Figures do not lie. In his opening address, the president pro tem of the Senate, my Republican colleague Rob Mayer of Dexter, stated, Unemployment is lower in the 22 states six of them our neighbors that have adopted right-to-work laws.

This is not accurate. In fact, the highest current unemployment in the country, Nevada, is 14.3%, and Nevada is what I call a right-to-work-for-less state. Furthermore, the state of Tennessee, through November of 2010, had an unemployment rate identical to Missouri, 9.4%. Of the 22 right-to-work states, several - including Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina - also have higher unemployment rates than Missouri.....

Claims that right-to-work-for-less states have added millions of private sector jobs [as Mayer has claimed] are very misleading. Money talks and right-to-work-for-less states like Tennessee ($577 million in 2008 subsidies for one auto plant) and Mississippi ($300 million subsidy in 2007 for another plant) offered huge incentives. These property and sales tax exemptions, income tax credits, infrastructure aid, land discounts, and training grants - not right-to-work laws - played a primary role in those decisions.

Missouri is recovering from a deep national recession, credit crisis, housing collapse and stalled auto sales which are all to blame for the states job losses, not Missouris stand on union labor. Workers that make less money are plagued with higher poverty and infant mortality rates, have less access to quality health care, and fewer educational opportunities for children.

The facts show that Missouri continues to be a nationally competitive, business-friendly state. [According to] CNBCs report, "Americas Top State for Business 2010," Missouri enjoys the 5th lowest overall business costs in the nation. According to the Tax Foundation, Missouri has the 5th lowest corporate income tax rate in the country. Missouri also has the third lowest business energy costs in the U.S., according to the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council. Moreover, Missouri companies also enjoy the 4th lowest commercial electricity costs in the U.S., according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

A study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research, funded in part by the Ford Foundation, and on whose Board sits Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist, confirms that union employees have higher wages, and are more likely to have employer-provided healthcare and pensions than non-union states. Right-to-work-for-less will bring substantial increases in Medicaid costs to the taxpayer, if union membership declines in Missouri. While 58.5% of the employees of non-union employers have health insurance and 48.5% have employer provided pensions, 77.9% of unionized employees in Missouri have healthcare and 77.3% have pensions. A non-union employee is less likely to have employer provided healthcare than a union employee. Every time theres an economic recession, a lot of people immediately blame the workers in organized labor. However, if you consider neighboring Illinois, or Minnesota or Wisconsin, they each have a higher standard of living and a better tax base for public schools, fire, police because theyre all unionized states.

Sen. Mayer spoke of allowing the free market to prevail, but he then proposed legislation which would prohibit private employers from negotiating an agency shop provision with a union. There is nothing free market about such limitations. The facts are that federal law prohibits closed shops where workers are required to join the union before they can be hired. Similarly, workers can never be forced to join a union, union security clause or not. Also, under federal law workers cannot be forced to pay dues for any union political activity.

When right-to-work-for-less laws are passed, real economic data shows that wages and benefits decline for all workers. This law will not help Missouri reverse its severe job losses.

Supporters of right-to-work-for-less in Missouri want to see the majority of workers making minimum wage with no health insurance. They wont be happy until they turn Missouri into the Mississippi of the Midwest which has the lowest median household income in the country and one of the lowest percentage of households with health insurance. Labor unions are about dignity and respect in the workplace.

Commentary by Sen. Timothy P. Green of St. Louis (D-13)

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