While the Obama administration is trying to lift us out of a recession through a stimulus spend-a-thon and a series of bailouts, its labor policy is making that climb more difficult.
Mallory Factor explains:
Experience shows the link between increased unionization and reduced job and income growth. The ten states with the highest rates of private-sector union membership in 1997 had two-thirds less aggregate private-sector job growth by 2007 than did the ten states with the lowest rates. The ten most unionized states had only half as much real personal income growth as the ten least. Also, businesses prefer to locate in right-to-work states, where unions cannot enforce “closed shops” — that is, where union membership can’t be made a precondition for employment, and where fewer employees tend to fall under monopoly bargaining power. Similarly, if card check increases unions’ power through the whole country, many businesses would have no choice but to relocate to other countries whose policies are less tilted in favor of monopolistic unionism.
The Kennedy card-check scheme is far from the only economy-crushing Big Labor special-interest legislation that Obama has endorsed. The trial-lawyer-friendly “Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act” already has been enacted, removing time limits on wage-discrimination cases. Alleged victims can now bring such cases long after any alleged discrimination has occurred, even after the alleged discriminators have died. Employers will surely respond by setting aside more money to settle future employment-discrimination claims — money that otherwise could be put to productive use.
And then there are the executive orders, which have the effect of raising the price of labor and decreasing the number of jobs.
While the Obama administration has made noises about putting card check on the back burner, their other payoffs to Big Labor show where their priorities are. If job creation was really at the top of the list, they wouldn’t be increasing litigation and the cost of labor for American businesses.
