West Newsmagazine 7-11-18

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up over 50 percent and that’s not union or
non-union, that’s everybody.
Safety rules are just lax. No one is held
accountable if you are on the job and the
job is unsafe. If the worker tells the boss
that the job is unsafe and the employer
says, “Do it or you’re fired,” the worker
has to do it. Now, if they have a union representative
there or if they’re in a union,
the worker can get off that job and call the
union and say, “Listen, this guy wants me
to …” Then, the union comes out and the
worker doesn’t lose any pay and it gets
settled.
As far as education goes, it’s proven that
in right-to-work states, education funding
goes up by almost $8,000 a year. If there
are more people paying into the tax base,
there’s more money going to the school
districts. Another key is that women in
union jobs make 6 cents less an hour, but
women in non-union jobs make 16 cents
less per hour. It’s an equality thing, too.
There’s just so many things that it lift ups
... [and ] all of these things, in my opinion,
outweigh the argument that right to work
is a job creator.
Dan Mehan, president/CEO, Missouri
Chamber of Commerce and Industry
How many booms and busts have we
had since [2001 when] right-to-work legislation
was passed in Oklahoma, not just the
2008 financial meltdown, but booms and
busts in the energy market? Oklahoma’s
economy goes as the energy market does,
so that ad [touting Oklahoma’s decline] in
itself is extremely misleading. If you factcheck
it, and we are, there is a definite need
to challenge that argument.
Evidence from the Bureau of Economic
Analysis shows that from 2005-2015, job
growth in right-to-work states was 8.6 percent
and in non-right-to-work states was 5
percent.
What labor will like to tell you is “they
[employers] just want to pay you less money.”
That’s completely false. Whether you look at
West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana or Wisconsin
– those four most-recent states to go right
to work – there has never been one example
that they [labor] have been able to deliver
where somebody had their salary cut or their
wages cut because they went right to work. It
just doesn’t happen.
In the same analysis, it shows that in that
same time period, ‘05-’15, the percentage
of wage growth was exactly identical, 7.7
percent, in right-to-work and non-right-towork
states.
Furthermore, gross domestic product
growth was 15.3 percent in right-to-work
states and 11.9 percent in non-right-towork
states in that same time frame.
It’s extremely important that we remain
a right-to-work state so that Missouri can
remain competitive with the rest of the
country and, frankly, the rest of the world.
Regrading politics
Mehan: What Prop A would do is
uphold what the Missouri legislature
passed and the governor signed into law
in 2017 making Missouri the 28th rightto-work
state in the union. And what right
to work does is simply prohibit forcing
someone to join a union and pay union
dues, forcing them to forego part of their
paycheck to give union bosses money to
do whatever they want with and support
political causes and the like [while] the
rank and file really has no say in where
their money is going. This is a freedom of
July 11, 2018
WEST NEWSMAGAZINE
speech issue … because once you have to
pay a union you get little say in what that
union does and it’s just enriching big labor
bosses and supporting people like Hillary
Clinton and Nancy Pelosi, which they did.
Labor unions overwhelmingly supported
Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid and a lot
of people in labor unions certainly didn’t
share that opinion; however, their money,
part of their paycheck, went to that campaign
without them having a say in it …
Missourians need to decide if they want
to support a political candidate not be
forced to do so by being compelled to join
a union and pay union dues.
advancecarpetone.com
I COVER STORY I 27
White Jr.: Most unions cannot spend
money on a political campaign unless that
money comes voluntarily through their
members. I belong to the gas workers
union [Local #11-6]. Our guys, including
myself, gave a buck a week that went into
a separate account for political reasons
only. My union dues did not go toward
politics at all. My union dues took care
of rent at the union hall. My union dues
took care of collective bargaining … the
officers that we paid to represent us on a
regular basis. Political action committees
are voluntary donations and voluntary
donations only.