Americans are leaving states with heavy union influence and choosing to live in “right-to-work” states with higher job growth where they cannot be forced to join a union as a condition of employment. With the 2010 census, nine congressional seats will move to right-to-work states from forced unionization states.
And Americans elected a substantial majority of Republicans to the House of Representatives in the 112th Congress. People will be safe in 2011-12 from the Employee Free Choice Act, a union-supported bill that would take away workers’ rights to a secret ballot in union elections and impose mandatory contracts between newly unionized firms and workers.
But the Obama-controlled National Labor Relations Board isn’t listening. It wants to do everything in its power to tilt the playing field toward unionization, even if it means lost jobs.
Congress established the National Labor Relations Board in 1935 to administer the National Labor Relations Act, the law that gives workers the right to organize and that governs relations among unions, employees and employers. The board has jurisdiction over all private-sector workers except those employed in railroads, airlines or agriculture.
Over the past 25 years job growth in right-to-work states has been over twice as high as in unionized states, 51 percent compared with 21 percent. Between 2000 and 2010 employment has grown by 2 percent in right-to-work states and declined by 4 percent in unionized states.
Private-sector union membership peaked in the 1950s at 36 percent of the work force. Now, only 12 percent of all American workers and 7 percent of private-sector workers belong to unions.
The union agenda includes higher minimum wages, higher taxes and extending mandated benefits, such as paid leave, to even the smallest employers.
Such policies would drive some companies out of business and encourage others to move offshore, reducing the numbers of jobs in America, opportunities for entry into the work force, and upward mobility.
Despite a national unemployment rate of 9.8 percent and Americans’ unequivocal preferences for jobs, the board is taking matters into its own hands to expand union power.
On Wednesday the board issued a proposed rule to require employers to display posters to notify workers of their rights to join a union, with comments due in 60 days.
Charles Cohen, a Board memberfrom 1994 to 1996 and now a partner at Morgan Lewis, told me, “The new poster is yet another unnecessary government mandate on employers whose workplaces have never raised any issues implicating the National Labor Relations Act.”
He continued, “The requirement sweeps in millions of employers whose workplaces are not relevant to unionization. All these posters have to be placed on bulletin boards somewhere and supervised by human resources personnel.”
Requiring these posters is yet another message to employers that the administration regards them with hostility. China, India and other competitors do not require these posters and welcome American businesses.
That’s not all. On Monday the board came out with a new set of extraordinary remedies to punish employers found to have violated the law with regard to union organizing drives, with no history of prior violations needed.
The board wants to require management to read aloud to the work force the workers’ rights to join a union. It wants unions to have access to firms’ bulletin boards and newsletters so they can publish materials advertising the advantages of joining a union.
This means that firms would have to post advocacy articles by unions in their publications, potentially violating freedom of speech.
Under the new rules, employers would have to give unions lists of workers’ names and home addresses, facilitating intimidation and identity theft.
This Christmas, while Americans are voting for job growth, the National Labor Relations Board is playing Scrooge.
Examiner Columnist Diana Furchtgott-Roth, former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor, is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.
