We already have a RTW law – passed by the Missouri Legislature and signed by the governor in early 2017. It was supposed to take effect on Aug. 28, 2017. However, on Aug. 18, organized labor groups collected enough signatures to give voters the choice of implementing the law (with a “yes” vote on Prop A) or rejecting it (with a “no” vote). A simple majority wins.

At a labor rally in St. Louis on June 23, AFL-CIO President Richard L. Trumka joined with other labor leaders in proclaiming that RTW would set off a “race to the bottom” for all workers, not just union members. He said: “Proposition A will lower wages, destroy jobs, (and) increase poverty.”

Naturally, no union boss who can limit the supply of labor to members of his own union wants to give up that ability. Who wants competition – when you are in the cushy position of not having to compete? But the idea that competition is bad for growth and job creation is complete nonsense.

In fact, RTW states have consistently outperformed forced-union states in job growth, personal income growth, and economic growth. That’s not a matter of opinion; it comes from hard data provided by three federal bureaus (Census, Labor Statistics, and Economic Analysis) over the ten-year period from 2004 to 2014.

During this period, average job growth in the 22 states with RTW laws in place for most or all of that time was more than twice as fast (at 9.1 percent) as in the 28 forced-union states. The RTW states also had considerably faster growth in personal income (at 54.7 percent compared to 43.5 percent), and a much stronger economic growth (50.7 percent compared to 38.0 percent).

And there were other ancillary benefits, including faster population growth (more than double that of forced-union states). From 2004 to 2014, many Americans voted with their feet in moving into RTW states and out of forced-union states.

The devastation that befell the U.S. auto industry during and after the 1980s exemplifies what happens when companies are kept from responding to market forces as a result of compulsory unionization, forced to pay an artificially high price for labor, and forced to absorb “legacy” costs (health care and pensions) they cannot possibly afford over the long run.

During the Great Recession of 2008–2009, two of the three big automakers – GM and Chrysler – would have collapsed but for government bailouts totaling billions of dollars of taxpayer money. Meanwhile, Toyota and other foreign manufacturers that had opened plants in RTW states continued to perform well without bailouts.

In 2012, Michigan – the state that gave birth to the United Auto Workers union – became the 24th state to adopt RTW. Gov. Rick Snyder said that he believed that the legislation would lead to “more and better jobs for Michiganders.”

It is not just employers who benefit from right to work. It is anyone and everyone who seeks employment. Compulsory unionization represents an unfair and counterproductive abridgement of the freedom of people to offer their services to the highest bidder; they should not be locked out of an opportunity because a union with political clout has been granted a broad monopoly over the supply of labor.

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The project in question, known as the Fenton Logistics Park, would transform the former Chrysler Plant property that was demolished in 2011 into a mixed-use development with industrial, office, and retail space. KP Development estimates the total cost of restoring the land and improving surrounding streets at $17 million, and they’re requesting that it be paid for through the use of tax increment financing (TIF). In addition, the proposal asks for another $34.6 million from TIF and state subsidies to be put toward soft costs and professional fees.

But it’s worth asking whether incentives are required for this project. If the blighted area were restored to its condition from before the Chrysler Plant was constructed almost 60 years ago, the land would seem ripe for investment. Given its proximity to the interstate and railroad, the expansive land base located in a growing industrial market appears to be an excellent place to develop, with or without incentives. KP Development even admits that without TIF the site would generate a 4.92 percent return; however, with TIF the projected return jumps to 8.79 percent, which “developers are accustomed to on similar projects.”

That’s precisely the sort of revelation that should make policymakers leery. The idea that a profitable investment should become more profitable through the use of public tax dollars doesn’t make much sense. Nonetheless, last week the Saint Louis County TIF Commission voted in favor of the plan by a 9–1 margin. The beat goes on.

The government shouldn’t be in the business of guaranteeing bigger returns on investment for private actors. The Saint Louis County Council should reflect on the appropriateness of tax incentives when they make a final decision on subsidization.

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When the St. Louis Cardinals played the Detroit Tigers in the 1968 World Series, the whole nation was watching (it captured an astounding 57 percent of television viewers) and both cities — as well as both teams — were looking good. Detroit was still the unchallenged auto capital of the world, and St. Louis was home to a dozen of the nation’s biggest and best-known companies.

Since then, the two baseball teams have fared better than their cities. When they met again in the 2006 World Series, the rest of the nation yawned — 83 percent of viewers tuned out. Who cared about a baseball rivalry in two dying cities in flyover country?

From 1950 to 2010, Detroit’s population dropped from about 1.8 million to 714,000 — a 61.4 percent decline. Over the same period, St. Louis City dropped from 857,000 residents to 319,000 – a 62.7 percent decline.

Think of Detroit as a larger St. Louis — more than twice the size in area as well as population. Drive through north St. Louis and you see block after block of abandoned and boarded-up buildings; drive through Detroit and it is mile after mile of the same. It is the Empty Quarter of cityscapes — which partly explains why it takes an hour for Detroit’s police to respond to a 911 call.

Detroit leads the nation’s cities in violent crime, followed by Oakland and St. Louis. According to FBI statistics, your chances of being the victim of a violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and assault) are not a whole lot less in St. Louis City than they are in Detroit. The incidence of such crimes is only 13 percent lower in St. Louis than Detroit. I worked in Detroit from 1976 to 1982 as a reporter and anchor at WXYZ-TV. Coleman Young was the city’s first black mayor, notorious for playing the race card (though most white politicians were no better). I once asked him about his girlfriend’s exorbitant salary as the administration’s PR person. That night, the station ran his response — an expletive-filled rant accusing me of racism for even raising the question. Later, many city employees — both black and white — thanked me for spotlighting the mayor’s favoritism.

Lee Iacocca took over a struggling Chrysler in 1978 and refused to meet union demands to match GM and Ford wage rates at $18 an hour. He told the union: “At $13 an hour, you can have 20,000 workers . . . at $18, you’ve got zero.” He understood the Big Three were on thin ice.

After 13 years anchoring and reporting at KSDK in St. Louis, I returned to Detroit for a year in 1999 at WDIV TV. I was astonished at how much worse the city looked. Gone were the well-kept, middle-class neighborhoods. The drugs and violence were so bad that city cops often would ride four to a squad car.

Therein, I think, is a principal difference between Detroit and St. Louis. Things in St. Louis never reached the same pitch of hopelessness.

St. Louis experienced its biggest out-migration of people in the 1980s, when the population fell 27.2 percent. From 2000 to 2010, the city’s population was down just 8 percent.

By contrast, Detroit’s population over the last decade fell a stunning 24.9 percent.

So, no, I do not think that St. Louis City is following Detroit down the road to ruin — or to bankruptcy, either. In a recent column in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Dave Nicklaus pointed out that with slightly more than twice the population of St. Louis, Detroit has six times as much debt.

What’s more, St. Louis has not experienced a massive breakdown in vital services. Far from taking an hour to respond to a call , St. Louis police, on average, are at a crime scene in 10.32 minutes. And where Detroit police cleared only 11.3 percent of murders and 12.7 percent of reported rapes through arrests in 2011, St. Louis police cleared 66.4 percent and 71.8 percent of such crimes, respectively.

Though far from perfect, St. Louis City still works for most people. Many old neighborhoods are flourishing again. Let’s hope that we are on the cusp of a real turnaround in the city’s fortunes.

Rick Edlund is the communications director at the Show-Me Institute, which promotes market solutions for Missouri public policy.

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I would give them the same advice I would give any person that doesn’t currently have a job:

1. Research the job market. Find out which jobs and careers seem to have stability and the prospects of remaining in demand in the future.
2. Identify a career that seems to suit your skills and personality.
3. If you have not yet developed some of the skills needed for your chosen career, invest in that sort of development. If you don’t have the money to do so already on hand, persuade someone (such as a relative or a bank) to loan you the money. Be sure that the job you are hoping to get will allow you to repay those loans.
4. Once you have all the necessary skills, go to where the jobs are — even if that would require you to move.
5. If, having developed these skills, you are still unable to find a job working for someone else, consider starting your own business in which you can do this job.
6. If you can’t find a job working for someone else and you cannot successfully operate your own business, you must accept that you chose unwisely and go back to step one.
7. If all of your best efforts fail and you find yourself to be simply unemployable, then you should rely on your friends, relatives, religious community, or charity — people who assist you because they want to, not because the government is forcing them to.

I completely sympathize with anyone trying to find a job or a career, because I’ve been there. I know how hard it can be. But, at heart, the search for employment must be an issue of personal responsibility. No one is entitled to have any particular job or career. We all have to figure out how to keep providing goods and/or services that generate enough value to entice others to pay for them.

If/when the job or career we pursue ceases to generate sufficient value either for our employer or our customers and clients, we have to look elsewhere — and, unless a worker has made certain contractual arrangements with their employer beforehand, no one owes them any extraordinary help in finding a new job or career. But people struggling like this should also keep in mind that opportunity can arise from unusual circumstances, as is demonstrated by this column by Steve Giegerich, who also happened to write yesterday’s article.

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“Who would have thought in a million years that concrete would cost less than asphalt?” asked Jason Marschuetz, the company’s vice president. “The oil prices are ultimately helping us because even though we’re getting hammered once — for diesel — the asphalt companies are getting hammered twice — for diesel and asphalt.”

Concrete and asphalt are substitutes for a variety of applications, including paving roads and driveways. When oil prices rise, concrete gets a little bit more expensive while asphalt gets much more expensive. The result? People use concrete instead of asphalt whenever they can. We should see this trend across the economy — goods and services which are relatively less dependent on oil should become cheaper relative to the oil-guzzling competition.

This is just one of the many ways in which we are less dependent on oil than one might think. Oil may be the cheapest alternative for a variety of applications at $130 a barrel, but if the price increases much, there are numerous ways to achieve the same ends that use less oil. In econo-speak, the demand for oil is more elastic than it appears.

Finally, keep in mind that all the people in the concrete industry see their incomes rise during the oil-induced boom. New jobs are created in the industry as well, because new plants are coming online — such as the plant in Ste. Genevieve. Chrysler workers may be out of a job because of rising oil prices, but new opportunities are opening up because of the same cause.

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My sympathies go out to the employees who lost jobs today and their families. These men and women were hard workers, who made a good product. But they, like many Americans, have fallen victim to higher gas prices and a bad economy. They have suffered because of a government unable or unwilling to fix this problem.

We must now look forward at bringing new industry to our state. Missouri has given Chrysler $32 million in tax incentives to keep its plants operating here. After the loss of up to 2,800 good-paying, benefit-providing jobs, it is clear that that investment has not been returned. Instead, we need to be welcoming companies committed to investing in Missouri’s economy.

I have to commend Page for admitting that the government is perhaps incapable of fixing a problem. All too often, this lesson seems to be lost in political matters. In this particular case, it is very unlikely that the government can fix the problems posed by the increasing scarcity of energy. In fact, the cure is likely worse than the disease. Any incentives that the government can muster to spur innovation in energy provision are likely to be minuscule in comparison to the incentives already in the marketplace for such innovations, and the marketplace doesn’t discriminate based on politics.

Another lesson is to be learned from Page’s quote: Tax incentives for individual businesses are a bad idea. There is no guarantee that the business will stay in the area once the tax incentives are granted and no guarantee that the state will pick the best candidate for the incentive. Furthermore, a lower tax rate for everyone is a much more effective means of stimulating growth because it encourages greater productivity and attracts entrepreneurs that the state might not have even been aware of, let alone tried to pursue. Rather than handing out tax incentives, lowering taxes would be a great way to “welcome companies committed to investing in Missouri’s economy.” Hopefully, this is what Page has in mind.

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