Suzanah Crouch, writing for the Evansville Courier Press, has an article on some back and forth on the impact of Indiana’s “right to work” law. Dennis Dan Hasler, of the Indiana Economic Development Corporation, says it’s going gangbusters – he collected quotes from company officials and everything who said the law was a significant consideration. Meanwhile, Nancy Guyott of the AFL-CIO pointed to at least one of those companies and said they were already coming to Indiana, so all the information provided by the IEDC is suspect.
I don’t think there is any reliable way to know at this point. Give the law 5 years and see if Hoosiers have more and better improvement in employment and wages over their more union-friendly counterparts in other states. Union folks are going to be skeptical of any reports that new jobs are “right to work” related; and the IEDC – no stranger to puffing up its job numbers – is going to characterize any new employment in the state as related to “right to work”. Friends and well-wishers of the current administration in those companies are likely willing to say “yeah, sure, right to work was a consideration.”
Companies also relocate here because our worker’s comp laws are rather
employer friendly.
Workers comp laws, Right-To-Work, tax rates, etc… these are all considerations to any employer that is considering relocating. If Indiana were the only state doing RTW, it might make a bigger impact. If we were the only state not-doing RTW, passing it might make a bigger impact. But at this point, it probably makes a small difference but not much.
Speaking of the differences RTW makes, I would certainly like to see some statistics on how it has affected union membership over the past year. Many union members argued that RTW would be the end of the world as we know it, and unions would be decertified right and left because of it. A year late, I haven’t heard anything to back (or refute) those claims.
As soon as Indiana continues its march on the “Road to be Bangladesh,” the jobs will just pour in!
Trust the business folks, you need to break an egg to make an omelette.
It always baffles me that Hoosiers believe in the race to the bottom and fail to notice most of the wealth of the country, especially wealth not derived from energy extraction, is located in state which treat their workers like actual people.
I remember when casinos were the great new thing that would provide a cushion for the decling economy. Then what happened? Every one has a casino and except for their convenience, most of the other economic promises have been broken. The same for lotteries.
Until white suited entrepreneurs are sitting on the porch being fanned by low paying workers while the rest are working the fields and the factories for a meager existence, and every revenue generating piece of common wealth is in the hands of private industry, the conservative Right won’t be content.
Where is it all leading… Read the novels of the Joad Cycle (www.joadcycle.com) for a story of greed and power and the decline of everything American except the wealthy.