This is the political season and without a doubt, there are two very controversial candidates for president of the United States. The union constituency that has been her bedrock throughout the primaries supports Hillary Clinton, but now she has stepped into my space and yours as well.
Last week Hillary Clinton was speaking in Ohio when she said something that made me sit up and take note. Not that I had not heard or seen the words before, but this time it had an edge to it that I had not seen or heard before.
She said, “Right to work is wrong for workers and wrong for America.” She went on to repeat her oft spoken pledge that “If I am elected president the unions will have a champion in the White House and a seat at the table.”
That rhetoric bothers me and it should bother any of you in the construction industry who live and work in the 26 Right to Work states like Texas, Michigan and Wisconsin. Do those states have unions? Sure, but workers are allowed to work without being forced to organize and pay union dues.
The construction industry has been built by the private sector, and according to a recent article in Investor’s Business Daily, between 2004 and 2014 “Right to Work” states have grown jobs at a higher rate, 9.1% versus 3.1% in non-right to work states.
The article goes on to state, “Not only that, but a study published in the Cato Journal found that productivity in non-right-to-work states was just 57% — to 64% of right-to-work states.
For anyone who wants to create more productive construction jobs in the US, it seems that maintaining or expanding the “right to work” states might be a viable path to pursue.
Take a close look at your bottom line of your business to see which of those “not so perfect” candidates you want telling you how to run you business in the next 8 years.
