Tag Archives: Collective Bargaining

Workers Unite As NH House Kills Two Anti-Worker Bills

  By Matt Murray | May 30, 2013 - 1:57 pm | , , , ,
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NH House-2

Yesterday was a big day in the NH House for NH workers. Since the session began I have been watching a number of bills and their progress through the Legislature.

The first bill is SB 100 (NHLN post). This bill would remove the option to have a paper check printed and in turn give you a debit card that would automatically refill with your paycheck every two weeks.

Kevin Langridgan reported from the State House yesterday:

“Rep. Timothy Smith, D-Manchester, said these payroll cards are a hidden scam for low-wage workers, who can face hidden fees of up to $40 per transaction.

“This bill is pretty offensive,” Smith said. “This is one of the newer scams that have been pushed on our hard-working citizens, and it has taken the form of a payroll card.”

This bill was immediately shot down yesterday by the NH House (235-93), and rightfully so. Forcing employees to get a debit card that comes with automatic fees for withdrawal is absolutely wrong.

After the vote, Zandra Rice-Hawkins from Granite State Progress had this to say:

“SB 100 would have been purposefully harmful to employees, creating additional fees and expenses for them to collect and use their paycheck, and specifically avoiding sharing that information upfront,” Rice Hawkins said. “Granite State Progress is proud of the House members who stood strong to protect workers and small businesses in our state.”

The second bill I have been watching is SB 153. This is a sneaky bill that would allow the budget oversight committee to either approve or deny any union contract with state employees. This was an attempt by the Senate President to insert the legislature into the collective bargaining process.

State Rep. Linda DiSilvestro (D-Manchester) said, “the proposed committee will politicize the negotiation process.”

Many of the anti-union republicans tried to push for this bill. They want to have more control over the process.

The Senate passed the bill along party lines, the House outright rejected it 191-135.

Once again the NH House has taken a stance that collective bargaining has it place in New Hampshire. Workers rights and pay were protected. I am very proud of my State today.

 

D.C. Circuit Court Of Appeals Puts Employers Speech Above Workers Rights

  By Matt Murray | May 10, 2013 - 2:14 pm | , ,
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NLRA Poster

NLRB Employee Rights Poster

How many times have you seen this poster? This is the ‘Employee Rights’ poster that was mandated by the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) to be prominently displayed in over 6 million worksites.   That was until a Circuit Court of Appeals Judge decided the ‘freedom of speech’ of the employer is more important than rights of workers.

The poster was created to inform the workers of their right to organize, and collectively bargain.  A right that is guaranteed to millions of workers, however they do not know it.   This poster was specifically designed to inform workers of all of their rights under the National Labor Relations Act.

Employers have balked at this mandate since it was instituted because they do not want workers to know they have the right to collectively bargain with them.  While some think that unions are bad, polling shows overwhelming support for collective bargaining.  Employers do not want employees to organize and form unions because it is well known that union workers make more money than non-union workers.  When employees make more money, business owners see a reduction in profits.

The other part of this poster that is extremely important is the fact that it is illegal for an employer to question you or take adverse actions against you for union activities.  Companies violate this part of the NLRA over and over because many of the workers do not know their rights.    I remember when I was 19, I got a summer job with the evil empire (Wal-Mart, before I knew how evil they were).  In their basic orientation they forced me to watch a video that basically told me that unions were terrible, money grubbing, organizations that force you to pay due and then do nothing for you.  You know, the complete opposite of what unions are all about.  At the time, I was also taking a college class on Labor/Management relations.  I asked, actually begged, for them to let me borrow the video to use for my class project.  They immediately shut me down, and would never let me view the movie again.  I think they knew they were skirting the NLRA anti-union regulations with their video and did not want anyone outside of Wal-Mart to see it.

The video I remember was very similar to the one that Gawker obtained from the Target.   I am serious, check it out.  See if you think it follows the law.

Once again the corporations right to free speech beats out the workers rights to organize.    Richard Trumka, President of the AFL-CIO responded to this ruling in a written statement.

“In today’s workplace, employers are required to display posters explaining wage and hour rights, health and safety and discrimination laws, even emergency escape routes. The D.C. Circuit ruling suggests that courts should strike down hundreds of notice requirements, not only those that inform workers about their rights and warn them of hazards, but also those on cigarette packages, in home mortgages and many other areas. The Court’s twisted logic finds that “freedom of speech” precludes the government from requiring employers to provide certain information to employees. This is absurd: when workers know their rights, the laws work as intended.“

Here, here President Trumka, you nailed it.  The goal of these posters, to inform the workers of their rights.  The fact that they cannot be disciplined, fired, admonished, or any other adverse actions by their employer for activities in forming/joining a union.   This is just another absurd ruling in favor of ‘corporate people’  over the actual people who work for these corporations.   The good news is that President Obama plans to take this case to the Supreme Court if he needs to.

Poor Pay And Poor Conditions For NH Community College Faculty

  By New Hampshire Labor News | April 10, 2013 - 4:00 pm | ,
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SEIU Adjunct 2

By Rep. RICK WATROUS

(Published in print: Sunday, April 7, 2013)

Imagine a community college system where most of the professors earn less in a year than the maintenance staff. Imagine a community college system that responded to a state cut in funding by giving its administrators huge pay increases.

Welcome to the Community College System of New Hampshire.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the teachers at New Hampshire’s community colleges are the lowest-paid faculty in New England, and among the lowest in the whole country. According to CCSNH records, 77 percent – well over 1,000 people – of the system’s faculty are adjunct professors. Most of these adjuncts barely earn a living wage.

I am an adjunct English professor at NHTI in Concord. Adjuncts are hired one semester at a time to teach specific courses. We receive no pension, no health care, no benefits and have zero job security. We often receive our teaching contracts only a few days before the semester begins. We don’t have offices, so our students have a hard time connecting with us outside of class.

Although we have advanced degrees, we can teach a full load of college courses and make less than $20,000 a year. We teach the lion’s share of the courses; without us the state’s community college system could not function.

In its recent “Information for Elected Officials” handout, the Community College System of New Hampshire states: “Our focus is on teaching, learning, and providing the support students need to achieve.” The most important people in any school – other than the students themselves – are the teachers. Yet the actions of the community college leadership show a distinct lack of focus on the people who teach their students.

Both the adjunct and the full-time faculties have become painfully aware that the system office appears to view itself as the top priority. When I started working for NHTI in the mid-1980s, the system office consisted of the commissioner and three other people. Now there are 60 people in the system office in purely administrative roles – people who never set foot in a classroom. And each college still has its own administrative staff.

In the last state budget, the Legislature reduced community college system funding. However, while outwardly proclaiming financial hardship, the system’s board of trustees quietly awarded huge raises to its “executive officers, administrative officers, and confidential personnel” – according to minutes from a non-public October 2012 meeting.

The new chancellor, Ross Gittell, received a $36,136 raise, increasing his yearly salary to $244,504. The vice chancellor received a $27,663 raise. The president of NHTI received a $24,000 raise. And so forth.

Three-quarters of the faculty at the community college system don’t even make $24,000 in a year. The people who do the actual teaching haven’t seen a raise in years.

To improve working conditions, two years ago the adjunct faculty formed their union with the State Employees’ Association. After two years of negotiations with CCSNH officials, there is still no contract.

In fact, conditions for adjunct professors are going from bad to worse. Beginning this fall, we can teach no more than nine credits a semester, which means three three-credit classes or two four-credit classes.

What does that mean in dollars? A Level 1 adjunct instructor makes $1,359 for a 3-credit, 15-week course, while a top Level 4 adjunct professor (like myself) makes $2,028 for a three-credit course. So an adjunct who is limited to a nine-credit schedule in the spring and fall can only make – depending on their level – about $8,000 to $12,000 per year.

While the system is driving its existing adjuncts into poverty, the colleges will have to hire more adjuncts to take up the slack. At the NHTI English Department, there are now seven full-time professors and about 45 adjuncts. This fall they’ll probably have 60-plus adjuncts just in the English Department because of the course load restriction.

Increasingly, there will be a revolving door of teachers who spend less and less time interacting with students before going off to other jobs. How is this beneficial to students? They are less likely to receive a quality education from professors who are demoralized, impoverished and rarely on campus.

Community college system leaders have created a top-heavy system that drains resources better spent actually educating students. Our students deserve better.

(State Rep. Rick Watrous lives in Concord.)

Is A Woman Only Worth 80% Of A Man? Then Why Are Women Still Fighting For Equal Pay?

  By Matt Murray | April 8, 2013 - 2:17 pm | , ,
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From BLS

Fifty years ago, President Kennedy signed into law the Equal Pay Act that was intended to end the wage gap that exist between men and women.  In 1963, the wage gap was 59 cents on the dollar for women in the workplace.  That is just over half what a man made for the same job (assuming they would have even hired her for the same job).  With fifty years of growth and progress, surely we have ended this silly gap and no longer need laws like this, right?  Sadly, no.

Today, a woman makes on average 80 cents on the dollar to a man.  That’s is truly sad, that we are still fighting the same fight over and over again.  Why?  That I cannot answer. What I can say is that there have been people who have always worked to reduce the wage gap: labor unions.

Labor unions have always been fighting back against discrimination of any kind. They fight back against racism and sexism the same way.  They treat everyone equal in every way.  Every member gets the same one vote.  Every member gets their voice heard.  Every one is paid the same for the same work.

Unions negotiate starting pay for workers as part of their contract.  That starting pay does not change if you are a white man, an African-American women, or vice-versa.  The base pay is just that: the base pay.  Everyone starts at the same place.

Some people, like Nashua State Rep Jan Schmidt understand this.  Here’s what she told me:

“People ask me why there are unions today… people who have no memory or sense of history, people who blindly believe that a person alone has complete power to shape their own fate, people who have listened to too much talk radio with their constant pounding of union-hate paid for by corporations that know if unions gain a foothold, they may have a few pennies less in their Cayman bank account.

“This is one reason we need to remember Equal Pay Day, corporations willingly pay the people they expect to buy their goods with wages so low that they leave the state picking up the food stamp cost for that family. To them (the corporation CEOs)… the pennies in their accounts are worth more than the lives they sacrifice.”

So when you ask me, hey Matt, how do we solve the gender wage gap? I will give you the same answer I have given time and time before: JOIN A UNION!

 

There Are No Free-Rides, The Fight Against Right To Work (For Less)

  By Matt Murray | March 28, 2013 - 2:01 pm |
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Union Video Image

The ‘Right To Work’ for less argument has been going on all across the country for many, many years.  The proponents say it will create jobs and give workers a choice.  These are great message points for them because they mean nothing and there is no basis in reality.

The fact is that, unions fought, worked, and died for the rights and privileges that many workers take for granted now.  The fact that we have weekends or vacations are just two of thedozens of examples (image here) of how unions fought for better working conditions for all.

Now unions are fighting back against anti-worker legislation and policies that are destroying the American (and Canadian) labor markets.  They are shipping good paying manufacturing jobs overseas and then blaming the workers for not having jobs.  They are creating policies that have one thing in mind, smash the unions!

This is the case with ‘right to work’ laws. This idea of a ‘right to work’ is inappropriately named.   It should be called the right to freeload.

Unions have always maintained that if you are covered by a collective bargaining agreement, and that you benefit from that agreement, that you should have to pay for the representation provided to you by the union.  In non-’right to work’ states, unions are allowed to negotiated a clause in the contract to include an ‘agency fee’ or non-member fee for representation.  This fee is not used to better the union, it is only to cover the costs of drafting and maintaining the collective bargaining agreement.   In ‘right to work’ states unions are forbidden from incorporating this clause into an agreement, allowing non-members to benefit from the union without have to pay for it, aka freeload.

Right to work for less has been a national fight in the United States for many years, now the unions in Canada are starting to see it popping up in legislation in their country.  Many of the unions in Canada are part of U.S. Internationals like the UAW, IAFF or USW.    One of these unions took a moment to create a short video to explain that there are no ‘free rides’ when it comes to union representation.

The video is created by award winning Canadian director Bruce MacDonald and the Ontario Public Service Employee Union to send a message to the “Ontario PC leader Tim Hudak about that party’s plans for the province’s unions“.

Right to work is more that just a free ride for non-members.  It weakens the entire union process.  It weakens the unions collective bargaining rights, and that eventually hurts all workers.  Do you not see the correlation between the decline in union membership and the decline of workers wages?

If you want to see wages on the rise again, join a union.  If you want to see companies offering good healthcare options again, join a union.  If there is no union for your job, help to organize one, because there is always a union to fit your job.

Do You Still Believe That ALEC Is Not Influencing Our State Legislatures To Break Our Unions?

  By Matt Murray | March 16, 2013 - 11:29 am | ,
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Got Union Rights?

For at least two years the Center for Media and Democracy and hundreds of other progressive media outlets (like the NHLN and Granite State Progress) have been working to show the connection between legislation in our local state houses and ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council).

After nearly two years of intense scrutiny ALEC has finally decided to come clean.  ALEC release all of their model legislation, which can be viewed here.  The list of legislative topics is to long to show here but I want highlight some very significant labor related model legislation.

All of these model legislations, ironically labeled ‘worker freedom’, are designed to reduce workers rights, reduce safety, and bust unions.  Some of these have made national headlines lately, including the ‘Right To Work’ for less bill and the ‘Paycheck Protection’ bill.

We must continue to pressure our legislators until ALEC is completely debunked. Organizations are leaving ALEC as fast as they can, which is good.  Until the entire organization is gone, I will continue to expose this corporate funded lobbying group for their union busting actions.

(More information can be found on PR Watch.ORG)

After Two Years NH Community College Adjunct Professors Still Have No Contract!

  By New Hampshire Labor News | March 11, 2013 - 9:00 pm |
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SEIU Adjunct 2

SEIU Adjunct 2

Two Years and Still No Contract – Aren’t the Community College Students Worth It?

Earlier today a group of Adjunct (part-time) Faculty members in the NH Community College System demonstrated with signs and chants at the Manchester Community College Campus.  They were there to call attention to the fact that since the Adjunct Faculty overwhelmingly decided to form a union over two years ago; they are still without a first contract.  The administration has stalled the contract process repeatedly and is apparently not interested in negotiating.  Since the two sides have not been able to agree upon a contract, the matter 063 copy_low resis currently in mediation.  The group welcomed members of the administration’s mediation representatives as they entered the building prior to the beginning of today’s meeting.  They also delivered over 500 petitions to the administration that have been signed in support of the adjunct’s cause.

About three quarters of the teaching staff in the CCSNH system are adjunct faculty members.  Their part-time status means they earn lower wages, have no access to health benefits, do not earn vacation time and are ineligible for retirement benefits.  “This is an academic sweat shop,” said adjunct member Mary Lee Sargeant.  Sargeant taught full-time for 34 years in the Illinois community college system before teaching as an adjunct in NH. “I’ve been an adjunct here for the last ten years and it is infuriating – the treatment and lack of empathy the adjunct faculty have here.” “In Illinois, part-time faculty members are respected, they earn decent wages, benefits and support from the administration,” she said. “They are valued.”

Sargeant spoke of a colleague who had been teaching eight to ten courses per year at several of the CCSNH campuses and was earning only $20,000/year.  It is no longer possible for adjunct faculty to teach that number of courses. Immediately after the group decided to unionize, the administration issued a policy change that adjunct faculty could not teach more than nine credit hours each semester. Faculty members believe this was a retaliatory act and a function of them speaking up about the working conditions.

“I want to tell the administration, don’t squash me,” said Dave Fink, another adjunct faculty member. “I’m teaching all the students. What would you do without me?”

Ironically, at the same time NH teachers are fighting for respect and to earn a decent living, one of Governor Maggie Hassan’s priorities is education.  She is 068 copy_low resattempting to restore funding to the state’s higher education system. “How come the administration leaves its largest teaching force living in poverty and at risk? There’s an inherent hypocrisy telling students a good education is key to your future while you also treat your own employees like disposable human beings,” said Diana Lacey, President of the State Employees’ Association (SEA SEIU Local 1984).  The Adjunct Faculty is affiliated with SEA SEIU Local 1984.

To add to the irony, the CCSNH Board of Trustees approved significant salary increases for all the non-union administrators effective in January 2013. One college president received a $24,000 salary increase. (Source: CCSNH Board of Trustees October 4, 2012 minutes). That increase is more than an adjunct faculty member’s annual income from teaching.  There seems to be something terribly wrong with this picture.  Not only is this bad for the adjunct faculty, it is also bad for the consumers – the students.

Watch video from the event here.

 

Thanks to SEA/SEIU 1984 for sharing this post with us. (Original Link) We look forward to follow up stories on this.

The Professional Firefighters Of New Hampshire Praise Legislators For Voting Down ‘Right To Work’ Bill

  By New Hampshire Labor News | February 13, 2013 - 4:58 pm | ,
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Professional Firefighters of NH President Dave Lang, and IAFF General President Schaitberger applaud legislators for voting down the 'Right to Work' bill. (via PFFNH Facebook)
Professional Firefighters of NH President Dave Lang, and IAFF General President Schaitberger applaud legislators for voting down the 'Right to Work' bill. (via PFFNH Facebook)

Professional Firefighters of NH President Dave Lang, and IAFF General President Schaitberger applaud legislators for voting down the ‘Right to Work’ bill. (via PFFNH Facebook)

New Hampshire House of Representatives Votes Down ‘Right-to-Work’ Bill 

H.B. 323 would have dealt a blow to collective bargaining in the Granite State

In a major victory for public employees, the New Hampshire House of Representatives today voted down a bill that would have crippled collective bargaining and silenced the voices of workers across the state.

H.B. 323, which would have prohibited employers and labor organizations from including fees for non-union members in collective bargaining agreements, was defeated by a vote of 212-141.

“In November, the citizens of New Hampshire voted in a legislature more focused on issues like jobs and the economy, rather than out-of-state interests,” said David Lang, President of the Professional Fire Fighters of New Hampshire. “It is clear from today’s vote that ‘Right- to- Work’ is still not wanted or needed in New Hampshire. This has always been an unnecessary distraction, and I’m pleased that today the bill was killed so we can move on to the issues that matter to New Hampshire.”

The defeat of H.B. 323 in the New Hampshire General Court today marks a key turning point in the battle over the rights of public employees in the Granite State. In 2010, the rise of the Tea Party movement helped Republicans take control of both the House and the Senate. But in November 2012, amid rising public discontent with anti-labor politics, Democrats regained control of the House and brought the Senate closer to balance.

“I want to congratulate New Hampshire lawmakers today for listening to the people and defending the rights of all of the state’s hard working public employees,” said Harold Schaitberger, General President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, who was on hand for the vote. “These so called ‘right-to-work’ bills are cropping up in legislatures all over the country, but the name hides the truth because they are designed to take away the rights of workers, not protect them.”

The PFFNH, headquartered in Concord, NH represents more than 2,000 active and retired fire fighters and paramedics.  More information is available at www.pffnh.org

Senator Rand Paul Submits A National Right To Work Bill

  By Matt Murray | February 3, 2013 - 4:38 pm | ,
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Senator Rand Paul

The battle over Right To Work States just took a monumental leap as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) introduces a National Right to Work (for less) Act.

From Sen Paul’s Press Release:

Senator Rand Paul “Sen. Rand Paul this week introduced the National Right to Work Act, S. 204, which seeks to preserve and protect the free choice of individual employees to form, join, or assist labor organizations, or to refrain from such activities.

“Every American worker deserves the right to freedom of association – and I am concerned that the 26 states that allow forced union membership and dues infringes on these workers’ rights,” Sen. Paul said. “Right to work laws ensure that all Americans are given the choice to refrain from joining or paying dues to a union as a condition for employment. Nearly 80 percent of all Americans support the principles and so I have introduced a national Right to Work Act that will require all states to give their workers the freedom to choose.”

Sen. Paul’s Right to Work Act does not add a single word to existing federal law, it simply deletes forced unionism provisions in federal law.”

This completely changes the conversation that surrounds Right To Work.  Before they always said was about jobs.  Specifically stealing jobs from neighboring Non-RTW states. This is how they forced it through in Indiana.   I love the way that Rick Smith describes it on his show, “Beggar they neighbor”. If we are a RTW for less nation who are we going to beg jobs from?

Now it seems it is that it is about Freedom.  This is a complete joke since it is already illegal to force someone into a union.  They already have the freedom to pay the representation fee instead of joining.

This is exactly the opposite to everything we are taught to believe in the democratic process.  We can have all the debate we want but in the end, the majority rules.  Now they are taking the minority and placing them ahead of the majority.

This is an ideological and blatantly  anti-union piece of legislation.  It has no benefit to our nation as a whole.  It will reduce the collective bargaining rights of millions of union workers and it turn will reduce the pay and benefits of the other 200 million workers in the US.

The national race to bottom has begun, soon Rand Paul will probably try to repeal all collective bargaining in the country!

Is it any surprise that the National Right To Work committee made a nice donation to the Rand Paul for Senate campaign. Does it surprise you that the National RTW Committee spent over $2.2 Million dollars ‘lobbying’ in Washington D.C.?  I am not surprised considering that there were no less than five Right To Work for less bills submitted in the 112 Congress.

While I do not expect this bill to go very far in the US Senate, it is obvious that these officials care more about their campaign contributions that the majority of workers.

Testimony of NH AFL-CIO President Mark MacKenzie on HB 323 (Right To Work for Less)

  By New Hampshire Labor News | January 31, 2013 - 11:16 am | , ,
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NH AFL-CIO Logo

Chairman White and members of the committee,

My name is Mark MacKenzie and I am the President of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO. We represent over 40,000 union members in the state of New Hampshire in the private, public and federal sectors. We appear today in opposition to House Bill 323.

First of all, it is clear beyond any doubt that based on the economic data alone, this bill is bad policy for our state.

The Economic Policy Institute’s report, Right to Work: Wrong for New Hampshire, by University of Oregon economist Professor Gordon Lafer, found that the impact of adopting a RTW is to lower wages and benefits by about $1,500 per year – for both union and non-union workers – and to lower the odds of getting health insurance or a pension through one’s job, while having no impact at all on job growth.

Professor Lafer’s study was updated in 2012 and will be distributed to the committee today.

I would like to highlight some of the more compelling findings in the report that merits the committee’s attention.

To a large extent, globalization has rendered RTW impotent. In the globalized economy, companies looking for cheap labor are overwhelmingly looking to China or Mexico.

The most important case study for any state considering RTW in 2013 is that of Oklahoma, the only state to have newly adopted RTW in the post-NAFTA era (Indiana and Michigan have just recently implemented their new laws).

When Oklahoma was debating RTW in 2001, a series of corporate location consultants told legislators that the state was being “redlined” because up to 90% of relocating companies “won’t even consider” locating in a non-RTW location. If Oklahoma adopted RTW, these consultants promised, the state would see “eight to ten times as many prospects.”

But instead of growing, the number of new companies coming into Oklahoma has actually fallen by one-third in the eleven years since RTW was adopted.  The state’s manufacturing employment has also decreased by 30%, and Oklahoma’s unemployment rate in 2010 was twice as high as when the law was passed.  Every promise made by RTW boosters has proven false.

Employer surveys confirm that RTW is not a significant draw; in 2009 manufacturers ranked it fourteenth among factors affecting location decisions. It slipped even lower as a factor in 2011 to 16th.

In addition, the report found that New Hampshire’s economy is far superior to the right-to-work average. New Hampshire has seen significant growth in the number of new companies incorporating in the state, including both local startups and out-of-state companies opening locations in New Hampshire.

Partly due to its economic success, New Hampshire’s quality of life is far superior to that in RTW states.  In 2010, New Hampshire ranked among the top 10 states in median household income; share of population with health insurance; share of population receiving dental care; number of primary care physicians; low violent crime rate; and low incidence of heart attacks, strokes, infectious disease, diabetes, low birth weight babies; and occupational fatalities.  New Hampshire’s school system performs above national standards, with math and reading scores significantly above the national average in 2009. The median weekly earnings of New Hampshire employees are not only higher than the average of RTW states, but higher than every single one of the RTW states. So too, New Hampshire’s median household income is higher, and its poverty rate lower, than all of the 23 states with right-to-work laws passed before 2011.

For all these reasons, New Hampshire would do far better maintaining our existing system rather than imitating the RTW states.

Over the course of the last two years, significant new information has come to light, all of which confirms the negative impact of RTW legislation.

·         A new study by independent economists from the University of Nevada and Claremont McKenna College confirms RTW results in lower wages for non-union workers.

·         An Oklahoma corporate think-tank admitted RTW has failed to create jobs.  The Oklahoma Council on Public Affairs – a think tank affiliated with the Heritage Foundation, that played a leading role in promoting that state’s 2001 RTW law – now admits that “manufacturing is lower today than it was before RTW.” Furthermore, the same organization reports that Oklahoma has become a net job exporter.

·         RTW has been shown to increase construction fatalities.  A new study shows that, in addition to its negative impact on wages and benefits, RTW also makes for less safe workplaces, including increased fatalities for construction workers.

·         New Hampshire continues to outperform RTW states.  As of December 2011, unemployment in New Hampshire was lower than in all but three of the 23 RTW states. 

The South Carolina Model:

In the past year, South Carolina has frequently been promoted as a model of economic development due to its RTW law. But at the end of 2012, South Carolina’s unemployment rate was 8.4 percent; While New Hampshire’s was 5.4 percent. South Carolina’s poverty rate is also double that of New Hampshire; while its median income is $23,000 lower.  The rate of new business openings was 25 percent faster in New Hampshire than in South Carolina. When it comes to “new economy” firms – the high-tech, high-wage employers that every state seeks – New Hampshire is ranked much higher than South Carolina.  By any measure, South Carolina should be trying to figure out how to be more like New Hampshire — not the opposite.

The past two years have also produced evidence that shed light on some misleading claims that had been put forth on behalf of RTW.

Texas’ growth was entirely in the public sector, unrelated to RTW. For the last four years, job growth in Texas has come entirely through government jobs, while the private sector shrank—clearly a trend that cannot be credited to RTW.

Evidence presented as current was actually thirty-five years old.  The National Right to Work Committee produced a Powerpoint presentation in 2011 that quotes an executive of Fantus, a site-location firm, warning that “approximately 50 percent of our clients … do not want to consider locations unless they are in right-to-work states”. The Committee neglected to mention that the quote is based on a report from 1975, and that by 1986, the firm’s executive vice president reported that the figure had fallen to 10 percent.

With all this evidence it would seem that those advocating in favor of this bill are actually driven by an Ideological belief system with no real regard for the true impact this bill will have on New Hampshire’s middle class working families and our state’s economic future.

I urge the committee to reject this legislation.

Thank you for your consideration.