By Stephen Montoya
Observer staff writer
Jun 23, 2017
Two Sandoval County commissioners are asking, “Is right to work a good idea for the county’s economy?”
Jay Block, of commission District 2, made an opening statement at the last commission meeting indicating that he was working on a right-to-work ordinance with fellow commissioner Dave Heil, from District 4.
According to the Conference of State Legislature website, under right-to-work laws, states have the authority to determine whether workers can be required to join a labor union to get or keep a job.
Currently, 28 states and Guam have given workers a choice when it comes to union membership. Labor unions still operate in those states, but workers cannot be compelled to become members as a requirement of their job.
Earlier this year, Kentucky became the 27th right-to-work state on Jan. 9 and Missouri became the 28th on Feb. 2.
Here, Block says, “Many people have spoken for or against an oil and gas ordinance. What I am hearing is that these people do not want our economy tied to oil and gas.
Block offered a different solution altogether, one that he said has never been proposed in the history of Sandoval County.
“Vice chair Heil and I have been working on a draft for a right-to-work ordinance for a couple of weeks,” Block said. “We will present this ordinance to the commission, county manager and county attorney very soon for review.”
According to Heil, having a right-to-work ordinance would be an attractive incentive to many businesses looking to expand into Sandoval County.
“When you look at right-to-work across the country, (in) a great majority of those cases, the impact on the economic development environment has been positive,” Heil said. “If anything, we here in New Mexico need something positive.”
Heil said many businesses looking to expand and move to a different location have right-to-work on their checklist of desired items for relocation.
“I believe many businesses are in favor of this because it is less difficult for them to manage their operations in a non-union environment,” Heil said. “I am speaking from personal experience having worked in both union and non-union jobs.”
Heil said he grew up in a Teamster household because his family owned a trucking company in Ohio.
“In terms of decisions that they could make, as to how they ran their business, it was definitely impacted by pressures by the union,” Heil said. “I have also worked for several non-union companies that paid their employees well here in New Mexico that I found to be great.”
Carter Bundy, political action representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said right-to-work is a power reserved by the state, not the county.
“This is one of the common myths and frankly fabrications about right-to-work,” Bundy said. “In New Mexico, fair share is something that the employer and employee organizations agree on. So if Sandoval County doesn’t want to have fair share, they already have this power.”
Bundy said as far as the data goes, people can cherry pick any data to back up their point and try to sway people to their way of thinking.
“Right now, Colorado and California, which are free-bargaining states, are doing much better than New Mexico,” Bundy said. “The problem isn’t right-to-work or fair share, the problem is our workforce our education system and frankly its politicians who care more about grandstanding than about solving problems.”
According to Bundy, what happens to workers in a right-to-work state is that wages uniformly go down.
“Free-bargaining states are far safer, have much better wages and have decent benefits for workers,” Bundy said. “Right-to-work states are the poorest states by and large.”
Block said a comparison to other states where there is right-to-work or there isn’t doesn’t give an accurate view of what right-to-work could do for the state of New Mexico.
“You can’t compare New Mexico to Massachusetts, New Hampshire or New York, because those are very high-cost states,” Block said. “But when you compare New Mexico to the Southwest, our wages are lower than the right-to-work states of Arizona and Texas.”
Block said he is not presenting right-to-work as a way of taking away union jobs; rather he is giving workers an opportunity to have an option.
“I am also looking at this from an economic standpoint,” Block said. “We can’t even get out of the starting block; we haven’t landed a single Fortune 500 company in our recent history. As a state, we are an island in the Southwest, given the prosperity of the states that surround us.”
Block and Heil have put together a team of three economic development officials to write up a draft of the ordinance to be presented to the commission by next month, he said.
“I hope we can do this at the county level without waiting for the next legislative session,” Block said. “This is still in the research stages, and if our lawyers say this is feasible, then we are all for moving forward with this initiative.”
Block said if the right-to-work ordinance gains traction, he wants the public to weigh in on it by setting up a public forum.
“Why not step up and try something new?” Block said. “We need bold solutions, because what we’ve been doing for the past 80 years hasn’t worked.”
No comments:
Post a Comment