Quoted:
How in the hell is "Republican In Name Only" a slur?

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A negro.....isn't that a fact?

Shouldn't have used the word fag, should have used a more traditional word,.....Queer Capitol of the Midwest.....another fact, isn't it?

http://www.epi.org/publication/right-to-work-states-have-lower-wages/

“Right-to-Work” States Still Have Lower Wages

By Elise Gould and Will Kimball | April 22, 2015


Briefing Paper #395
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Press release

Introduction and executive summary

Under federal law, no one can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment, and the Supreme Court has made clear that workers cannot be forced to pay dues used for political purposes. So-called right-to-work (RTW) legislation goes one step further and entitles employees to the benefits of a union contract—including the right to have the union take up their grievance if their employer abuses them—without paying any of the cost.

This means that if an employer mistreats a worker who does not pay a union representation fee, the union must prosecute that worker’s grievance just as it would a dues-paying member’s, even if it costs tens of thousands of dollars. Non-dues-paying workers would also receive the higher wages and benefits their dues-paying coworkers enjoy. RTW laws have nothing to do with whether people can be forced to join a union or contribute to a political cause they do not support; that is already illegal. Nor do RTW laws have anything to do with the right to have a job or be provided employment.

At their core, RTW laws seek to hamstring unions’ ability to help employees bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. Given that unionization raises wages both for individual union members as well as for nonunion workers in unionized sectors, it is not surprising that research shows that both union and nonunion workers in RTW states have lower wages and fewer benefits, on average, than comparable workers in other states.

Indeed, in a 2011 EPI paper, Elise Gould and Heidi Shierholz estimate that wages in RTW states are 3.2 percent lower on average than wages in non-RTW states, even after controlling for a full set of worker characteristics and state labor market conditions. Gould and Shierholz (2011) also find that workers in RTW states are less likely to have employer-sponsored health insurance and pension coverage.

In this paper, we update that research and subject the results to a series of robustness tests. We utilize more recent data from the Current Population Survey, and employ a cost-of-living indicator from the Bureau of Economic Analysis that was only made available in the years following the release of Gould and Shierholz (2011). Last, we subject our results to various robustness tests as suggested by Sherk (2015) regarding choice of specific explanatory variables. We find that the main results hold under any reasonable alternative specifications. Only extensive data-mining and non-standard specifications of wage equations can move the estimated RTW penalty to statistical insignificance. Our central findings are:
Wages in RTW states are 3.1 percent lower than those in non-RTW states, after controlling for a full complement of individual demographic and socioeconomic factors as well as state macroeconomic indicators. This translates into RTW being associated with $1,558 lower annual wages for a typical full-time, full-year worker.
The relationship between RTW status and wages remains economically and statistically significant under alternative specifications of our econometric model.
Background

The 1947 Taft–Hartley amendments to the National Labor Relations Act (1935) sanctioned a state’s right to pass laws that prohibit unions from requiring a worker to pay dues, even when the worker is covered by a union-negotiated collective bargaining agreement. Within a couple of years of the amendment’s passage, 12 states had passed RTW laws. Today, RTW laws are in place in 25 states, predominantly in the Midwest, South, and Southwest.1

Although there has been an extensive amount of research on the effect of RTW laws on union density, organizing efforts, and industrial development (see Moore 1998 and Moore and Newman 1985 for literature overviews), there has been surprisingly little examination of the perhaps more important issue of RTW laws’ effect on wages and employer-sponsored benefits. Part of the reason that there has been little research done on these latter relationships is that it is hard to identify or isolate the RTW effect. For example, there is little variation in the timing of when many states adopted RTW laws—10 states adopted or amended such laws in a two-year window in the late 1940s, right before a recession hit. In addition, it’s hard to adequately control for the decision of a state to become RTW or isolate that effect from other legislative changes. Further, there are many factors that influence state labor market conditions over time, making it hard to identify the RTW effect amid other economic, social, or technological phenomena.

These limitations make clear why causal impacts of RTW laws are hard to estimate, but one can legitimately take a cross-sectional approach and look at the correlation of RTW status and wages after controlling for a range of other influences that could impact state-level wages. Gould and Shierholz (2011) use this approach and overcome one obvious shortcoming of previous research by controlling for differences in cost of living throughout the United States, thereby making inflation-adjusted wages in various parts of the country as comparable as possible.

First and foremost, this paper is an update to Gould and Shierholz (2011), using data through 2012. Unfortunately, since three states have passed RTW legislation in the last three years, any analysis must still be restricted to data from 2012 and prior so as not to contaminate (that is, bias) the results with data from states switching their regime during the period of study.2 Most researchers think that whatever the effect of RTW on states’ economies, it takes a relatively long time to manifest. Thus, it is difficult to know how to classify states that have very recently passed RTW laws. Once the full effects of changes in legislation have been felt in these states, which could take several years, these states can be further evaluated. In this paper we also employ a different cost-of-living adjustment based on a new measure from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA).

And, finally, this paper responds to concerns raised about the robustness of the Gould and Shierholz (2011) findings on RTW and wages. Specifically, Sherk (2015) argues that his preferred regression specification yields the result that a wage differential does not exist between RTW and non-RTW states. After extensive investigation, we do not find his conclusion compelling. The previous Gould and Shierholz (2011) finding is robust to reasonable changes in model specification, and the regression specification Sherk (2015) uses that yields no wage differential is idiosyncratic, excluding variables that belong and including variables that do not belong in a wage regression.

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Conclusion

This paper updates and confirms the findings of Gould and Shierholz (2011). No matter how you slice the data, wages in RTW states are lower, on average, than wages in non-RTW states.

As shown in great detail in Gould and Shierholz (2011), these results do not just apply to union members, but to all employees in a state. Where unions are strong, compensation increases even for workers not covered by any union contract, as nonunion employers face competitive pressure to match union standards. Likewise, when unions are weakened by RTW laws, all of a state’s workers feel the impact.

Quoted:
When is Scooter going to get rid of the cop and fire and state patrol unions?

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You linked a thread started by your buddy, which you locked for no other reason than you disagreed with Flamethrower.
It certainly didn't escalate into personal attacks, and it didn't get heated.
You just made yourself look like a fool by posting this.

http://www.ar15.com/forums/t_8_21/449534_Note_to_HTF_Members__Fix_yo_sh_t_.html

Quoted:
Instead of locking this thread for personal attacks, which seems to be a problem in this forum. I would like to know why you guys can't behave yourselves when it comes to these discussions?

Quoted:
So you're saying it's Walker's fault that the members can't behave themselves?

Quoted:
Instead of locking this thread for personal attacks, which seems to be a problem in this forum. I would like to know why you guys can't behave yourselves when it comes to these discussions?