Crowell bill would make Missouri right-to-work state

Cape Girardeau Sen. Jason Crowell wants to let voters decide whether to make Missouri a "right to work" state.

This legislative session, and for the past several years, Crowell has filed legislation that would prohibit union-only workplaces.

"I think it is in the best interest of the entire state when you look at job growth and standard-of-living data, right-to-work states are where the leaders are," Crowell said.

Under current Missouri law, employees at some companies have to pay union membership dues in order to work as a condition of their employer-union contracts. Crowell's Senate Bill 109 proposes a statewide vote in August 2012 whether to eliminate that situation.

Right-to-work laws are touted by economic developers but vilified by organized labor.

The last time the issue was put to Missouri voters, in 1978, it was overwhelmingly defeated.

There are 22 right-to-work states, including Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Arkansas and Tennessee. Oklahoma was the last state to adopt right-to-work in 2001.

Governments in right-to-work states save millions of taxpayer dollars by not having to having to follow prevailing wage laws, Crowell said.

"I have been told that when Missouri is compared to Arkansas in per-construction-mile costs for highways, Missouri is four times higher than Arkansas. Arkansas is a right-to-work state, Missouri is not," Crowell said. "I have been told that school districts, if they were exempted from prevailing wage laws, that they could save threefold in construction costs. This would save taxpayers millions in Cape Girardeau if they didn't have to pay union prevailing wages on the current school construction projects."

It has been demonstrated that right-to-work laws translate into lower wages for everyone, not just union members, said J.J. Lane, business representative for Plumbers and Pipe Fitters Local 562, which represents about 100 workers in Southeast Missouri.

"Lower wages lead to a smaller tax base, which leads to less funding for the services our government provides," Lane said. "These lower wages also relate directly to a lessened activity with our small businesses."

According to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, the average per-capita personal income in 2007 was nearly $4,000 lower in right-to-work states, Lane said. In 2009, workers in right-to-work states made $2.67 per hour less than workers in non-right-to-work states. That adds up to $5,553.60 less a year.

Cape Girardeau Area Magnet, the region's economic development recruitment agency, doesn't have an official position on right-to-work laws, but executive director Mitch Robinson said adopting them would help with the recruitment of new companies to the area and the state.

"There are a lot of companies that will not look at Missouri for that very reason," he said. "They have either previously had unions and don't want to work with a unionized work force or they've never had one and they don't want the additional restrictive natures involved in having a unionized work force."

Most companies looking to relocate are considering location, transportation access and utility rates first, said Bill Walz, business representative for IBEW Local 1, which represents more than 600 Southeast Missouri workers. "When you look at right-to-work states, their manufacturing base has not expanded any."

Walz pointed to the Holcim concrete plant in Ste. Genevieve County as an example of new jobs, 250 union workers, and new industry in Missouri without a right-to-work law.

But overall job creation in right-to-work states is growing 2.5 times faster than non-right-to-work states, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, Crowell said. From 2003 to 2008, the number of private-sector employees in right-to-work states grew at 9.1 percent, compared to force-union state employee growth of 3.6 percent, he said.

Some businesses are moving to right-to-work states, but this is because of monetary economic development incentives offered by those states to attract companies, Lane said.

"Every day we see the truth of the matter in the construction industry. The educated work force such as the union members within the construction trade are fleeing North for better paying jobs with benefits," Lane said.

Crowell's right-to-work bill has been referred to the Senate's general laws committee. No hearing date has been set at this time.

mmiller@semissourian.com

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