Mitt Romney the Union Buster

In a blog entry at the American Prospect, Jamelle Bouie writes that Mitt Romney's latest South Carolina ad highlights his defense of the state's "right to work" law, which makes it difficult for unions to organize. In that vein, he plans to establish himself as a union buster, a man conservatives can trust.

One of the things to pay attention to in Mitt Romney’s latest South Carolina ad is his implicit defense of the state’s “right-to-work” law, which makes it more difficult for unions to organize. “The National Labor Relations Board, now stacked with union stooges selected by the president, says to a free enterprise like Boeing, ‘You can’t build a factory in South Carolina because South Carolina is a Right to Work state,’” Romney says in the ad. “That is simply un-American. It is political payback of the worst kind.” Combine this with his attack on President Obama as a “crony capitalist,” and I wouldn’t be surprised to see Romney tout right-to-work laws as part of his strategy for reviving the economy.

The problem, of course, is that said laws do nothing of the sort. The Economic Policy Institute has a great primer on the actual effect of right-to-work laws on workers, wages, and employment. On the whole, RTW laws “reduce wages by $1,500 a year, for both union and nonunion workers”, “lower the likelihood that employees get healthcare or pensions through their jobs … for both union and nonunion employees”, and “have no impact whatsoever on job growth.”

Read Jamelle Bouie's entire blog entry at the American Prospect.