As published in the May 1, 2014 Toledo Business Journal
Kristina Roegner
Ohio House of Representatives
Ohio Right to Work law awaits timing
Article provided by Kristina Roegner, Ohio House of Representatives. Headline from Toledo Business Journal staff.
On June 14, 2013, The Wall Street Journal published an article written by Representative Kristina Roegner, a member of the Ohio House of Representatives from House District 37. This article on Right to Work legislation introduced last year in the Ohio House of Representatives follows. It was published in The Wall Street Journal with a different headline than the one that Toledo Business Journal has chosen to use.
It is likely that this legislation will not move forward before the November 2014 mid-term elections have been completed.
In addition to her duties in the Ohio legislature, Roegner is a management consultant with McKinsey & Company. She has an MBA from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a BSME in mechanical engineering from Tufts University.
Here in the Buckeye State, we’ve made major economic strides over the past two and a half years. Facing an $8 billion budget deficit in 2011 and unemployment over 9%, Governor John Kasich and the State legislature have since balanced the state budget without raising taxes, instituted common-sense regulatory reform, and even eliminated Ohio’s estate tax.
As a result, statewide unemployment is down to around 7% —and companies across the country are taking notice. According to Chief Executive magazine’s 2013 ranking of “Best and Worst States for Business,” Ohio has improved more than any other state over the past year, jumping 13 places to 22nd in the nation from 35th in 2012.
Still, a ranking of 22nd out of 50 states leaves plenty of room for improvement and begs the question: What do the top 10 states for business — Texas, Florida, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, Arizona, Virginia, South Carolina, Nevada, and Georgia — have in common? All are right-to-work states. Ohio is not.
Right-to-work laws, also known as workplace-freedom laws, make union membership a worker’s choice rather than a mandatory condition of employment. Twenty four states — most recently, Ohio’s neighbors Indiana and Michigan — have already enacted right-to-work laws. These 24 states have a significant competitive advantage when it comes to attracting jobs.
According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research (NILRR), a nonprofit that analyzes the effects of mandatory unionism, private nonfarm employment in right-to-work states grew 12.5% between 2001 and 2011, compared with an anemic 3.5% in states with forced unionism. Those opposed to right-to-work laws claim that wages in states that have such laws are lower. But according to NILRR studies, the cost-of-living adjusted per capita disposable income was more than 7% higher in right-to-work states than in forced-unionism states in 2011.
Beyond the economic benefits, at the heart of this debate is the principle of freedom of choice. All working Americans should have the right to choose whether union membership is right for them. Ohioans agree. In poll after poll, Ohioans have supported worker freedom through right-to-work. Most recently, a March 31 (2013) Columbus Dispatch poll found that 65% of Ohioans surveyed favor an amendment to the state constitution to make Ohio a right-to-work state.
Representative Ron Maag and I recently introduced two bills in Ohio’s General Assembly (House Bill 151 for the private sector and House Bill 152 for the public sector) to make Ohio the 25th state to embrace workplace freedom. Alternatively, the General Assembly could pass my proposed House Joint Resolution 5, which would put the question of workplace freedom on Ohio ballots as early as November. If passed, the voters would amend Ohio’s Constitution accordingly. Both options get the same results: greater worker freedom and economic opportunity.
Both the upper and lower chambers of the General Assembly are controlled by Republicans. Governor Kasich is a Republican as well, so passing a bill with such obvious economic benefits ought to be a simple matter. Unfortunately, it’s not. Many Ohio lawmakers hesitate to engage in labor issues that are potentially divisive, and the Governor’s office hasn’t weighed in on the new bills.
Naysayers point to the 2011 defeat of Senate Bill 5, which aimed to scale back employer labor costs by reforming collective bargaining and other benefits for public employees. SB-5 was signed by Governor Kasich on March 31, 2011, but repealed via referendum seven months later by 61% of Ohio voters. The vote was seen as a major defeat for the Governor and GOP lawmakers.
But SB-5 and the current right-to-work bills are different. SB-5 placed restrictions on collective bargaining; right-to-work eliminates the restriction of compulsory unionism. SB-5 addressed many complex issues, including public pensions, medical benefits, striking, and more. Right-to-work is based on the simple principle that workers should have the freedom to choose if a union is right for them.
Ohio simply needs to look next door to see what is happening as states compete to attract jobs. After Indiana passed right-to-work in January 2012, Caterpillar announced that it would move a major train locomotive plant from London, Ontario, to Muncie, Indiana — and more than 400 high-paying jobs along with it.
Michigan, Ohio’s neighbor to the northwest and a heavily unionized state, passed right-to-work [in 2012]. The economic impact there no doubt will begin to be felt soon.
Ohio has gained in the rankings of states that are good places to do business, but now it’s in the position of playing catch-up with its neighbors on workplace freedom. This is an opportunity for GOP lawmakers to back up their rhetoric about encouraging economic growth.