0905-Mi10-Labor

www.mlive.com $2.00SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2010

IS MICHIGAN’S STRENGTH IN LABOR ALSO ONE OF ITS WEAKNESSES?

STUDY CONCLUDES MICHIGAN WOULD HAVE MORE MANUFACTURING JOBS AS ‘RIGHT-TO-WORK’ STATE — BUT WE ALL WOULD LIKELY BE MAKING LESS MONEY

NINTH IN A 10-MONTH SERIES

BY JULIA BAUER

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS — If Michigan opted to be a right-to-work state back

in the 1960s, it could have up to 60,000 more auto-related jobs, but they wouldn’t pay as well as they do today, according to a study commissioned by The Press.

Grand Valley State University economist Hari Singh authored the report, “Right to Work and Economic Impact: What It Means for Michigan” as part of The Press’ Michigan 10.0 series on crucial questions for the state’s future.

The highly contentious issue — long considered a nonstarter in the home state of the United Auto Workers — is being raised anew by business groups and conservatives who argue such a law will help Michigan reverse its severe job losses.

Unions staunchly resist the idea, calling it instead

“the right to work for less,” and say the deep recession’s credit crisis, housing slump and stalled auto sales were to blame for the state’s job losses, not its stand on union shops.

Right-to-work laws, in force in 22 states, do not ban unions but prohibit agreements between labor unions and an employer that make union membership and dues a job requirement. Such prohibitions make it harder for unions to organize, operate and collect dues.

Union shops are found across Michigan — at General Motors , Ford , Chrysler , Delphi, Whirlpool and some Johnson Controls plants.

In the Grand Rapids area, there are union shops at Bradford White Corp., American Seating Co., Kellogg Co., Dematic North America and General Electric Aviation, for example.

Those on both sides of the right-to-work debate quickly pull out stats, from

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Joining the movement: Five years after organizing as a union, workers at the 36th Street GM plant in Wyoming joined a 113-day nationwide United Auto Workers strike starting in the fall of 1945. It ended in the spring, with a contract that provided a raise, paid vacations and overtime pay. For more history of the labor movement in West Michigan, see Monday’s Press.

Jared Rodriguez, senior vice president of government affairs, Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce: “With Volkswagen, clearly we lost a plant because they decided to go south. Their reason was a hostile labor environment. It wasn’t the tax system, the air, the water. It was the hostile labor environment.”

Fil Iorio, Grand Rapids labor lawyer: “A right-to-work state believes you can have freeloaders. In our state, if employees agree to have a union, and a union shop is in the contract, it says simply that everyone is going to pay their fair amount to get the benefits of the union contract.”

Dick Haworth, chairman of Haworth Inc., Holland: “If you compare the state of Michigan competitively with other states, Michigan looks terrible. It’s bad enough that you wouldn’t walk out of the state. You’d run out of the state. I think right to work would hang a big sign that we’re open for business.”

Sue Levy, United Auto Workers regional community action program coordinator, Grand Rapids: “Right to work is not going to solve any of our problems. Taking away the ability to negotiate that one (union shop) provision isn’t going to do anything for any Michigan employer, taxpayer or citizen at all. It’s a smokescreen.”

WHAT POLICYMAKERS ARE SAYING

WHAT OUR READERS ARE SAYINGGeorge Vollema, 56, Newaygo, owner of Great Lakes Antique Phonograph and former Bissell factory worker: “How do we bring jobs back to

Michigan? Becoming a right-to-work state would help, in my opinion. The unions have become too

big and powerful, and it’s time they stop trying to control businesses.”

JOIN THE CONVERSATION: MLIVE.COM/MI10

A STATE OF THE UNIONS

MORE A look at how all 50 states handle the right-to-work question, � A8

Both sides in labor policy debate make case for freedom, � A9

To our readers: Whether Michigan should become a right-to-work state has been long discussed, even rearing its head in the primary election for governor this summer.

Proponents say it would bring more jobs to the state, while opponents say it would reduce wage levels.

Both arguments sound persuasive, but what would really happen if Michigan banned compulsory union membership and dues-paying in union workplaces like 22 other states have?

That was the question The Grand Rapids Press and its sister media companies in the state put to Grand Valley State University economics professor Hari Singh. At our request, he pored over economic studies and employment data and determined there is truth in what both sides have been saying. His report, however, puts actual numbers on the table that make the debate more real.

His conclusion offers a hard choice — we would have more auto-related jobs but with smaller paychecks than now.

Is that a good tradeoff to make in a time of extremely high unemployment in our state? That is a question for Press readers and policy makers in Lansing to consider. The Press’ role is to bring new information to the debate and this package of stories does that.

The stories continue Monday, with a look at the likelihood of right-to-work being adopted here, and next Sunday, with the story of the tiny Georgia town that landed the country’s newest auto plant due in no small part to its right-to-work status

— Paul M. Keep, editor

Why The Presscommissioned

this study

Paul M. Keep

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A8 SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2010 THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

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unemployment to poverty rates, to support their positions. To plow through the mountain of confl icting studies and fervent arguments, The Press asked Singh to examine previous studies and provide an independent analysis of the impact right-to-work would have on Michigan.

In his study released today, Singh focused on nine states that have major auto-related industries. He compared six right-to-work states, Alabama, Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas, with Michigan, Ohio, and Indiana, which all allow union shops.

Singh’s fi ndings? Michigan could have 50,000 to 60,000 more people working in the auto industry today if it had become a right-to-work state in 1965. Those jobs would have accu-mulated over the years as more auto companies, suppliers and other union-averse companies moved to Michigan over time, Singh said. Taking the re-cent industry downturn out of the equation, the increase in auto-related jobs would total nearly a quarter of those employed in recent years.

But Singh also found those jobs would not be the high-paying jobs long associated with the industry.

“If we were an RTW state, annual wages of these workers would be signifi cantly lower initially, dropping from the current $74,000 to perhaps in the mid-$60,000 range,” Singh said in an interview. His full report is avail-able online at mlive.com/mi10.

However, the wage advantage is shrinking. “Recently, wages in the RTW states are beginning to converge with wages in non-RTW states, as workers in new plants gain more ex-perience and seniority,” he said.

Michigan’s auto-related jobs last year paid an average $74,498, up 18 percent since 2002, he said, citing U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates. The average encompasses most work-ers, from part-timers in the shop to white-collar workers in the front of-fi ce, in what the federal government defi nes as the “transportation equip-ment sector.”

Texas, where the number of auto jobs grew as Michigan’s shrank, saw the average annual wage rise nearly 30 percent, to $68,919.

In Georgia, where a new Kia plant opened last fall, annual wages were $60,128, up almost 35 percent.

The gains in the Southern states come as Michigan has lost 57 per-cent of its auto-related employment — since 2002, 165,777 jobs evaporated here, according to the data in Singh’s study.

Meanwhile, Alabama now has 47,000 auto-related jobs, up 28 per-cent since 2002. Texas has 85,000, up nearly 7 percent.

But other RTW states such as South Carolina and Tennessee saw declines of 15 percent and 33 percent, in part because of the contraction in the De-troit automakers, while foreign auto-makers have grown.

Dennis Williams, secretary trea-surer of UAW International, had not

read Singh’s report but concurred with the finding about lower wages. That would be true not just for auto workers, but across Michigan if it were a right-to-work state, he said.

“If he’s correct, it would be a much

lower rate of pay for everybody. That includes white collar, blue collar. It doesn’t matter what sector — it’s all a lower standard of living, that affects schools, police, fi re, everything,” Wil-liams said.

Newly elected to his UAW leader-ship post, Williams, of suburban Chi-cago, is familiar with right-to-work states. He previously was in charge of UAW Region 4 in nine states that in-cluded fi ve right-to-work states: Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Da-kota and Wyoming. Region 4 also cov-ers Illinois, Minnesota, Montana and Wisconsin, all union-shop states.

He said it is not competition from right-to-work states that is holding back the state’s job growth. “If you look at Iowa and Illinois as an ex-ample, the amount of work that left did not leave for the South. It left to China or Vietnam or Mexico,” Wil-liams said.

Singh’s study did not weigh in on the political issue, but it’s a hot topic in this state.

This year, for the fi rst time in Mich-igan history, right-to-work became a major plank in a gubernatorial candi-date’s campaign, that of Republican hopeful Michael Bouchard.

The fourth-place fi nish for Bouchard proves Republican primary voters don’t support right-to-work, said Mark Gaffney, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO, the umbrella association for many unions in the state.

“It’s a right-wing fringe that has the wrong idea about how to move Michi-gan forward,” he said of the state’s right-to-work advocates. “Michael Bouchard spent almost $1 million running for governor on that issue. He lost badly.”

Proposed legislation has been in-troduced and quickly rejected several times in Lansing. But West Michi-gan’s fi rst Regional Policy Conference, sponsored by Grand Rapids and Lake-shore chambers of commerce in 2008, made right-to-work a priority for the area’s economic future. That issue will surface again when the second conference convenes in Grand Rap-ids on Sept. 16-17, this time with even more chambers as sponsors.

Those who favor right-to-work say Michigan is losing out on jobs with-out it.

David Cole, chair of the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor, has no doubt Michigan is suf-fering for lack of such a law.

Th e s t a te h a s missed out on an es-timated $10 billion in corporate investment because it’s not a right-to-work state, he said. He worked with the state when the German auto company Volkswagen was considering Michigan for a new assembly plant.

“Our group actually provided the state with a lot of data on the indus-try; unionization in West Michigan

looks like Mississippi and Tennessee (rates),” Cole said. “But the lack of right-to-work was a killer.”

Volkswagen had its eye on a site in Battle Creek-Kalamazoo, he said. Michigan’s tough union image did not help.

“When you’re making a decision in Stuttgart or Tokyo or wherever, and you’ve been to the (Detroit) auto show and seen picket lines at Cobo Hall, the picture you have in mind of Michigan is one of militant unions,” Cole said, referring to 2006, when UAW workers protested Delphi’s wage and benefi t cuts on opening day.

And while Michigan has attracted 70 percent of the $60 billion global investment in auto research and de-velopment, the state really needs to attract assembly jobs.

“The economic multiplier on jobs in auto manufacturing is now 10 in the restructured industry,” Cole said. “For every job in manufacturing, nine other jobs are created in the economy.”

He said he understands the union’s struggle to fight the open shop system.

“It’s a very visceral issue for the unions,” Cole said. But an open shop assembly plant in Michigan is better for the UAW than one in Tennessee, Mississippi or Georgia, he said.

“It’s hard for them to think, ‘Well, if those jobs were here, we’d at least have a shot at them,’” Cole said.

Blaming labor?Hard times prompt these attempts,

UAW’s Williams said. “Every time there’s an economic recession, I think a lot of people right away want to go ahead and blame the workers in organized labor.

“From my experience, if you take Illinois, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, they have a higher standard of living, a better tax base for public schools, fi re, police, because they’re a union-ized state.

“Other states are always struggling with tax base,” he said.

Right-to-work’s open shop system rankles another union leader, Marv Russow, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 951, which represents 15,000 Meijer, Kroger and Rite Aid workers in Michigan.

“I don’t know of any other business that allows you to use their services, but not pay for them,” said Russow, who is based in Grand Rapids. “It requires the union to represent the non-union member for free.”

He understands the Michigan econ-omy is under reconstruction.

“While we have to change and adapt, doing it to diminish our stan-dards isn’t the answer,” Russow said. “We don’t want our kids to work in sweat shop conditions.”

Other labor leaders point to dispari-ties in pay, benefi ts and fairness.

“Right-to-work states actually have income that is at least $5,000 a year less,” said UAW community

action organizer Sue Levy. “And the percentage of individuals who don’t have health insurance is substantially higher. I think there is a direct cor-relation there.”

In any case, union ranks have been falling. The UAW, which had 1.5 mil-lion members at its peak in 1979, today has about 335,000.

Nationwide, about 12.3 percent of all workers are unionized, only 7.2 percent of the private sector, accord-ing to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. In the Midwest, it is higher, 15 percent to 17 percent.

For labor historian Michael John-ston, the heightened right-to-work talk seems cruelly timed.

“It’s ironic people are still criti-cal of unions at their weakest point,” said Johnston, a retired Kenowa Hills school teacher. “It’s like ‘The animal is wounded. Now let’s kill it.’ No country has a vibrant democracy unless it has a vibrant labor movement.”

Other factors at workBeyond the 2009 recession and

right-to-work laws, other forces are in play for the shift to the South, accord-ing to researcher Thomas Holmes, economics professor at the University of Minnesota, whose work was part of Singh’s analysis.

Trucking allowed manufacturing to move beyond the traditional Great Lakes shipping and rail hub; farm workers in RTW states are moving to the factory, particularly as textiles shift to Asia; it’s warm in winter and air-conditioned in summer; longtime right-to-work states were already hos-tile to unions, Holmes wrote.

Then there are incentives . “Typi-cally, the local governments of RTW states have also been aggressive about providing tax incentives and other sweeteners to fi rms considering locat-ing new plants,” Singh said.

After analyzing stacks of research pro and con, Singh chose the work of Holmes, published in the Journal of Political Economy in 1998. Why Hol-mes? His expansive survey measured manufacturing growth along every border shared by right-to-work and union shop states. Holmes checked 25 miles deep and 45 years wide to try to isolate the impact of right-to-work laws, and found bordering right-to-work counties had 26 percent more manufacturing jobs over time.

Singh’s fi nding — a 24 percent in-crease in Michigan’s auto-related jobs with right-to-work — is slightly lower than Holmes’ because Singh took an average of all counties (those on the border and away from the border) based on Holmes’ analysis.

Both researchers sought to measure the impact of right-to-work laws while excluding many other factors. But the issue is “quite complicated,” Singh said. Like Holmes, he warns against a single-cause conclusion.

“Right-to-work states historically have pursued a number of other smokestack-chasing policies, such as low taxes, aggressive subsidies, and even, in some cases, lax environmen-tal regulations,” Holmes wrote.

“My results do not say that it is right-to-work laws that matter, but rather that the ‘pro-business package’ offered by right-to-work states seems to matter.”

Interviewed later, Singh said he took on The Press assignment to cut through the maze of confl icting data and sort out trends that could help Michigan recover.

“There has been a lot of anecdotal evidence about auto jobs going south,” Singh said. “Our historic advantage in this industry is getting lost. Somehow, we have to reverse this trend.”

E-mail: [email protected]

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

The three little but controver-sial words, “right to work,” are on target, advocates insist. They refer to a law that bans a “union shop,” where union dues and member-ship are a condition of employ-ment. People should have the right to work without being forced to join a union, they say.

But the same phrase raises hack-les for union folks, who say the law is really the “right to work for less.”

There is no equally simple, compelling shorthand for the union shop system. Free bargain-ing states? Union-friendly states? Non-right-to-work? None of those has been adopted widely.

In working on this series, The Press recognizes that right-to-work is a term that rankles some, but in exploring the issues associ-ated with this law, reporters use the term, as well as open shop and union shop, as a way to communi-cate succinctly, but not intending to favor one side or the other.

Shop talkWORKSTUDY FOCUSED ON NINEAUTO-PRODUCING STATES

0

50,000

100,000

150,000

200,000

250,000

300,000Alabama

TexasGeorgia

Indiana

Ohio

Michigan

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Auto industry jobs

2002 vs. 2009

Auto industry wages

40,000

45,000

50,000

55,000

60,000

65,000

70,000

75,000

$80,000

ALTXGAINOHMI

2002 2009 (est.)

Includes all jobs in the federal government's Transportation Equipment Manufacturing subsector.

Right-to-work states

States that adoptedright-to-worklaws by statute

1943: Florida1945: South Dakota1947: Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia1951: Nevada1953: Alabama1954: Mississippi, South Carolina, Louisiana1955: Utah1963: Wyoming1975: Kansas1985: Idaho2003: Oklahoma (after voterssaid no in 1964)

States thatwent back and forth

Delaware and New Hampshire passed laws in 1947, but both were repealed in 1949; Indiana took the same route, passing one in 1957, but repealing it nine years later. Louisiana lawmakers did a triple flip, passing one in 1954, repealing it in 1956, then passing it again in 1976.

Right-to-work proposals decided by votersSome states put the issue on the ballot, although several already passed such laws. Outcomes were mixed:

Approved: Arizona (1946, 1948, 1952); Arkansas (1944 and 1976); Florida in 1944; Kansas in 1958; Mississippi in 1960; Nebraska in 1946; Nevada (1952, 1954, 1956); North Dakota in 1948; and South Dakota in 1948. Idaho voters said no in 1958, but yes in 1986.Defeated: California (1944 and 1976); Colorado in 1958; Maine, Massachusetts and New Mexico, all in 1948; Missouri in 1978, Ohio in 1958, and Washington (1956 and 1958).

Union shops that have not acted on the issue

In some states — including Michigan — right-to-work proposals have not made it to the ballot box nor through the Legislature. These include: Oregon, Montana, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New Jersey, Maryland, plus Washington, D.C.

EACH STATE HAS DEALT WITH LABOR POLICY IN ITS OWN WAY

LAWS OF THE LANDDECADES AFTER FEDERAL ACT, 22 STATES HAVE ADOPTED RIGHT-TO-WORK

STATE LABOR POLICIES AND UNEMPLOYMENT RATES

WA8.9%

MT7.3%

ND3.6%

MN6.8% WI

7.8% MI13.1%

NY8.2%

IA6.8%

IL10.3%

ID8.8%

UT7.2%

WY6.7% NB

4.3%

KS6.5%

MO9.2%

IN10.2%

OH10.3%

PA9.3%

ME 8.1%VT 6%

NH 5.8%MA 9%RI 11.9%CT 8.9%

MD 7.1%DC 9.8%

DE 8.4%NJ 9.7%

KY9.9%

TN9.8%

NC9.8%

MS10.8%

AL9.6%

AR7.4%

SD4.4%

CO8%

AK7.7%

OR10.6%

NV14.3%

CA12.3%

AZ9.6%

NM8.2%

HI6.3%

OK6.9%

TX8.2%

LA7.2%

FL11.5%

SC10.8%

VA6%

WV8.6%

GA9.9%

Right-to-work stateUnemployment rate (July, 2010)

AK7.7%

SOURCES: National Right to Work Legal

Foundation; U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics;

“Right to Work Before and After 14(b),”

Charles Baird, California State University

BY THE NUMBERS

Who’s unionized?A look at the states covered by Hari Singh’s study:

Michigan: 18.8 percent of workers Ohio: 14.2 percentIndiana 10.6 percentAlabama 10.9 percentKansas 6.2 percentTexas 5.1 percentTennessee 5.1 percentGeorgia 4.6 percentSouth Carolina 4.5 percent

SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2009

figures

NOTE: Professor Hari Singh studied nine states. The Press charted six: three right-to-work states that have seen the most growth in auto employment and Michigan,

Ohio and Indiana, all not right-to-work states. SOURCE: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Dennis Williams

David Cole

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 5, 2010 A9

BY JULIA BAUER

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

GRAND RAPIDS — Indiana could be heading back to the right-to-work column if voters put Republican ma-jorities in both houses of the legisla-ture this fall.

That prospect has union advocates sweating.

For nine years, from 1956 to 1965, the Hoosier state had right-to-work laws that barred mandatory union membership until legislators repealed the requirement. The latest effort to return Indiana to the ranks of right to work states is House Bill 1011, intro-duced this year.

“We’ve been real boisterous about this being one of the most important elections in our history,” said Dan Huddleston, president of Visteon’s UAW Local 1111 in Indianapolis. “With the economy the way it is, if right-to-work gets passed, we could get an incredible downturn.

“We feel like we’ll be the Missis-sippi of the North, for sure.”

The Visteon plant makes power steering components for Ford and is slated to close next year. Its projects will be outsourced to suppliers, not necessarily in the Midwest.

Michigan is rimmed by sister states that allow union shops, where em-ployees must join the workplace union. Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio and Pennsylvania are among the 28 states that permit union shops.

Supporters of right-to-work laws have bills in legislatures in Pennsylva-nia and Indiana, although the Hoosier state is the only one in the group to be in and out of the open-shop rules.

“Right to work is the right policy for building our economy, creating jobs, and ending the corruption infl u-ences of union bosses in Pennsylvania politics,” said Republican State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. He sponsored House Bill 50, still in the House Labor Com-mittee. “It is a basic freedom that all working men and women should en-joy, to join a union if they choose and to leave that union when it is in their best interest to do so.”

The Missouri experienceIn another Midwest state, Mis-

souri, right-to-work advocates tried adifferent tactic in 1986. In the very southern tip of Missouri, dubbed the Boot, Caruthersville economic devel-opers struggle to beat out compet-ing neighbors — all in right-to-work states.

“When somebody is considering coming to one of the border counties, and we border both Tennessee and Arkansas, we tell them we don’t have any active unions in the county, and the union 40 miles north of us has had no work stoppages,” said David Madison, executive director for the Pemiscot County Port Authority on the Mississippi River.

“They say, ‘Why should we risk it? Why don’t we just go across the line?’”

With a strong union lobby based in Kansas City and St. Louis, Missouri lawmakers were unlikely to pass a statewide right-to-work law. So in 1986, Pemiscot County adopted its own version.

But the state attorney general threw out that move a year later, because the Taft-Hartley Act limits the decision to state governments, not local ones.

In Michigan, the state Senate has mulled right-to-work zones that could be authorized in Lansing for counties to try. The legislation has not made it to the Democrat-controlled House yet, although state Rep. Kim Meltzer, R-Clinton Township, has proposed two bills this summer calling for a statewide right-to-work law.

Some Missourians are talking about a referendum on the issue that would allow counties to form their own right-to-work zones. But just the phrase rattles the opponents, Madison said.

“When somebody even mentions those three words in a row, they turn out in force,” Madison said of the la-bor lobby.

“Let the people vote. Most Mid-western states are in the same way. It would be a good idea to let the people decide,” Madison said.

E-mail: [email protected]

BY JULIA BAUER

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

A lthough Win Irwin and Dick Haworth both run big family-

owned businesses in the furniture industry, Irwin embraces his union workforce while Haworth celebrates the day his workers voted it out.

“We’ve been union for so long, we don’t think about it at all,” said Irwin, president of the Walker-based Irwin Seating Co. “We have a very, very good relationship with our union. I’d stack our people up with anybody’s people for skill and productivity.”

But Haworth, a strong voice for right-to-work

laws, said one of the best things that ever happened to him dates back to 1976 — the year

his furniture workers decertifi ed their union and bet their future on the leadership of the family-owned business.

“That enabled us to run a much more effective company,” Haworth said. “Once you go through some of these difficult circumstances

that come out of unions, you really appreciate what being union free means to you.”

Irwin sees unions as a very livable fact of life. Local 415, Communica-tions Workers of America, has rep-resented employees there since 1951, about the same time right-to-work laws were taking hold in the south and west regions of the U.S.

The law bans what is known as the union security clause which re-quires workers to be dues-paying union members.

Haworth, chairman of Haworth Inc., a $1.1 billion Holland company that employs 1,800 in West Michi-gan, is a big booster for a right-to-work law in this state.

“It’s much more than just pay. It’s the total fl exibility that goes with it the ability to manage a business and run it successfully,” he said. “I think right-to-work would hang a big sign that we’re open for business in Michigan.”

Such a move — or even to vote on it — would hurt this state, not help

it, warns Mark Gaffney, president of Michigan’s AFL-CIO, the umbrella group for most unions in the state.

“To run that vote, either through the Legislature or even worse, the ballot, would be extremely divisive,” Gaffney said. “Instead of Michigan being open for business, with high-ly trained workers, the headlines would be ‘Michigan’s companies and unions, fi ghting each other to the death.’”

When a state goes from union shop to right-to-work, existing unions lose about one in fi ve members, Gaffney said. That means 20 percent fewer organizers and political action staff-ers — a weaker union.

“When you peel back the layers of the onion, this is purely political,” Gaffney said. “That’s why the idea won’t go away.”

He warned that the National Right to Work Foundation, based outside Washington D.C., wants to bring a national fi ght to Michigan .

“We’ll solve our problems bySEE WORDS, A10

THE GRAND RAPIDS PRESS

Hari Singh holds a doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois at Chicago and is director of assessment for the Seidman College of Business, Grand Val-ley State University.

From 1995 to 2008, Singh chaired the GVSU economics department. He has been a con-sultant for the World Bank, Na-tional Science Foundation, U.S. Information Agency, U.S. De-partment of Housing and Urban Development, and American Ex-press. Singh was also a Fulbright professor to Malaysia, where he taught forecasting and decision-making .

His book, “Framed! Solve an Intriguing Mystery and Master How to Make Smart Choices,” was published in 2006. Singh founded and is editor of the Seidman Business Review. He has published more than 25 ar-ticles in professional journals, with research on behavioral decision making, foreign di-rect investments to developing countries and regional economic forecasting.

Singh also creates an annual Confi dence Index for West Mich-igan, based on feedback from the region’s CEOs. Last year, Singh also completed research into the health care industry, writing “Health Check, Analyzing Trends in West Michigan.”

Q What is happening to auto-in-dustry wages and jobs in right

to work and non-RTW states? What’s your projection for the future?

A Typically wages tend to be higher and job losses more

substantial in non-RTW states like Michigan compared to RTW states in the Southern belt. Both these trends have peaked. Job losses in the future are likely to be less. Wages in the RTW states are creeping up and beginning to converge with non-RTW states.

Q Why should Michigan become a right-to-work state? Why

shouldn’t it?

A There are good arguments to be made on each side of the

issue. Pro-RTW advocates frame it as a fundamental right to as-sociate (not to be forced to join a union to get a job) and how it could increase employment and economic growth. Anti-RTW supporters emphasize how work-ers could be exploited, wages and benefits would be lower, and there could be more job-related injuries.

Q Why did your study focuson auto-industry

employment?

A There has been a lot of an-ecdotal evidence about auto

jobs going south. Our historic advantage in this industry is get-ting lost. Somehow, we have to reverse this trend.

Q Why mull the whole issue? Isn’t it more political than

academic?

A No doubt politics plays an important role in this contro-

versy, particularly how different power groups line up on oppos-ing sides of the issue. The role of academic research is to try to get better answers about the possible impact of these policies in a more objective manner. This is what I have tried to do. I encourage readers to review the full article on the website and try to make up their own minds on this con-troversial and important topic.

Study author says both sides

make a case

Hari Singh

ARGUMENTS IN FAVOROF RIGHT-TO-WORK LAWS

Right-to-work laws are rooted in �the constitutional right of freedom to associate or not with a group.

Forced union dues can be used to �support agendas and causes not necessarily the workers’ choice.

It is easier to hire workers without �mandates, to pay market wages and assign different types of work or schedules.

RTW states typically gain more �manufacturing jobs through new plant openings or expansions .

RTW states generally have higher �economic growth rates and lower unemployment rates.

ARGUMENTS AGAINSTRIGHT-TO-WORK LAWS

Laws result in free riders — workers �who get benefits of the union contract without paying dues.

There is no incentive to pay dues.

Employers could exploit workers by �paying lower wages.

RTW states typically have less �generous benefits, such as health

insurance and pensions.

Workers have much less job �security. They could be fired for

trivial or unjust reasons.

RTW states tend to have fewer �safety precautions, resultingin more workplace fatalities

and injuries.

What advocates and opponents say

PRO & CON

BOTH SIDES IN LABOR POLICY DEBATE MAKE CASE FOR FREEDOM

3 NOT-SO-LITTLE WORDSFEW TOPICS MORE DIVISIVE THAN DISCUSSION OF RIGHT-TO-WORK

PRESS PHOTO/ADAM BIRD

A working system: Win Irwin, right, CEO of Irwin Seating, talks with Stan Gillespie, a union worker with 42 years seniority, about a fixture for welding at their Walker facility. Irwin credits the company’s union for fostering better communication. “We have a very, very good relationship with our union,” Irwin said.

ON mlivehome: Mlive.com

Read the complete study:�mlive.com/mi10

What ourneighborsare up to

Indiana may flip backto right-to-work column, depending on election

COMING MONDAYWill right-to-work policies ever be

enacted here? Rick Haglund column.

One proposal being discussed: right-to-work zones or counties for

Michigan. It’s an issue that could further divide east and west, and

some say it’s the only way right-to-work policies will be adopted here.

Labor historian Michael Johnston writes about Grand Rapids’ strong role

in the union movement.

NEXT SUNDAY

We take you to West Point, Ga., where Korean automaker Kia built its first U.S. plant. Former UAW workers are

learning they need not apply.

SEPT. 13Join a live online chat about right-to-

work, 1 p.m. at mlive.com/mi10

PRESS PHOTO/ JESSICA SCOTT

Symbol of progress: Michael Johnston, labor historian, holds a rare May Day 1886 ribbon from a Grand Rapids merchant praising furniture workers for achieving an 8-hour workday.

COMING IN OCTOBERIs it time to start over onthe state constitution?

THE SERIES SO FARJANUARY:

How do we get Michigan working?FEBRUARY

Time to pay the toll for roads?MARCH

Should we sell natural resources?APRIL

Tax changes could eliminateour deficit, but at what cost?

MAYIs it time to take some

communities off the map?JUNE

Can our cities be cool?JULY

Do tax lures bring new jobs?AUGUST

Do we need 550 school districts?

MISS AN INSTALLMENT?GO TO MLIVE.COM/MI10

Dick Haworth