Worker freedom yields healthier economies and more jobs

Does giving workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union make a difference? A new report from the Mackinac Center – our sister think tank in Michigan – says yes, it does. Ball State University professor Michael Hicks teamed up with Mackinac’s Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive to produce a sophisticated analysis of employment, income...

Does giving workers the freedom to choose whether to join a union make a difference? A new report from the Mackinac Center – our sister think tank in Michigan – says yes, it does.

Ball State University professor Michael Hicks teamed up with Mackinac’s Fiscal Policy Director Mike LaFaive to produce a sophisticated analysis of employment, income and population in states that let workers make this decision through Right-to-Work laws. Their research goes back to 1947 when the first states passed Right-to-Work legislation guaranteeing that workers would not be forced to pay union dues in order to keep a job.

Surprisingly, the researchers found that Right-to-Work laws were of limited value for the first 20 years they existed. But during the 1970s and 1980s, as manufacturing employment leveled off – and manufacturers migrated to southern Right-to-Work states – these laws were linked to especially rapid growth in wages and employment. From 1991 on economic growth in Right-to-Work states has cooled off a bit, but the worker-freedom law still offers a long-lasting boost to a state’s economy.

After performing a series of sophisticated regressions, Hicks and LaFaive found that since 1991 – when Right to Work’s effects were more modest – worker freedom still resulted in an additional half of 1 percent growth in jobs every year, and an additional two-thirds of 1 percent growth in real personal income. These numbers might not seem earth-shattering at first, but year after year they add up.

How much do they add? If Illinois had passed Right to Work in 1991, the state would have 640,000 more jobs according to this study. That’s more than enough jobs to employ the entire unemployed population in the state right now. If Illinois had waited until 2001, it would still have almost 320,000 more jobs than it does now; enough to cut unemployment in half.

The bottom line is Right to Work is just the right thing to do if state lawmakers are serious about boosting the economy and encouraging job growth. These laws make unions more accountable to the men and women they represent and attract jobs like a magnet. Aside from raw union politics, there is no reason for Illinois lawmakers not to let workers make their own decisions about whether or not to hand their hard-earned money over to a union.