The Detroit News has just published a remarkably fact-free op-ed on the economics of the Right to Work issue. Given the author makes his living from Big Labor’s forced dues gravy train (he’s a treasurer with the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters & Millwrights) which is partly responsible for Michigan’s ongoing economic nightmare, it’s no wonder he would be alarmed by the talk of cancelling union bosses’ compulsory union dues privileges in Michigan.
The author starts out with this mind-boggling passage:
"Undeniably, having Michigan become a "right-to-work" state would be bad for workers, helping dismantle freely negotiated wage standards and benefits, as well as worker protections, in many industries. In right-to-work states, nonunion members can opt out of paying union dues, even though they receive all the guarantees and protections of the existing union contract under which they work." [Emphasis added]
Freely negotiated wage standards? Really? Is that what they are calling the system of mandatory bargain-or-be-prosecuted federal labor policy? Warehousing employees into collective bargaining units doesn’t result in "free" anything, and to suggest otherwise is Orwellian double-talk.
The article continues:
"The reality is that "right-to-work" is not just a union issue. Our modern Michigan economy is in many ways "indivisible." For example, the strength and quality of our outstanding Michigan health care sector relies on the earned health care benefits of workers across many employment sectors, union or nonunion, skilled trade or service worker, blue collar or white.
Similarly, pension funds (whether defined benefit programs negotiated by labor unions in both the public and private sectors, 401(k) and similar plans provided by private employers or individual retirement accounts) are invested directly in our community, while their management supports the financial services sector of our Michigan economy."
Union officials’ corrupt history of pension fund management should immediately give Michiganders pause. And the union record on health insurance is hardly better. Take the Michigan Education Association, for example. The Association’s health insurance plan forces Michigan taxpayers to subsidize a bloated, uncompetitive payment scheme whose shady accounting procedures have been linked to union political activism.
The article concludes by citing some bogus report issued by Jeff Vincent, research director of the Indiana University Division of Labor Studies’ Institute for the Study of Labor in Society.
Vincent’s study conveniently ignores Right to Work states’ comparative advantages in both higher real earnings and lower average costs of living. In other words, workers’ paychecks go a lot further in economically dynamic Right to Work states because the goods they purchase are significantly cheaper.
At this juncture, it’s worth noting that the moral case for Right to Work principles is entirely separate from the issue of material prosperity. Here at Freedom@Work, we believe that employees everywhere have an inalienable right to choose whether or not to associate with a union, regardless of anyone’s feelings or the perceived economic benefits of collective bargaining. But it’s also nice to know that study after study has validated the significant economic, job-creating advantages of Right to Work policies.
