Labor Day: Under Right to Work, 25 years of more freedom, more jobs, more income

This is the 25th Labor Day since the Legislature enacted a Right to Work law guaranteeing your freedom to choose whether to join or financially support a union, without facing the threat of being fired either way.

On the 25th anniversary of this landmark individual freedom, civil rights, and economic growth legislation, its primary impact is beyond debate.

Before Right to Work, if someone chose as a matter of conscience not to join or financially support a union, it was legal to discriminate against and fire an otherwise qualified, capable individual based solely on that choice.

Union officials collected $10 million annually from Idahoans who had no choice but pay up or be fired. They spent $3 million in the 1986 statewide ballot referendum that followed Right to Work's enactment -- the most expensive in state history -- in a failed attempt to reimpose their compulsory dues racket by overturning the law.

But ever since the Legislature enacted it, the state Supreme Court upheld it, and Idahoans voted overwhelmingly to keep it, individual freedom of choice has been protected and "pay up or you're fired" job discrimination has been consigned to the ash heap of history. Compulsory unionism was legal. Now it's not. End of story.

In light of the 25 years since, it seems unthinkable. Imagine if some other politically active private organization -- the Idaho Republican or Democratic Party, Idaho Association of Commerce and Industry, the Sierra Club -- or even the most benevolent, widely admired church or charity insisted it should have the legal power to force individuals to financially support its activities or have them fired from their jobs if they refuse. Today, such preposterous audacity would be laughed off the stage.

Yet while even the Democratic candidate for governor acknowledges Right to Work's popularity by claiming he opposes its repeal, the Democratic Party itself continues to support striking the law and repressively forcing Idahoans to once again pay up or be fired.

Beyond its primary objective -- protecting Idahoans from such compulsion -- there's no serious debate that Right to Work also played a major role in Idaho's economic boom the two decades after its enactment, before the onset of a worldwide recession.

From 1987 to 1995, Idaho's personal income grew 72 percent, highest in the nation. This year, even in recession, income growth remains in the top ten.

The Associated Press reported in 1989: "Idaho in 1985 enacted a law banning union membership or payment of dues as a condition of employment. ...In the three years since, Idaho's economy has been booming... Jim Hawkins, director of (Democratic Gov. Cecil Andrus') Department of Commerce, says the economic gains probably would not have been possible without the Right to Work law."

The Idaho Statesman in 2005 quoted economic development agencies in Boise and four other major cities, all emphatically attesting to the critical role the law played in attracting new business and industry to Idaho.

USA Today reported in 2007: "Idaho has been tops among states in economic growth since 2003. It has ranked high nearly every year since 1987, a run of good times unmatched by any other state. ...The state has a 2.4 percent jobless rate, the lowest in the nation, and has added jobs every year since 1987."

Last month, noting both the 25th anniversary and the overwhelming evidence, the Twin Falls Time-News editorialized: "It would be na*ve to suggest that Right to Work wasn't a major factor in Idaho's explosive job growth from 1986 through 2008."

More freedom. More jobs. More income. Twenty-five years later, that's a Labor Day legacy Idaho can be proud of.

Former Ada County Commissioner Gary Glenn was executive director of the Idaho Freedom to Work Committee from 1980 to 1986.