It’s not exactly news, but labor unions are struggling badly in today’s modern economy. Widespread gains in workplace protections and the precarious situation of many union pension plans have rendered unions far less important and far less attractive to American workers. So has the union practice of making unreasonable demands that destroy the host organisms — witness, for example, what has happened to the American automotive and steel industries. The lack of interest in unions among many modern workers has reduced union membership to long-time lows. For 93 percent of employees in the nation’s productive private sector, unions are completely irrelevant. Despite President Obama’s best efforts to change the rules in their favor, they continue to lose ground.
The strongest remaining argument that labor unions are relevant or desirable is that they provide business with a better-trained and more knowledgeable work force. But as quaint as it is to think of organized labor as the guardian of know-how and quality, it just isn’t so, according to a new CNBC ranking of “America’s top states for business.” The survey, which considered the work forces of all 50 states, found that the downsides of unionism far outweigh any advantages when it comes to work force quality.
Incredibly, 17 of the top 18 states ranked by CNBC in terms of “work force” are “right-to-work” states, where unions are significantly less powerful. In states with right-to-work laws, workers cannot be compelled to pay union dues, and workers are far less likely to let unions represent them if they are actually given the choice. In CNBC’s survey, all 22 of the nation’s right-to-work states (mostly states in the South and West) made the top 25 in terms of quality of work force. In the separate category of business friendliness, which gauged states’ regulatory and legal environments, 10 of the top 15 states were right-to-work states as well. Needless to say, the combination of good workers and congenial business climates make these states highly attractive to business.
Obama has made the survival of unions a much higher priority for his administration than sustainable job growth, beginning with the bailout of the automakers and continuing most recently with his National Labor Relations Board’s persecution of Boeing for expanding its manufacturing operations in the right-to-work state of South Carolina. It is sad, although perhaps not surprising, that Obama would subordinate the interests of 93 percent of American workers to those of one politically favored group, but this is precisely what he is doing. The 93 percent would do well to take notice in the coming elections.
