Missouri State Sen. Rob Mayer, R-25, has dug up an old issue he says was a shallow grave. According to him, Missouri has lost businesses to bordering states, such as Arkansas and Tennessee, for not being a “right-to-work” state.
Traditionally, right-to-work legislation entails barring companies from making exclusive deals with unions, forcing any employee to join them. This allows workers to accept all passive benefits gained by unions, without actual membership.
Passing right-to-work legislation essentially limits freedoms of businesses. This makes businesses weaker in the long run, so I’m not buying Mayer’s argument.
I believe in the maximization of personal freedom, so we have to look at the two parties in the business/worker relationship. On the one hand, private businesses and employees should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as no one else’s rights are impeded.
Coercing private businesses to practice inefficient policies is wrong and only provides a marginally beneficial luxury to incoming employees. On the surface, it looks like allowing employees to choose whether or not to join a union increases the freedoms of those individuals.
However, they already chose to work for the company. If joining an imposed union was detrimental and irrational for their personal success, they shouldn’t have applied. Therefore, the proposed legislation is just an inefficient and immoral way of ensuring what unions already fight for: competitive negotiations between the supply and demand of labor.
I believe right-to-work legislation is wrong on its own merits, but Mayer also suggested the legislation would attract more businesses in the Missouri area. I would have to believe increased freedom of employers, to make contracts with workers, would allow for greater efficiency and overall profitability (look at the effects of state-level corporate taxes).
This would lead to increased business infrastructure, including the need for more internal jobs. Either the Senator is completely full of it or he is taking liberties with statistics in a damaged and questionable economy. While it is true the neighboring right to work states have lower unemployment rates, it’s illogical to attribute this to one factor.
If Missouri senators are truly concerned with the standard of living for workers, they should have also observed the fewer benefits and lower wages for right to work employees. While I’m not an expert in these reports, I can understand how right to work would fail at delivering what it promises.
Consider what would happen if Missouri passes legislation to block exclusive union contracts. If we take a look at simple group dynamics, we see each new employee has two choices: either join the union, or don’t and receive the same benefits.
Obviously one choice has the same payoff with a lower opportunity cost, thus nearly all new members would opt out of the union (This choice would be the Nash equilibrium for all of you game theorists.) Soon the union will diminish in number and eventually lose all of its power.
Without the union negotiating for the workers, everyone’s wages and benefits will be reduced in the long term. I think this is just another case of credulous Senators not taking issues into a global context.
Analyzing the consequences and philosophy of this bill shows it is total crap.