A correspondent recently wrote to take exception with the Allegheny Institute’s support for right-to-work laws.
“Frankly, I don’t understand how or why these laws should be enacted or
supported in Pennsylvania or, for that matter, in any other state,” he said in an email.
“Some will say that the unemployment rate is lower in these states but
that’s deceiving by the fact that the jobs available and filled are low-skill, low-wage positions.
“These are not jobs that could support a family with a decent standard of
living,” my correspondent adds.
Interestingly, he makes the following observation:
“I was a ‘working man’ my entire life, both in union and nonunion jobs.
By far my best working experience was with a nonunion employer.
“But,” the writer continues, “he was smart enough to know the union policy for my field of employment. I was more than extremely fortunate to work for this individual in his small business. He recognized the value of his trusted and loyal employees and compensated us accordingly.”
It was “family,” he said.
Added the emailer:
“Besides that job there were times when I worked for companies with union representation; one very bad union and one very good union.
“I worked at one facility (where) the company basically bought and sold the
union reps and controlled everything — corruption on both sides and nothing could be done about it.
“I also worked at another facility that was a union job and we had the
support and protection needed to make both the company more than profitable and the employees compensated and treated fairly.
“What I experienced with my nonunion ‘family’ job does not exist in
today’s working world. Today more than ever employees need the protection offered by a responsible union. More than ever employees need wages and benefits that a quality union job can provide.”
Continued the email correspondent:
“Are there bad unions? Absolutely! Are there good and responsible unions? Absolutely!
“Is there a difference in what employees earn and the benefits they can
have between the right-to-work states and those states that choose not to enact those laws? Absolutely!”
And it’s OK if we agree to disagree, he concluded. At least I thank him for his civility.
But in a lengthy postscript, the writer repeated a large body of debunked research suggesting right-to-work states are, because of right-to-work laws, worse off economically.
It’s simply not true.
To wit, and citing only one of many examples, it was in 2015 that the Heritage Foundation replicated the research that unions and some economists used to support the claim that right-to-work laws reduce wages.
The major fallacy of the cited research was that it failed to fully control for cost-of-living differences among the states.
“Using the same model but fully controlling for price differences shows that right-to-work laws have no effect on private-sector workers’ purchasing power,” the Heritage study found.
Concluded Heritage scholar James Sherk:
“Policymakers have no economic justification for forcing workers to pay union dues. Workers who want to unionize have the right to do so. But the government should not force workers who see little benefit from union representation to purchase it.”
Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
