payable.

LM-2 forms (as well as LM-3 and T-1 forms for smaller unions) are public documents that are now online on the website of the US Department of Labor. Note: the forms are searchable. This means you can look for all officers earning over $100,000, for example, or for information about a particular officer or employee of the union. You can also get information on union Trusts and Political Action Committees (PACs).

To search forms available in DOL’s Online Public Disclosure Room or to learn more on how to use the site, click here.

To search LM-2s specifically:

1. In the “Union Reports and Collective Bargaining Agreements: Online Public Disclosure Room,” scroll down about a third of the window to the first point “Union (Form LM-2, LM-3, or LM-4) Search” under “Access Union Reports and Constitutions and Bylaws.” Click on the highlighted link.

2. Or, go directly here. Most individuals will not know the file number so just give whatever information you do know. Identify whether you want information about a union, a trust, or both.
   
   For purposes of this example, select “union,” then choose the union’s Abbreviation (CWA for example), or enter the union’s Affiliation (for example “Communications Workers AFL-CIO”), Organization Name (“Communications Workers of America), Designation Name (whether it is a local, council, conference, etc.), Designation Number (the local or council number, for example, local “1101”), Unit Name (name of that particular unit), City (“New York”) and State (“New York”). You do not need to fill in all the fields to search.
   
   Most of the form blanks have drop down menus to help you find the official name.

3. When you have put in the information, hit “submit.” The search engine will open a new page with the unions and reports that match your search.

4. Select the file you want to see and the type of report you are looking for. If you want to see salary information for officers and employees, select “Reports Specific to LM-2, LM-3, and T-1s; Officer/Employee Report.”

5. Note: You may have to look at various reports to find the information you want. Also, be sure to check all the pages of a form, not just the page that comes up on your screen. (Look for the “Records Next” button on the upper right.) You can also download the information.

Study Reveals Right to Work States’ Lead in Job Growth Consistent Over Time

The National Institute for Labor Relations Research today released its annual study comparing private-sector job growth in Right to Work states with private-sector job growth in 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 study reveals that not only is private-sector job growth faster in Right to Work states, but also that Right to work States’ lead in job growth is consistent over time.

See study attachment.

For further information, contact the Institute’s Senior Research Associate Stan Greer, 703-321-9606, or stg@nrtw.org.

With Repeal of Forced Dues in 2000, Annual GDP Could Have Been $436 Billion Higher by 2006

No one can state with certainty the price tag of the federal labor-law provisions that authorize the firing of roughly 7.3 million Americans employees should they refuse to pay union dues or fees as a job condition.

However, data issued last fall by the U.S. Commerce Department’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) indicate that, had Congress abolished federally-imposed union dues at the turn of the millennium, by 2006 the annual national economic output would have increased by an additional $436 billion in real 2000 dollars.

BEA data show that between 2000 and 2006 the combined real output of states with Right to Work laws barring all forced union dues and fees grew by 3.13% a year. That’s nearly half again as fast as the combined 2.11% real annual output growth of states that do not protect employees from federally-imposed forced union dues. (Oklahoma, which adopted its Right to Work law in September 2001, is excluded from this analysis. See Table I for more information.)

To put it another way, had the entire country grown as fast as the Right to Work states did over just this six-year period, by 2006 our national gross domestic product (GDP) would have been $11.727 trillion in chained 2000 dollars, $436 billion more than the actual figure of $11.291 trillion.

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 2007-2008 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 their legislation’s allegedly beneficial economic effects as the key reason for passing it. 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 bolster the U.S. economy and help 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.

Iowa’s 2001-2006 Income, Job Growth Greater Than Every Neighboring Forced-Dues State’s

In a recent Q&A session with journalists, including Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen and AP senior political writer Mike Glover, Iowa state Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal (D-Council Bluffs) distorted the facts about the relative performance of Iowa’s economy to justify his ongoing crusade to gut the state’s Right to Work law.

Executive Summary

Most mainstream media reporting on the supply and demand for K- 12 public schoolteachers across America ignores the dramatic differences for teachers at different grade levels and in different fields. Around the country, school officials typically report they have no trouble at all finding qualified people to teach in grades K-5 and middle and high school subjects like physical education, social studies, and English. However, school officials in every region of the U.S. frequently find it difficult if not impossible to recruit and retain qualified math, science, and special education teachers.

There are two reasons for the substantial and growing shortage of qualified teachers in fields like math and science. First, teachers and prospective teachers with this specialized knowledge can nearly always command much higher salaries in the private sector than they can in teaching. This is not nearly so true of other teachers. Second, the so-called “single salary schedule” used to determine teacher pay rates in the vast majority of school districts in the country does not allow school officials to offer higher pay for hard-to-fill teaching positions.

School officials who routinely fail to fill math and science teaching positions, or fill them only with teachers who actually specialize in other fields, would undoubtedly modify or scrap the single salary schedule, but for the entrenched opposition of teacher union officials, especially local and state officers of the National Education Association.

And teacher union officials have so far been very successful in blocking significant reforms of the single salary schedule because of state and local public policies authorizing them to act as the “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agents of all the K-12 teachers in a school district.