Tag: right to work

Commentary: Big Labor State Politicians’ ‘Wall of Denial’ Is Starting to Crumble

RealClearWire
California Illinois

For decades, cold, hard data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) have shown that states like New Jersey, Illinois and California are paying a high price for allowing dues-hungry union bosses to continue getting workers fired for refusal to bankroll their organizations.

Year after year, far more taxpayers have been leaving forced-unionism states than moving into them.  And the average tax filer moving out of a forced-unionism state has reported having an adjusted gross income (AGI) on his or her IRS form that is substantially higher than the average for a tax filer moving into a forced-unionism state.

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Wisconsin’s Largest Business Advocate Applauds Republicans’ Removal of Hundreds of Governor Tony Evers’ Proposals from Budget

M.D. Kittle

The Legislature’s Joint Finance Committee this week jettisoned 545 of liberal Governor Tony Evers’ budget proposals, packed with higher taxes on businesses and individuals and growing government initiatives.

Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, the state’s largest business advocate, is applauding the Republican-controlled budget-writing committee for trimming Evers’ bigger government budget plan. 

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Pennsylvania House Committee Passes Forced-Unionism Amendment

Bradley Vasoli

A bill to enshrine union coercion in the Pennsylvania Constitution passed the state House Labor and Industry Committee 12-9 on Monday. 

The measure, identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly ratified last autumn, would prevent adoption of a “right-to-work” law saying nonunion workers can’t be forced to pay union dues. More broadly, the amendment would counteract statutes that check the power of labor organizations and, opponents fear, give public-sector union contracts primacy over state law. 

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Pennsylvania Committee Considers Socialist’s Forced Unionism Amendment

Bradley Vasoli

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania’s new state House Democratic majority began considering a measure to enshrine forced unionism in the state Constitution. 

The House of Representatives Labor and Industry Committee took testimony on legislation identical to an Illinois constitutional amendment that Prairie State voters narrowly approved last November. Proposed by Representative Elizabeth Fiedler (D-Philadelphia), the Pennsylvania amendment would forbid lawmakers to enact a right-to-work law banning contracts that demand union-dues payments even from nonmembers. 

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National Nonprofit Ranks Pennsylvania 46th in Economic Performance

Bradley Vasoli

According to a new analysis by the nonprofit American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), Pennsylvania ranks 46th among states for economic performance and 35th for economic outlook.

Now in its 16th edition, ALEC’s Rich States, Poor States compares states’ economic posture based on 15 policy factors. Pennsylvania’s performance only ranked ahead of West Virginia, Connecticut, Alaska and — in dead last — Louisiana. 

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Michigan House Votes to Repeal Right-to-Work, Reinstate Prevailing Wage, End A-F Grading System

The Center Square

The Michigan House on Tuesday voted to repeal right-to-work, reinstate the prevailing wage, and trash the state’s A-F grading system for public schools.

The Democrat-dominated House approved Senate Bill 34 on a vote of 65-52. The bill aims to allow unions to require workers to pay dues to a labor organization as a condition of obtaining or continuing employment. The Senate approved the bill last week to repeal the policy enacted in 2012 by former Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. 

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Gov. Shapiro’s Pennsylvania Budget Proposal Rewards Union Donors

Bradley Vasoli

Unions donated copiously to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D) during last year’s gubernatorial campaign and they’ll reap a handsome reward if the legislature approves a particular item in Shapiro’s proposed budget. 

The Fiscal Year 2023-24 spending plan includes a $1,274,000 initiative to increase by one-third the number of labor law compliance investigators at the commonwealth’s Department of Labor and Industry. The text of Shapiro’s proposal expresses concern that more labor cases need to be probed and that businesses need more education on workers’ right to organize. 

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Shapiro’s Planned Spending Increase Alarms Pennsylvania Budget Hawks

Bradley Vasoli

Pennsylvania Josh Shapiro asked the state General Assembly members on Tuesday to support his requested $45.9 billion budget, which would increase spending by approximately 4 percent over current outlays. 

The governor insisted he based his plan for Fiscal Year 2023-24 on “conservative” revenue estimates. And he did include some provisions appealing to anti-taxers and free-marketers including nixing the state cell-phone tax, a move he estimates would save Pennsylvanians $124 million annually. 

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Evers Budget Hurts Wisconsin Job Creators, Middle Class, Think Tank Says

Bradley Vasoli

The nonprofit Institute for Reforming Government (IRG) on Friday issued a comprehensive analysis of Democratic Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers’s 2023-25 state budget and bemoaned the proposal’s likely impact on job creators and the middle class.

Evers’s spending plan totals $104 billion, $16 billion more than the budget on which the Badger State now operates. If enacted, the new proposal would be the first state budget exceeding $100 billion. It includes massive spending increases in such areas as public education, childcare assistance, “affordable housing” and broadband expansion. Republican lawmakers, who object to the extent of the spending hikes and the governor’s refusal to devote more of the state’s $7.1 billion surplus to tax cuts, promised last week to thoroughly rewrite the plan. 

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Big Labor Growing Bolder in Badger State with Potential for Liberal Majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court

M.D. Kittle

A longtime Wisconsin factory worker charges the United Steelworkers threatened to have her fired for seeking to leave the union.  

It’s another brazen act by Badger State Big Labor, emboldened by a union-friendly governor and the prospects of the state Supreme Court taking a left turn, a worker’s freedom advocate tells The Wisconsin Daily Star. 

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Poll: Michiganders Approve of Right to Work by 2:1 Ratio

The Center Square

Approximately twice as many Michiganders approve of a right-to-work law than oppose it, according to a statewide poll released Thursday by TargetPoint Consulting on behalf of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

The TPC poll concluded 58% of 800 Michigan voters surveyed support the state’s legislation; 29% of respondents oppose it. The margin of error for the poll is +/- 3.5%; Michigan has about 8.2 million registered voters.

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Commentary: Tennessee Sets Example for Rest of the Country on Forced Unionization

RealClearWire

On November 8, Tennesseans overwhelmingly voted to enshrine right-to-work in the state constitution. For 75 years, Tennessee law has protected its workers from being forced to join a union and pay dues as a condition of employment. It had been such a longstanding tradition that when I began urging state officials and business leaders to consider making right-to-work a constitutional protection, I was met with tremendous reluctance. Why do this now when this state law has been unchallenged for nearly a century?

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Advocate Warns About Consequences of Repealing Michigan’s Right-to-Work Law

The Center Square

Advocates for the right-to-work law in Michigan warn that repealing the law that has been in effect since 2013 would hurt the state economy.

For the first time since 1984, Democrats hold a trifecta in the Michigan state legislature with control of the House and Senate and the governor’s office. Democrats have talked about repealing the right-to-work law since it was passed in 2012.

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New Legislative Majorities Likely Put Target on Back of Right-to-Work

The Center Square

With control of the state legislature and Governor’s office for the first time since 1983, the Democrats will likely try to repeal the state’s right-to-work law, the signature accomplishment of Michigan’s Republican party.

In January 2019, the Michigan House Dems introduced two bills to repeal the right-to-work law. If a current effort is successful, it would only impact union members in the private sector. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in the Janus decision that public sector unions can’t require non-members to pay agency fees. The Supreme Court ruled the Constitution prohibits it.

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Ogles Defeats Campbell, Amendment One Passes in Landslide

Peter D'Abrosca

The mayor of Maury County won his bid for U.S. Congress by a wide margin Tuesday night, defeating State Senator Heidi Campbell (D-District 20) in Tennessee’s newly-drawn 5th District.

Ogles’s race, which was called just after midnight on Wednesday morning, showed the first-time congressional candidate winning 55.9 percent of the vote, to Campbell’s 42.3 percent of the vote. 

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Study: Ohio Outside of Capital Area Is Losing Population

Bradley Vasoli

A new study released this week by a Columbus-based nonprofit observed that, with the exception of Ohio’s capital city and its surrounding suburbs, the Buckeye State is losing population.

The paper by the Greater Ohio Policy Center (GOPC), titled “Ohio + Columbus: A Tale of Two States,” posits that “much of Ohio functions like a legacy state rather than a rapidly growing place.” In other words, many places in the state experienced manufacturing booms a century ago but have seen industrial activity quickly decline in recent decades. 

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AP Reporter Takes Sides Against Tennessee Right-to-Work Campaign

Bradley Vasoli

The campaign for the constitutional “right-to-work” amendment appearing on this year’s Tennessee election ballot has garnered vocal opposition from labor unions and other left-wing thought leaders. Supporters could have expected that. Less predictably, a Nashville-based Associated Press reporter railed against the effort this week.

In a Twitter post, AP writer Kimberlee Kruesi opined strongly against Governor Bill Lee’s pronouncements on the issue, characterizing them as “false” and “outrageous spin.” 

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Majority of Tennesseans Support the State’s Right-to-Work Amendment

Bradley Vasoli

A recent poll asking Tennessee voters whether they would support a proposed constitutional “right-to-work” amendment indicates the measure has strong backing.

According to a Cygnal survey of 500 likely voters conducted from October 7 through 9, 58 percent of respondents said they expect they will vote on November 8 to approve Amendment One which would enshrine the policy in the Tennessee Constitution. Only 22 percent anticipated they will vote against the proposal and 20 percent had not yet decided. Positivity toward the proposed amendment enlarged to 60 percent when only voters who indicate they “always” vote on ballot initiatives were examined.

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Commentary: Cost of Forced Unionism Soars by over 50 Percent

RealClearWire

For decades, states like New York, California and Illinois have evidently been paying a high price for allowing dues-hungry labor union bosses to continue getting workers fired for refusal to bankroll their organizations.  Year after year, far more taxpayers have been leaving forced-unionism states than have been moving into them.  The cumulative loss of taxpayers has been cutting into their revenue bases.

Recently released data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) indicate the cost of forced unionism soared by more than 50% in the Tax Filing Year 2019, compared to the year before.

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Pittsburgh Metro Area Down 54,000 Jobs Since the Pandemic

The Center Square

The Pittsburgh metro area’s economy has yet to recover from the pandemic, its effects still hurting job numbers. 

The Pittsburgh area, which includes Allegheny, Armstrong, Beaver, Butler, Fayette, Washington, and Westmoreland counties, is still missing 53,800 jobs that it had in March 2019, a 5.1% decline, according to an analysis from the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy.

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Advocacy Group Poll Shows Tennessee Voters Support Right-to-Work Amendment

The Center Square

The committee advocating for a right-to-work constitutional amendment said a recent poll shows 64% of Tennesseans will vote “yes” to add the amendment to the state constitution.

The Vote Yes on 1 poll, conducted by Cygnal between Jan. 24-26, surveyed 500 likely general election voters. The poll had a margin of error of 4.34%.

Eighteen percent of those polled said they would vote against the amendment.

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Locales Across Georgia See Good Employment News; Big-Government and Union-Friendly States Less Well-Off

Bradley Vasoli

Georgia has a lower percentage of unemployed residents now than it did immediately before COVID-19 arrived, with some locales, like Warner Robins, experiencing their lowest jobless rates ever.

In Sept. 2020, around six months after the pandemic hit, the small city just south of Macon had a 5.3-percent jobless rate. Two months ago, Warner Robins’s rate fell to 2.9 percent, the city never before having seen such a small fraction of its residents out of work.

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Youngkin and McAuliffe Meet for First of Two Debates

Eric Burk

One day before early voting begins, GOP gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin and Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe faced off for the first time in a debate at the Appalachian School of Law in southwestern Virginia Thursday. Moderators asked candidates about policies including abortion, Critical Race Theory (CRT), right to work, qualified immunity, vaccine mandates, and Confederate monuments. Youngkin repeatedly tried to link policy issues to McAuliffe’s past record, while McAuliffe repeatedly tried to tie Youngkin to former President Trump. Both candidates also committed to accepting the result of the election if certified by the state.

Moderators asked McAuliffe he would sign laws that legalize third trimester abortions even without currently-required approval of three doctors in Virginia.

“If they came up with a solution, and the woman’s life has to be in danger, it has to be certified, and if you had a legitimate doctor that says, ‘This woman, her life’s in danger,’ of course I would support that,” McAuliffe said.

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Norment, Saslaw Discuss If Virginia Will Remain Business-Friendly in the Future

Eric Burk

In a post-session virtual luncheon hosted by Wason Center Academic Director Quentin Kidd, Senate Minority Leader Thomas Norment (R-James City) expressed alarm at erosion of Virginia’s business-friendly status while Senate Majority Leader Dick Saslaw (D-Fairfax) said moderate pro-business senators were helping protect Virginia’s business environment — for now.

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In Debate, GOP Gubernatorial Candidates Discuss Amazon and Small Business

Eric Burk

Six of the seven GOP gubernatorial candidates met for a debate hosted by the Virginia Federation of Republican Women on Tuesday evening. Candidates answered questions about Dominion voting machines, Second Amendment rights, transportation, and funding law enforcement. Organizers said Pete Snyder had a prior engagement.

Larry O’Connor asked the candidates, “Amazon is king right now in northern Virginia if you didn’t know any better. How will we expect small businesses to survive when government regulations that make it difficult for them are thrown out the window for literally the richest man in the world? How do you plan to protect key real estate in northern Virginia from being swallowed up by one company as well?”

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Tennessee Senate Approves Right-to-Work Resolution to Amend State Constitution

Corinne Murdock

Tennesseans may receive explicit protections from union membership or affiliation as a condition of employment. If added to the Tennessee Constitution, the “Right to Work Amendment” would afford individuals the right to refuse membership within a union without facing repercussions concerning their employment. 

In order for an amendment to be made to the Tennessee Constitution, it must be approved twice. A simple majority is all that’s needed for the first approval. Then, the second approval must occur after an election via a two-thirds majority. State Senator Brian Kelsey (R-Germantown) first introduced this proposed amendment last January. The Senate passed it quickly, and was approved by the House in June. for the required second time in November. 

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Democrat-Sponsored PRO Act Would Invalidate Right-to-Work Laws in 27 States

The Center Square

U.S. House and Senate Democrats have reintroduced the PRO ACT, a sweeping pro-union bill that would wipe out right-to-work labor laws in 27 states.

Democrats argue the PRO Act will create safer workplaces and increase employee benefits by expanding union organizing. Those opposed to it argue it will force small businesses to close, cost an untold number of jobs and worsen the economy, and “impose a laundry list of other union boss power grabs.”

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Right-to-Work Constitutional Amendment Filed in Tennessee for Required Second Passage

Admin

Legislation that would add Tennessee’s right-to-work law to the state constitution was filed Thursday by Sen. Brian Kelsey, preparing the proposed constitutional amendment to advance through the Tennessee Legislature for the required second time.

“This amendment will guarantee future generations of Tennessee workers their right to work regardless of whether they choose to join a union,” Kelsey (R-Germantown) said of SJR 2.

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Right-to-Work Constitutional Amendment Clears Tennessee Legislature in First Go Around

Admin

A resolution that would enshrine right-to-work protections in the Tennessee Constitution has passed the state House after already clearing the Senate.

“Since 1947, Tennessee has valued the right to work because we understand that it is truly a right,” Rep. Robin Smith, R-Hixson, said on the House floor Wednesday evening before the resolution passed, 67-23.

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Columbus Civil Servant Sues Union Over Forced Payments

Andrew Shirley

A city employee of Columbus, Ohio has filed a class action lawsuit against her local labor union for forcing her to pay union fees, despite the practice being ruled unconstitutional. Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) was one of the most impactful Supreme Court rulings in recent history. As reported: The landmark court case Janus V. AFSCME, ruled on last year, made it illegal for unions to compel non-union employees to pay “agency fees,” overturning a 1977 decision that affirmed this right. The decision, despite being met with resounding condemnation by national unions, was celebrated by many workers. In addition, Janus ruled that a union can’t deduct any fee from a public employee without their “affirmative consent.” Shortly after this ruling, Columbus city employee Connie Pennington, a dues-paying member of Communication Workers of America (CW) Local 4502, her formerly mandated union representation, decided that she would not continue her involvement with the organization. She resigned her union membership and revoked the forms authorizing her union to deduct their dues from her paycheck. According to a press release provided by her legal defense:  …CWA union officials refused to honor her revocation, instead claiming that she could only stop union dues payments at the…

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