Op-ed: Right-to-work, More Jobs in Suits And Boots

In a single day during the first week of the legislative session, Bowling Green Rep. Jim DeCesare's Economic Development and Workforce Investment Committee did more to bring meaningful growth to Kentucky than the former Democratically controlled House did in 95 years.

While labor-union representatives chanted "suits in there, boots out here" in the hallway outside Room 171 at the Capitol Annex, committee members – meeting for the first time under the new GOP banner flying high in Frankfort after being folded up for nearly a century – removed serious economic barriers to making Kentucky's economy great again by fast-tracking bills that will implement right-to-work protections for employees and remove expensive prevailing-wage mandates on public projects.

DeCesare handled his first meeting as committee chairman masterfully, allowing full debate from both sides while insisting on civility and a respectful tone.

"We are doing things a different way," newly anointed House Speaker Jeff Hoover told the committee.

"Different" is an understatement.

It's been exasperating for years to watch politicians eat up precious taxpayers' resources in Frankfort funding a January coma in which nothing beyond filing awkward, meaningless bills got done before Groundhog Day rolled around.

Actually producing? Unheard of.

And, during the first week? Has it ever happened?

These two bills flew out of committee with a planned Saturday – yes, Saturday – session at the end of the Legislature's very first week so that Gov. Matt Bevin can sign them into law before lawmakers recess until a Feb. 7 return.

It's like walking into a bright, sunny day after being stuck for nearly a century in a room darkened by the pessimism and sheer obstructionism of the past and failed ruling elite.

The initial "Whoa! That's bright!" turned into a "Wow, what an awesome day!" after it began to sink in just how pivotal that first week of the Legislature would turn out to be in Kentucky's history.

With passage of right-to-work, Kentuckians can expect solid economic improvement.

Compare what happened in West Virginia, which, like Kentucky, dragged its heels on right-to-work for years until passing it last year, to what happened in Indiana and Michigan.

Vincent Vernuccio of the Michigan-based Mackinac Center for Public Policy found: 


·         Average wages in both Indiana and Michigan increased after right-to-work laws were passed.

·         Since Indiana became a right-to-work state in 2012, it's average wage rose faster than West Virginia's.

·         Between 2012 – when Michigan passed its right-to-work law – and mid-2015, incomes in Michigan rose more than 9 percent, which was faster than both West Virginia and the national average.

·         Between 2012 and 2014, average hourly wages rose by 56 cents to $19.94 in Indiana, 56 cents to $21.70 in Michigan but only 37 cents to $18.21 in West Virginia.


Vernuccio also reports that when cost-of-living is taken into consideration and "you look at what people can actually buy with their money, workers in right-to-work states have 4.1 percent higher incomes than workers in non-right-to-work states."

But if you doubt those state-to-state comparisons, consider what's happened right here in Kentucky.

Since passing the nation's first local right-to-work ordinance, Warren County has landed more than $1 billion in capital investment from companies who've signed to expand or relocate in southcentral Kentucky.

Per Kentucky Center for Education and Workforce Statistics, there currently are 55,000 available job openings today in that one county.

Plus, Warren County Judge-Executive Mike Buchanon says he anticipates another 12,000 job prospects in the very near future.

If such growth can occur in a single county in southcentral Kentucky, imagine what will happen across the Bluegrass State with a right-to-work policy that attracts business and protects individual workers from being forced to pay union dues.

All kinds of jobs are coming to Kentucky. Some require suits; some boots.

Doesn't Kentucky need more of both?

Jim Waters is president of The Bluegrass Institute for Public Policy Solutions, Kentucky's free-market think tank. Read his weekly Bluegrass Beacon column at www.bipps.org. He can be reached at jwaters@freedomkentucky.com and @bipps on Twitter.