Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois soon may need to construct a wall—not to keep people out but to keep business in. While such a drastic move is unlikely, they will need to do something because they are at a severe regional economic disadvantage now that Indiana has passed a right to work law.
Wise policy decisions by Governor Mitch Daniels and the Indiana Legislature have given that Hoosier state the highest recovery in gross domestic product in the Great Lakes region. Now with the passage of right to work, 333,000 Hoosier workers represented by unions (12.4 percent of the Indiana workforce) will have right to say no to union bosses and still keep their job.
Indiana is poised to surge ahead of its forced unionism neighbors. With a similarly skilled workforce, geography, and manufacturing background, Indiana can offer businesses from around the world the same benefits as other states in the region without the drawbacks of having workers forced into a union against their will.
According to Heritage Foundation analyst James Sherk, “Right-to-work states are much more attractive for businesses investment. Unionized firms earn lower profits, invest less, and create fewer jobs than comparable nonunion firms.” Sherk adds that studies “of neighboring counties on state borders with and without right-to-work laws …. manufacturing jobs in counties in right-to-work states is one-third higher than in adjacent counties in non–right-to-work states. Right-to-work laws attract jobs.”
As Rob DeRocker, an economic development consultant told The Christian Science Monitor, some companies consider right to work essential because, “[T]he lack of a right-to-work law suggests that the mentality at the government level is that it’s not a business-friendly state”.
Overall statics back up Sherk’s and DeRocker’s assessments. Arthur B. Laffer and Stephen Moore noted in The Wall Street Journal last year that, “Over the past decade (2000-09) the right-to-work states grew faster in nearly every respect than their union-shop counterparts: 54.6% versus 41.1% in gross state product, 53.3% versus 40.6% in personal income, 11.9% versus 6.1% in population, and 4.1% versus -0.6% in payrolls.”