IBD: Jobs, Income Data Show Right-To-Work States Working

This is exactly what Right to Work states have known all along but even some conservatives bought into the union graphs/articles recently that appeared on websites showing Right to Work states were not doing that well.   Those of us who live in Right to Work states know better and so did our media as they made fun of unions for saying Union States were doing better.  Here are the undeniable facts:

Jobs, Income Data Show Right-To-Work States Working
By SEAN HIGGINS, INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY 

Posted 06/29/2011 07:09 PM ET 

The business world is abuzz over the National Labor Relations Board's complaint vs. Boeing's new South Carolina production line. For NLRB critics, the case boils down to one thing: "right-to-work" laws.
Right-to-work states have generally lower unemployment, higher job growth, lower taxes and better business climates. They have growing populations and have been attracting businesses from other states. 

In most states, once a workplace is unionized, employees are required to join the union or they can't work there. But 22 states, including South Carolina, have passed laws that give employees the right not to join. Hence the term "right-to-work." 

Unions dislike these laws for the obvious reason: It reduces their membership. 

Critics like the Chamber of Commerce say a union-friendly NLRB is simply punishing Boeing for choosing a right-to-work state, a charge the agency has rejected. 

But if the complaint stands, it could stop firms in heavily unionized states from expanding or moving to right-to-work states. 

Why go to these states? 

"It gives employers more flexibility and it gives the workers more individual rights," said Chris Edwards, senior fellow at the free-market Cato Institute. "Unionized workforces are more likely to demand unaffordable compensation that puts the businesses at a disadvantage." 

Better Job, Wage Gains 

It seems to be a good deal for the workers, too. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.1%. In right-to-work states the average is 7.9% — 8.6% adjusted for population.

Between 1977-08, employment grew 100% in right-to-work states vs. the national average of 71% and 56.5% in non-right-to-work states. That's according to a January study that Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder did for the Indiana Chamber of Commerce.
In this period, real per capita income in the right-to-work states grew 62.3% vs. the national average of 54.7% and 52.8% for non-right-to-work states. 

Vedder has studied right-to-work laws for decades and argues that this success is not a coincidence. 

" I've been looking for ways to show that these laws don't really (impact) anything. But I haven't found it yet," Vedder said. 

Between 2000-09, about 5 million people moved to right-to-work states from other states. The population of 25- to 34-year-olds in right-to-work states has grown 16%, according to an American Legislative Exchange Council study, indicating that they "attract the most productive members of society." 

Critics argue that these are correlations that don't show causation. The 22 right-to-work states are pretty diverse. Nevada has a unionization rate of around 15%. The epicenter for the housing bust has a 12.1% jobless rate. 

Excerpt:  Read more at Investors.com

Do I see help wanted signs on places here in Oklahoma?  Sure do along with help wanted ads in the newspaper and ads on the radio.  People scoff at working at McDonald's but if you are energetic and willing to work, you can soon rise in the ranks.  A lot of the managers were one-time people behind the counter but they worked their way up to manager.  Same is true at a lot of fast food places.  Walmart is hiring and so are some stores in the mall.  If you are in construction trades (roofing/siding) in particular, you are going to have work in Norman all summer long with the amount of damage from the recent down burst.  All of our power lines are still not replaced.   If you want to be a member of the trades, they offer the training and apprenticeship for a very good income in the end.  Oil and gas is drilling and the state had one of its largest sales tax months in over a year.

With increased revenue, our Governor May Fallin is considering doing away with our state income tax to become more like the leader Texas.  She knows that lower taxes are going to attract business and the climate is ripe here in Oklahoma to keep the growth of good jobs sustained as our unemployment rate has been dropping.  We can thank Boeing for part of those new jobs as they have been transferring jobs from Long Beach to Oklahoma.  Boeing is investing in the Tinker AFB area since a lot of their planes are managed out of Tinker and the new tanker will join their other planes already being overhauled here.  Several companies have built their own hangars to do their overhaul work right here at Tinker.  The Air Force/contractor partnership has worked well at Tinker AFB over the years and with the new airplane mall, it is working even better.

Oklahoma is following in Texas' footsteps with passing tort reform in this session and with our Republican Governor Mary Fallin

The unions threw everything at the Right to Work in Oklahoma but in the end we passed Right to Work and would hate to think where we would be at today if we were still a Union State.  What unions don't want you to know is that Right to Work doesn't do away with unions, it just means union membership is not required for you to work at a certain place and you don't have to pay union dues that end up in the Democrat campaigns.

Here are the Right to Work states in turquoise -- note how many of these states are part of Red State America.  Must admit it brought a laugh to see that solid turquoise in the center of the country just like in elections for President it goes solid RED.

There is now a move afoot to make Michigan a Right to Work state.  The new Governor of Michigan Rick Snyder is another new Republican Governor not allowing grass to grow under his feet as he tries to get Michigan back on solid footing.

Does Obama want to kill Right to Work with the NLRB in Violation of Taft Hartley?

Since 1947, states have been allowed to vote for Right to Work but today we only have 22 states who have passed Right to Work. What does that say about the power of unions in the Democrat blue states that a vote doesn't even come up for the people of the state to vote in recent years.  Now the NLRB at the request of Obama is flexing its muscle to say that Boeing is not allowed to move manufacturing to South Carolina a Right to Work state from Washington State, a Union State.  Does that mean the Obama Administration was to violate the Taft Hartley Act of 1947?

State laws permitted by section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Act of 1947 that provide in general that employees are not required to join a union as a condition of getting or retaining a job.

Right-to-work laws forbid unions and employers to enter into agreements requiring employees to join a union and pay dues and fees to it in order to get or keep a job. Twenty-one states, mostly in the South and West, have right-to-work laws.

Oklahoma became the last Right to Work state on September 25, 2001, after a vote of the people. The right of the people to vote on Right to Work was due to our current Governor Mary Fallin.  As Lt Governor she took over the gavel in the Senate to break the logjam of the Democrats stifling the right of the people to vote. The Democrats had shut off the electricity to the Senate chamber but that didn't stop Mary and others from getting the Right to Work bill passed to put it on a ballot in a special election.

The money and union thugs from out of state poured into our state at an alarming rate. The Clintons were part of the management of the group trying to defeat Right to Work. Over 90% of the donations to the Right to Work side came from within Oklahoma while over 90% of the donations to its defeat came from outside of Oklahoma. The ads on the TV against Right to Work were so full of lies that almost anyone could see through them. The day of the election the out of state thugs were in some areas but not in ours -- our Sheriff at the time would have arrested them on the spot if they did anything outside the law so they stayed away from our County. With all the poll watchers and lawyers ready to come in at a moments notice, we won the battle to make Oklahoma a Right to Work state.

Now the union people here keep putting out that Right to Work didn't bring jobs to Oklahoma. Tell that to the people who have been hired by Boeing with all the jobs they have transferred into Oklahoma to be closer to the depot at Tinker AFB or other companies that have brought jobs to the State. We have airplane hangars that have been built at the Tinker AFB Mall from various companies to repair aircraft right here in Oklahoma instead of in other states.

Is the NLRB going to be at our doorstep next? EPA has a lousy track record against Oklahoma with our Senators so bring on the NLRB to go toe to toe with Senators Inhofe and Coburn. My money is on our two Senators.

Has the fact Oklahoma is a Right to Work state affected campaign donations to Democrats by the unions? Absolutely! The passage of Right to Work in September 2001 along with term limits passed in the early 90's by voters led to the House being taken over by the Republicans in 2004 and for the first time in history Republican control of the Senate in 2010 in spite of ACORN trying to steal two Senate seats. Now Republicans for the first time in history also control all statewide offices as well with the 2010 elections.

The tactics of union leaders is legendary starting with the Longshoreman in NY with support of the Mafia. Now word comes the union thug tactics has struck the town of Costa Mesa in Orange County, CA. Here is the latest on that situation where a union thug leader intercepted emails to find out what the opposition (city council) was doing:

VIDEO: AFL-CIO Leader Admits To ‘Intercepting’ Emails In Dispute With Costa Mesa City Council Bernardino ”GATE”

....

Berardino”GATE” – Enter Nick Berardino, the AFL-CIO’s General Manager of the Orange County Employees Union; the stereotypical “thug” that speaks of his Italian heritage and jokes about showing up at Orange County Republican Party Chairman Scott Baugh’s home’s when upset with him, “and I don’t want to go there to deliver cannoli and a little bit of wine.” Mr. Berardino it seems, not only likes to joke about these physical taunts but apparently likes to “intercept” other people’s email in an effort to know all the covert moves of his opponents. Also on the video below Art Pulaski, an Officer with the California Labor Federation, says “I have seen the memos from the leaders of Costa Mesa to the leaders of Orange County and beyond.” It appears Nick the thug and Art keep in communication.





Costa Mesa like many municipalities in America are going through difficult fiscal times and hard decisions by elected officials must be made to prevent insolvency. What the citizens of Costa Mesa don’t need, and I dare say, the city workers of Costa Mesa don’t need, is Nick Berardino and Art Pulaski doing things that would make Nixon blush.

When asked about the “intercepted” emails comment made on video, Costa Mesa City Councilman Jim Righeimer said, “Someone gave me a copy of the video and I immediately gave it to the Orange County District Attorney’s office for investigation. People have a right to privacy that we need to ensure is not being violated here.”

My guess is the next move of the Democrat Party/Union (let’s face it they are the same entity now) is to call in THE PLUMBERS. Maybe they should flush Nick Berardino out of the system first.

Excerpt: Read More at TrevorLoudon.com

It gets pretty bad when the unions feel so threatened that they take on a city council with thug tactics. When are more states going to follow the lead of the 22 Right to Work states and give the people a chance to vote on Right to Work?

You cannot argue with the facts:

A recent study by the staff of Sen. Jim DeMint, R-S.C., pointed to some revealing data: Between 1993 and 2009, right-to-work states created jobs twice as fast as states where forced unionism is permitted, and enjoyed 10 percent faster growth in personal income. Right-to-work states account for only 40 percent of the U.S. population but hosted 60 percent of the nation's new businesses during that same period.

Such data contrasts mightily with facts like this: Unions spent $400 million to elect President Obama and Democrats in 2008 largely because of promises to use the federal government to restore labor to its former position of strength. The centerpiece of that effort was card check, which would have abolished secret ballots in workplace representation elections, but it failed in Congress.

So now the Obama campaign to rescue dying unions is focused on the National Labor Relations Board. The NLRB, which is run by Obama appointees, has filed a complaint against Boeing Aircraft Co. for expanding its manufacturing operations into DeMint's right-to-work state. Obama is only trying to help his union campaign donors -- as usual -- but this effort is bound to backfire. Right-to-work states are demonstrating daily that workers, their families and taxpayers all benefit when employees have the freedom to choose whether to join a union. There are 22 such states now and odds are more are coming, which will be good economic news for them -- and the country.

Excerpt: Read More at the Washington Examiner

The following information made me chuckle when you learn that the Obama Export Council Chair is none other than the CEO and President of Boeing Corporation, Jim McNerney. How fitting that the Obama Administration is going after the company that their Export Council Chair is the head. Talk about being tone-deaf -- that is Obama and his Administration as they do the bidding of the labor unions.

NLRB takes another Boeing hit as Obama’s Export Council chair criticizes labor board’s plans

President Barack Obama remains silent on the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) actions against the Boeing Company’s recently-finished $2 billion production plant in South Carolina, but his Export Council chairman Jim McNerney, who’s also the president and CEO of Boeing, ripped the NLRB in a Wall Street Journal op-ed Wednesday morning.

“The NLRB is wrong and has far overreached its authority,” McNerney wrote. “Its action is a fundamental assault on the capitalist principles that have sustained America’s competitiveness since it became the world’s largest economy nearly 140 years ago. We’ve made a rational, legal business decision about the allocation of our capital and the placement of new work within the U.S. We’re confident the federal courts will reject the claim, but only after a significant and unnecessary expense to taxpayers.”

Excerpt: Read More at The Daily Caller

Anyone want to bet that the management of Boeing will not be in line to give political donations to Obama and Democrats this time around? Looks like Obama and his union thugs put the unions ahead of Federal Law once again as Obama bends over backwards to court the unions for campaign donations as his latest fundraisers have not gone well.

Stay tuned for more updates as Boeing and Senate Republicans take on the NLRB.

Federal labor board seeks to ground Boeing

Yesterday it came out that the Obama Administration wants to require companies submitting proposals for contracts to include their campaign donations. We thought that was blatantly illegal, but today we seeing the further grab of private industry since the Obama National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) wants to tell Boeing where to locate their new plant when the plant is South Carolina is almost finished..  Why?  Obama and the NLRB want Boeing to put the plant in the non-Right to Work, Blue State, Washington.  They have given no thought to the fact the plant is almost finished in Right to Work, Red State, South Carolina.

Is Obama trying to further alienate Red versus Blue states.  In the process he is going to find that some of the states who went Blue for him in 2008 are going to come back solidly Red in 2012 like Florida.  With this type of coercion against companies, we look for more than just Florida to turn red.  Americans are fed up with Obama telling private industry what to do.  We expect a huge backlash from the voters against the socialist tendencies of Obama and his cronies in 2012.
What right does Obama or any Administration have to tell a privately held company where to locate a new plant? Did Boeing not give enough money to Obama for his campaign or is it the fact they don't want to give this time around?  It is all about the campaign now as Obama lines up his union supporters. 

The Obama Administration is doing more of a power grab by the day and quickly writing off states. Now it is all the Right to Work States who will not be allowed to lure any business from companies in Blue non-Right to Work states because of union demands.  Looks to us like the union leaders are telling Obama to do their bidding in exchange for their help in 2012.  How much voter fraud plus illegal donations did the unions provide to Obama in 2008?

When it dawns on you that the plant is virtually complete but Obama still wants them to relocate to Washington, you get the sick feeling that this President does considers himself a dictator now. Over the years Boeing has lost almost $1.8B since 1989 because of the every three year strikes by Boeing union members but that is okay because Obama wants to reward union members who try to take down the evil management of a company.

Obama is once again going against the vast majority of Americans who believe union workers are coddled and go on strike to take time off. Since OSHA came on the scene to protect workers, what are the reasons for the unions to strike as it not worker safety. The GM plant in Midwest City was closed because they kept doing unsanctioned strikes. Until the building was turned over to the Government for Tinker AFB, some of the union members played cards all day for their full pay.

We have witnessed the mess union members leave behind in Wisconsin with their litter and damage to buildings because they didn't like a law that was being discussed. Will someone tell me why we have teacher unions to start with? Never could believe their striking when their job is to educate our children.

Now we have this latest from Obama and NLRB telling a private company, Boeing, who has almost finished their facility in South Carolina that they are going to have to pick up and move to a Blue State which does not have Right to Work. Has Obama crossed the line?  We believe he has.

Federal labor board seeks to ground BoeingBy: Examiner Editorial 04/21/11 8:05 PM

Can federal bureaucrats tell a private company where to build a factory?

Members of President Obama's National Labor Relations Board think they can. In a decision that even the New York Times is describing as "highly unusual for the federal government," Lafe Solomon, who was appointed to the board by Obama, filed a complaint on behalf of the NLRB on Wednesday seeking to force the Boeing Co. to build an assembly line in Washington state instead of South Carolina. The NLRB action stems from Boeing's October 2009 decision to build a new factory for its new 787 Dreamliner airplane near Charleston, S.C. Boeing first sought to build the new plant near its existing facility in Puget Sound, but negotiations with the International Association of Machinists broke down when the union refused to agree to a long-term no-strike clause. The IAM had struck four times since 1989, costing Boeing at least $1.8 billion in revenue.

That's when Boeing chose South Carolina, a right-to-work state where, unlike Washington, workers are not forced to join unions. As a result of this policy, only 6.2 percent of South Carolinians belong to unions. Construction of Boeing's new Charleston factory is nearly complete, and the company has already hired more than 1,000 new employees, drawn mostly from within the immediate region. And back in Washington, Boeing has actually increased employment at its Puget Sound plant by 2,000 workers. But that isn't good enough for the IAM or the Obama White House. After suffering major defeats in Wisconsin and Ohio, the labor movement is looking for a scalp. Obama's NLRB is trying to turn Boeing into one.

The NLRB is hanging its case on a senior Boeing official's statement to the Seattle Times that "The overriding factor [in transferring the line] ... was that we cannot afford to have a work stoppage, you know, every three years." The NLRB absurdly claims this is "unlawful employer speech" that infringes on "a worker's fundamental" right to strike. But the Supreme Court has long held that firms may consider the economic effect of strikes when making business decisions. Also, Boeing's existing collective bargaining agreement with the IAM allows Boeing to build facilities at other locations. An administrative law judge will hear Boeing's objection to the NLRB's complaint June 14, so there still is hope sanity will prevail. But a decision in favor of the IAM would be a disaster not just for Boeing, but for American workers everywhere. A ruling in favor of Obama's NLRB would make it presumptively illegal for any unionized firm to invest in a right-to-work state.

At first, this would mainly hurt right-to-work states, as they would no longer be able to lure new businesses from existing unionized firms. But over the long run, this policy would hurt unions and all Americans. Why would any domestic company choose to build a factory in a forced-union state if it knew that meant it could never expand to a right-to-work state? Why would any international firm invest anywhere in this country if it knew the White House would favor political allies?

The NLRB isn't protecting workers, it is setting them up for eventual unemployment.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

This latest attempt by Obama to tell private industry where to build their plant is one more reason for Republicans to field a strong candidate in 2012 to take down Obama. That candidate is not any candidate who ran in 2008 in the GOP Primary because if they couldn't beat McCain how does anyone think they will beat Obama. The only one who had the capability of beating Obama, Rudy, couldn't get over the hurdle of the GOP primaries.

Soon after May 22nd, a candidate will announce who will change the dynamics of the race. Stay tuned!