Is Right-to-Work Good for Jobs?

In an opinion piece in Politico this morning, U.S. Senate hopeful George Allen expounded upon his hardline position on the issue of right-to-work laws.  States with right-to-work laws do not allow employers to require their employees to pay union dues as a prerequisite for employment.  Because of the impact this policy has on labor unions, right-to-work has become an incredibly controversial issue nationwide.

Opponents of right-to-work laws argue that it’s simply a ploy to cut off financial support from the unions.  Right-to-work laws create a scenario where workers can receive the benefits of membership in a union without having to pay the price of union membership (sounds like a pretty good deal, doesn’t it?).  The problem is, when workers don’t pay union dues the unions can’t afford to effectively advocate their positions, whether it’s through litigation, lobbying or any sort of worker’s rights campaign.  Without the means to fund these endeavors, the unions essentially fall apart.

Supporters of right-to-work laws, like George Allen, claim that this policy is good for business and ultimately beneficial to the economies of the states in which they are enacted.  Allen writes, “Having been governor, one would think Tim Kaine, my opponent in the Virginia Senate race, would know about the desirability of right-to-work laws for Virginia jobs...”

The question is: do right-to-work laws actually benefit state economies?

If we take state unemployment rates as the indicator for the relative health of state economies, as George Allen appears to, the results are actually pretty mixed.  There are states with right-to-work laws that have high unemployment and states with right-to-work laws that have low unemployment; the same goes for states without right-to-work laws.  However, if we look at the states in which unemployment has been dropping the most rapidly, a trend begins to emerge.

There are currently 22 right-to-work states, about half of the states in the union.  Of the five states in which unemployment has dropped the most since its high point after the recession – Michigan, Nevada, Indiana, Illinois, and Oregon – only one is a right-to-work state, Nevada.  Despite the fact that Nevada’s unemployment rate has dropped nearly 3% since it’s high point of 14.9%, it still has the highest unemployment rate of any state in the union.  If we take a slightly broader sample and look at the ten states in which unemployment has dropped the most, the picture doesn’t get any better for right-to-work states.  Of those ten states (the five already mentioned plus Ohio, Oklahoma, Minnesota, Vermont, and New Hampshire) only two are right-to-work states.  It looks like union busting may not be the answer to the country’s economic woes after all.

What’s really been fueling the U.S. economic recovery (no pun intended) is the success of policies like the U.S. auto bailout.  The states that are seeing the fastest and most successful recoveries are the states like Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York, the rust belt states that benefitted the most from the auto bailout; and coincidentally, none of these states have right-to-work laws.  

This country doesn’t need more union busters, what we need is courageous leadership and the good ideas that will keep us on a path to recovery.