Enacting Right-to-Work Is the Key Policy Change That Can Spur Private Sector Job Growth and Competition in Ohio…and Would Even Benefit Union Members
The choice on what type of leader you get really is yours to make.
First, let me set the table based on the longitudinal data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (i.e., check the data yourself if you don’t believe me). I’ve been tracking this data every month for the last fourteen years. Since 1990, the private sectors in right-to-work states have averaged 70.6% net growth. Some have doubled their private sectors over the last 32.5 years (e.g., Idaho and Utah). During the same period of time, pro-unionization states on average have netted 32.0% job growth, or less than half the job growth of right-to-work states. As a pro-unionization state, Ohio has done even worse. It netted just 17.6% job growth since 1990. The chart below shows this fact. Look a little closer at the chart. Do you see how right-to-work states didn’t even lose jobs from 2000 to 2010 after the technology and financial meltdowns in 2000 and 2008—that line continues to go up ever so slightly? Meanwhile, pro-unionization states, including Ohio, go down. In fact, Ohio today has fewer private sector jobs than it did in March 2000 when it hit a peak of 4.852 million jobs. That is utterly pathetic…it has been twenty-three years!!! Also notice how steep the right-to-work line has been since 2010 compared to the less steep pro-unionization line and even less steep Ohio line. Since 1990, Ohio is ranked #45 for net percentage job growth. Only Michigan, West Virginia, Vermont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut are worse.
You can see this same result by racking and stacking all of the states. See how just eight pro-unionization states make the top twenty-five, as right-to-work states snare eighteen of the top states. The reverse is true for the worst ranked states. Right-to-work states occupy nine of the bottom twenty-five spots, with West Virginia, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Kentucky only flipping to right-to-work since 2012 so arguably those states haven’t had enough time to truly benefit from being right-to-work states. In contrast, sixteen of the worst states are pro-unionization states.
The pandemic shutdowns resulted in similar outcomes. Of the twenty-five states that recovered their jobs most quickly, only one pro-unionization state (Montana) makes the top ten and just eight make the top twenty-five. In contrast, seventeen of the weakest recovering states are pro-unionization states, with Ohio currently in the thirty-seventh best/fifteenth worst spot. Ohio was the thirty-ninth state to fully recover the private sector jobs lost from the DeWine-Husted pandemic shutdown. Ohio didn’t add a net private sector job since 2019 until two months ago, as all of the growth in the second half of 2020, 2021, and 2022 was simply recovering the jobs lost from the shutdown. Keep in mind, according to our ex-Democrat (well, he should have been registered as such) Governor John Kasich and his genius policy staff, the whole point of creating JobsOhio back in 2011 was it would “revolutionize" economic development and push Ohio to the top for job growth. After 11.5 years, that experiment has failed miserably, as Ohio’s private sector remains among America’s weakest since its creation based on the job growth since 2010 and the pandemic recovery.
Let me move to income. Big Labor has convinced its members that right-to-work is really the right-to-work for less and that right-to-work states allow unsafe work environments for its workers. On the workplace safety issue, a March 2023 study based on the BLS data identified the top ten non-fatal workplace injuries and illnesses states as noted in the chart below. Of the ten states listed, seven of the ten were pro-unionization states. Now, I don’t believe for a minute that the unions in those states aren’t doing their jobs to keep workers safe; rather, I believe the comprehensive federal, state, and local workplace safety laws ensure most workers in most states are safe most of the time, with exceptions based upon individual workers and, of course, the concentration of injury prone jobs such as the fishing industries in Maine, Washington, and Alaska or mining in Montana and Nevada. Another report made similar findings, with pro-unionization California in the top five. That report listed the safest states as Texas, North Carolina, Delaware, Virginia, and South Carolina (four out of five being right-to-work states). Again, given widespread workplace safety laws, injuries and illnesses likely are closely tied to specific industries rather than specific states.
Beyond the obvious fact that people aren’t fleeing pro-unionization states so they can earn LESS in right-to-work states or to get maimed in the workplace, the reality is right-to-work states add jobs at a far faster pace than pro-unionization states, thereby increasing competition for workers. More competition forces wages up, as employers compete for workers in tight labor markets. In 1960, Ohio’s per capita income ranked eighteenth in America. By 2022, Ohio’s per capita income had fallen to thirty-fifth. In looking at the size of the income growth, from 2010 to 2022, Ohio’s percentage change in per capita income ranked twenty-fifth in the U.S. Interestingly, both Indiana and Michigan, which flipped to right-to-work state in 2012, saw greater percentage change in per capita income since 2010 (Indiana ranked fourteenth and Michigan came in at twentieth).
I don’t want to go into details here, but you can read what I wrote about the historical role slavery and Jim Crow laws played in the income differences between right-to-work states and pro-unionization states in an excerpt from my book “Taxpayers Don’t Stand a Chance” here. I do, however, want to highlight that the thirteen states that were part of the Confederacy or loosely aiding it, ten out of those states were in the bottom eleven states for the lowest per capita income in 1960 (i.e., roughly ten years after states could become right-to-work states and right before the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). Not surprisingly, sixty years later, seven of those states still linger in the bottom eleven. As I detailed in my book, the massive economic differences between the North and the South in 1860 and continuing until real freedom had been established in the years after 1964 was enormous. Those states include: Louisiana, South Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, West Virginia, and Mississippi. Of course, none of this analysis accounts for the much lower cost of living in many of those states, so lower per capita income reflects a lower cost of living to some degree.
In looking at the percentage change in per capita income every ten years since 1960, Ohio was ranked: 38th (1960 to 1970), 37th (1970 to 1980), 30th (1980 to 1990), 41st (1990 to 2000), 41st (2000 to 2010), 25th (2010 to 2020), and 41st (2020 to 2022). Over the last sixty-two years, Ohio averaged a ranking of thirty-six. Any reasonable person would concede that Ohio’s pro-unionization status isn’t doing much for its workers’ incomes. Our net job growth is among the worst and our per capita income growth is among the weakest. As I drive around Ohio, the utter inability of unions to protect their members is vividly on display in closed down factory after closed down factory and in the empty union halls nearby. In a state with weak job growth, the bargaining position of unions is largely non-existent.
That result is why I believe it would be negligent and irresponsible not to try to enact right-to-work in Ohio. I fully understand that this position places my support from unionized workers and their families at risk. I also understand that it may weaken the move of blue collar workers from being Democrats to being Republicans that started under Donald Trump. That move, however, involved far more than one issue. If it didn’t, then those who argue I should leave right-to-work alone in order to preserve the coalition want to permanently relegate Ohio to the back of the pack, as the data above so unequivocally shows about the power of right-to-work to spur far stronger job growth and competition. They want me as governor to unilaterally disarm the one policy that has the best odds to move Ohio to the front of the pack. I simply cannot relegate Ohioans and future generations to a future in which Ohio’s job and income growth lag behind the rest of America in perpetuity. That approach would further cement Ohio as a dead state walking and ensure our best and brightest continue to flee Ohio for states with better opportunities and prosperity, as over 650,000 Ohioans aged 10 to 54 did over the last decade. It also would leave the 50% of Ohio high school graduates who don’t go on to college with far fewer opportunities to climb the economic ladder than they deserve.
To my union friends, I ask you to consider the following:
Given the sheer number of federal, state, and local laws governing every aspect of work enacted over the last eighty years, enormous protections exist in EVERY state (see the pictures below—even more laws have been added since 2012 than listed) covering wages, benefits, work conditions, and the like. These protections didn’t exist when unions arose to protect workers and have largely leveled the field across the states on many core issues.
Enacting right-to-work won’t negatively impact you or your union at all. It merely makes NEW unionization efforts at other employers more challenging for unions and, therefore, Ohio more attractive to businesses. Unions exist in right-to-work states. They just have to work harder to show the benefits they bring to members in those states. Your collective bargaining contract will remain intact, as will your union's representation of you. LET ME REPEAT THAT: ENACTING RIGHT-TO-WORK WON’T ELIMINATE YOUR UNION OR THE CONTRACT UNDER WHICH YOU WORK.
Do you believe your union has more power to negotiate in a state like Ohio in which job growth increases so slowly (17% in 32.5 years) with little competition, or do you believe it will have more power when employers must fiercely compete for good workers in which workers can move to higher paying jobs thereby putting employers who fail to keep up at risk? They won’t admit it, but right-to-work will bring more jobs and competition that will strengthen the hand of your union with your employer. No other policy will spur job growth and competition better than right-to-work.
Finally, most labor unions fund the Left/Democrats who then actively work to undermine our core American values. While right-to-work is important, is it more important than all of the other issues you care about combined like:
the taxes you pay on your income;
the regulatory burdens you face;
the unilateral shutdown of our energy independence from coal, natural gas, and nuclear power;
the health care freedom you have against mandates;
the safety of your communities;
the inflation and higher prices you have to pay on groceries, gas, and anything on credit from Democrats printing money and massive government spending;
the flood of illegal immigration that likely does far more damage to your wages than right-to-work and brings deadly drugs and human trafficking into your communities;
the growth of federal and state government that inserts itself into every aspect of your life;
the woke ideology forced on your kids;
the pushing of gender surgery and drugs on your kids and the unfair competition faced by your daughters;
the assault on your Second Amendment right to bear arms;
the grotesque industry they push on unborn babies;
the fight against Washington, D.C., to get power and money back to the states under the Tenth Amendment;
the weakening of our military and national security in an increasingly hostile world; and
the political reforms I want to make in Ohio and nationally like replacing term limits with a 20-year time limit; putting legislators, the governor, and the lieutenant governor on a pay for performance plan; and spreading state government across Ohio instead of in Columbus.
If my support for right-to-work outweighs your support for all of these other issues, then I’m not the guy you should support. You can vote for Jon Husted, Dave Yost, Robert Sprague, or a Democrat, as they won’t touch right-to-work. They also won’t touch these other issues (or I wouldn’t be running because they already would have solved these problems during their decades of elected office). On the other hand, you also can support me because I’ll push for all of those other policies you like knowing my push for right-to-work faces a steep uphill fight that Big Labor and their allies will work tirelessly to stop, as they did with Senate Bill 5 in 2011 covering the public sector. Obviously, that support brings risk, so you just need to measure how big that risk is based on the above.
I have to do what I think is best for Ohio, its workers, and its businesses. The data unequivocally shows right-to-work is the best policy to spur job growth, more competition, and higher incomes, which will benefit approximately 4.3 million non-unionized Ohioans and their families versus the roughly 641,000 Ohioans and their families who are union members (and who I also believe will be benefitted by greater job growth and worker competition). I get union members want to protect their turf, but I’m not trying to touch their turf…I’m just trying to make the turf for the rest of Ohio far greener by making Ohio more attractive for factories and other businesses where the 50% of Ohioans without college degrees can pursue the American Dream.
Whether you agree with me or not on this issue, I hope you get that my stance on right-to-work is precisely why you should support me. Unlike career politicians who focus exclusively on what is best for THEIR career, my focus is solely on what is best for YOUR career. So, they will gladly put aside doing the right thing to do the easy thing or the thing that ensures their political survival. I can promise you I’ll never put my political survival ahead of Ohio’s right to thrive as a state. It is the height of political cowardice for them to avoid doing the one thing that gives Ohio that chance to thrive just so they can stay in office. If I lose because of my support for right-to-work, so be it. I’d rather lose by advocating for what is best for Ohio than win just so I can have a title for a few years while most of Ohio continues to hollow out. If you want principled, bold color leadership that renews Ohio’s greatness, you have to accept we might not agree on everything, but I’ll always look you in the eye and shoot straight with you. Career politicians and Democrats will tell you what you want to hear on right-to-work, as they stick a knife in your back on all those other policies you care about and as they get paid in full regardless of how poorly Ohio does. The choice on what type of leader you get really is yours to make.