Issue link: http://www.insightdigital.biz/i/484021
20 | /INSIGHT ON MANUFACTURING • March 2015 w w w.in s i g h t o n m f g . c o m ON MARCH 9, Gov. Scott Walker signed into law right-to-work legislation, making the state the 25th in the nation that won't require private- sector employees to join a union or pay dues at companies working under a union contract. is new law is viewed by some as a victory for economic growth, others see it as detrimental to wages and worker training. IOM interviewed representatives with opposing viewpoints on the impact of right-to-work legislation in Wisconsin. RIGHT-TO-WORK IS SORT OF A MISLEADING title, and it's a good play on words. We like to say it's the right-to-work for less, or another way of looking at it, it's the right to freeload. Really, what this law will allow is somebody to work in a union facility, take advantage of all the pay and benefits that are negotiated, but yet they don't have to pay their dues that help support that internal structure and infrastructure. Many people don't understand that right-to- work is going to affect not just union members, but everyone who goes to work for a living. A typical worker earns $5,000 less a year in a right- to-work state as compared to a non-right-to-work state. So why do we want to pass a law that's only going to suppress wages even further? at's just going to take more money out of the local and state economy, hurt small business, drive down the tax base and make it harder for us to meet the budgets that put together our schools, our cities, our counties and our communities. e pay gap between men and women is greater in right-to-work states. Nine of the 10 states that spend the least on public education are in right-to-work states. Eight of the 10 states that have the lowest minimum wage are also right-to-work states. e workplace death rate is 51 percent higher in right- to-work states. is is a law that affects everyone Right-to-Work legislation will affect workers, economy INSIGHT FROM ... MARK WESTPHAL, PRESIDENT OF THE FOX VALLEY AREA LABOR COUNCIL, AFL-CIO INSIGHT FROM ... SCOTT MANLEY, VICE- PRESIDENT OF GOVERNMENT RELATIONS FOR WISCONSIN MANUFACTURERS AND COMMERCE Right-to-work impedes wages and training Right-to-work allows Wisconsin to compete for jobs HAVING A RIGHT-TO-WORK LAW PLACES Wisconsin in the position to be able to compete for economic investment and job creation projects that are going to other states. What we hear consistently from site selectors and from businesses is that if you don't have a right-to-work law, you're oen taken out of consideration very early on in the economic expansion decision-making process. Site selectors tell us that up to half of their clients consider right-to-work as a pass/fail, meaning that if you aren't a right-to-work state, you're never even considered. When we look at the other 24 right-to-work states, we see job growth that happens more than twice as fast. We think that will certainly be the case here in Wisconsin, and we think much of that wage growth is going to take place in the manufacturing sector. When we think about manufacturing employees specifically, when we look at a 10-year period from 2003 to 2013, we see manufacturing output growing by 26.1 percent in right-to-work states compared to 13.8 percent growth in forced- union states. You need look no further than Michigan and Indiana, both of which have grown jobs and grown wages since they enacted right-to-work in 2012. In fact, Indiana has grown 126,000 new jobs in that