Thursday, December 1, 2011

Lacking Right to Work Costs NM

Any national right to work law mapping of states fits New Mexico and Colorado with a horse collar.
Right to work laws allow employees of unionized companies to choose to not join the union and, therefore, to not pay union dues.
Wyoming has right to work. So do the states stacked on Arizona and Texas to the Canadian border.
Unions are useful, I believe. But I favor right to work because anyone with a monopoly gets lazy and fails to serve the customers, in this case union members.
I haven’t paid much attention to New Mexico not having right to work because private sector unions don’t matter much here. Pushing right to work in New Mexico has always seemed the cause of far right fanatics devoted to lost causes.
However, there is a change in the big world. Site selectors, the consultants who help companies locate new and branch plants and offices are using lack of right to work as an initial criterion for eliminating states from location consideration. Lacking right to work immediately zaps New Mexico from consideration by about a quarter of companies.
That matters.

No comments: