State legislative leaders are laying the groundwork to try to make West Virginia a right-to-work (RTW) state. Twenty-five states have already passed legislation giving workers more freedom to decide whether they want to join a union.
Republican leaders in the Senate and House of Delegates this week trumpeted a study from WVU’s Bureau of Business and Economic Research (BBER) showing economic positives associated with right-to-work.
“For far too long, the status quo in West Virginia has held us back and prevented the kind of economic growth we’ve seen in other parts of our region,” Senate President Bill Cole said in a release. “This study should encourage us to break from the status quo and fully pursue making West Virginia a right-to-work state.”
WVU’s research determined that “RTW policy leads to long-run rates of GDP growth that are around .5 percentage point higher than non-RTW states. One-half of a percentage point makes a difference when you consider the average pre-inflation growth rate nationally over the last two decades has been 4.7 percent. West Virginia’s current real GDP is roughly $65 billion. An increase of one-half percent in real growth would equal about $325 million.
The findings for employment are similar, with employment growth averaging .4 percent higher in RTW states. Again, that has to be viewed in the proper context. Over the past two decades, states have added jobs at a rate of around one percent annually on average. Moving from one percent to around 1.4 percent is not something to take lightly.
One of the common criticisms of right-to-work is that it drives down wages and benefits. However, that’s not what the WVU study determined. “Our results fail to identify a statistically reliable relationship between RTW policy and the rate of change in real wage and salary rates.”
Yes, union membership does fall because of the policy. The report shows that “the rate of union membership is estimated to fall by around one-fifth as a result of the adoption of RTW.”
Republican lawmakers generally line up behind right-to-work as a matter of policy, but some are less convicted on the issue politically. They know labor will go to the mats to not only defeat the legislation, but also make it an issue in the 2016 election.
State AFL-CIO President Kenny Perdue said on Talkline earlier this week, “We’re going to be there (at the Capitol) every day with our membership” as a show of force against RTW, and that makes some lawmakers nervous.
Republican leaders also know they would have to pass RTW before the end of the session because Governor Tomblin will veto the bill and they will need time to override the veto.
Right-to-work is yet another marker in West Virginia’s political evolution. Recent elections have turned West Virginia red like the rest of the south, and every southern state except Kentucky is right-to-work.* However, the politics of right-to-work are volatile. Republicans better not take on this fight unless they are all in.
(*Several Kentucky counties have passed their own right-to-work ordinances.)