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Opening Arguments

RTW good or bad

Wow, here's a stunner -- state officials and union representatives disagree on the effects of the right-to-work law that ended compulsory union dues:

Officials at 20 companies have said Indiana’s passage of a right-to-work law this year was a factor in their decisions to bring more jobs to the state, according to Daniel Hasler, who leads the Indiana Economic Development Corp.

But Nancy Guyott, a union leader and the state’s biggest right-to-work opponent, questioned the numbers.

[. . .]

The recent enactment of the right to work legislation is further evidence of Indiana’s commitment to providing the most competitive business environment possible for global companies like us to grow,” Barry Schneider, the vice president and general manager of Steel Dynamics’ engineered bar products division, said in one quote.

But Guyott — a member of the committee and president of the AFL-CIO of Indiana — said she has reviewed the list of business leaders and found that many had committed to coming to Indiana before the state passed the right-to-work law.

I think this is one of those questions you can never quite prove one way or the other with numbers. You can infer something if the unemployment rate stayes relatively flat or if hiring suddenly shoots up dramatically, but there are too many other factors that could be involved, and it's almost impossible to filter them out. So people have to take it on faith that right-to-work is either good or bad, and they tend to look at the evidence in a way that supports their beliefs.

Statements from people that a change in the law caused them do something they otherwise wouldn't have -- like taking a new look at creating more jobs in Indiana -- are problematic and don't make very good evidence. You don't even have to show that a company had already been looking at Indiana to cast doubt on the claim. What somebody might or might not have done in the absence of the law is just idle chatter.

Comments

tim zank
Wed, 08/22/2012 - 6:15pm

What we CAN prove however is, passage of RTW had absolutely NO detrimental effect whatsoever...

except for the bruised egos of union bosses of course...

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