In a column for Inside INdiana Business, Larry Gigerich of Ginovus lays out the case for right-to-work in plain English.

1. Percentage Growth in Non-Farm Private Sector Employees (1995-2005)
a. Right to Work States: 12.9%
b. Non-right to Work States: 6.0%

2. Average Poverty Rate-Adjusted for Cost of Living (2002-2004)
a. Right to Work States: 8.5%
b. Non-right to Work States: 10.1%

3. Percentage Growth in Patents Annually Granted (1995-2005)
a. Right to Work States: 33.0%
b. Non-right to Work States: 11.0%

4. Percentage Growth in Real Personal Income (1995-2005)
a. Right to Work States: 26.0%
b. Non-right to Work States: 19.0%

5. Percentage Growth in Number of People Covered by Employment Based Private Health Insurance (1995-2005):
a. Right to Work States: 8.5%
b. Non-right to Work States: 0.7%

As noted above, right to work states create more private sector jobs, enjoy lower poverty rates, experience more technology development, realize more personal income growth, and increase the number of people covered by employment-based private health insurance. These facts provide public policy thought leaders with compelling information regarding the importance of being a right to work state. Many of the states that are faring most poorly in terms of unemployment rates and economic growth are non-right to work states. Most assuredly, this is not the only reason, but it is an important contributor to these states’ struggles. It is important for state-level policy makers to remove any barriers to economic growth in their state. A non-right to work state changing to a right to work state is an excellent example of how leaders can improve a state’s outlook. Elected officials in non-right to work states should seriously examine this issue and consider the potential benefits to their citizens.

With recognizable company names from Warsaw to Bloomington and spots in between, most people probably realize that Indiana is a player in the medical devices industry. A new study, though, reveals we might be a bigger player than many realized.

From Hearts to Hips: Indiana’s Leadership in Life Sciences was recently released by BioCrossroads. High economic output, exports and employee wages well above the state average are all part of the mix.

The medical devices industry is one of Indiana’s most valuable economic assets employing over 20,000 people and generating more than $10 billion of annual economic output. Today, the medical devices sector accounts for more than 40 percent of the jobs in the state’s life sciences industry, placing Indiana as the fifth largest state in percentage of medical technology industry employment.

And in 2010, Indiana’s medical device companies manufactured more than $2 billion worth of exports, or approximately $100,000 per employee. The industry provides high-paying jobs with the average employee earning $60,000 annually, more than 56 percent higher than the state’s average private sector worker.

“From small towns to larger cities, the economic impact of the medical devices industry is significant and is well-distributed throughout the state,” said David Johnson, president and CEO of BioCrossroads. Major companies such as Biomet, Boston Scientific, Cook Medical, DePuy, Medtronic, Roche Diagnostics and Zimmer are either headquartered or maintain major operations within the state and develop a wide variety of medical devices for from cardiovascular to urological to diagnostics and orthopedics.

“This report is proof that Indiana’s medical devices sector is robust and resides on a solid foundation that positions us well for future growth,” added Johnson. “There are still many external factors like the economic, regulatory and health care reform environment that pose real challenges for this industry.”

The report delves into external challenges the industry faces today. In addition to the current economic conditions that have lowered the demand for some medical devices, the industry faces even bigger challenges to overcome in the next decade including:

• A rapidly changing health care market

• Tax policies that discourage innovation

• Increasing regulatory uncertainty

• A shift to overseas production and expansion to overseas markets

• Technological changes requiring more worker education

• Increasingly competitive global market.

OK, it’s already a little more difficult to get out of our downtown Indianapolis parking garage. The areas to the north and east of Lucas Oil Stadium are currently filled with more barricades, scaffolding and lift trucks than one can (almost) imagine. And congestion should soon reach nearly unprecedented levels.

Bring it on! Yes, there are going to be a few inconveniences associated with Indianapolis hosting Super Bowl XLVI. But that’s like a tiny, temporary pimple on the face of the most beautiful woman or handsome man in the world. (OK, I struggled with that analogy, but you get the picture).

The attention of the nation and world will be focused on our city and state on Super Sunday and the days preceding it. Hoosiers should embrace the moment — and enjoy it. Most out-of-town guests will not arrive until February 2 or so; the first few days (starting Friday) are an opportunity for all of us to take part in what could be a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

You can check out all the Super Bowl details for yourself. But as information continues to become available on the wide variety of concerts, programs, events, special activities, etc., I am convinced (in a purposeful mixing of metaphors) that we’re going to hit a home run. Indianapolis and Indiana are going to simply wow the National Football League, the fans, other visitors and anyone who is paying attention.

Once-in-a-lifetime may turn into a repeat performance a few years down the road. But don’t miss out this time around. And I close with practicing my closing line during my volunteer interactions with guests: Have a Super Day!

Inside INdiana Business reports on how Indianapolis is looking to capitalize on the upcoming Super Bowl long after the game ends:

The head of the Indianapolis Convention & Visitors Association believes the city has a real opportunity to increase business after the Super Bowl. Association Chief Executive Officer Leonard Hoops says it’s important to make a great impression on corporate decision-makers who will be in the town for the game. During an interview set to air this weekend on Inside INdiana Business Television, Hoops also says the ICVA faces a challenge to fill additional hotel space once the Super Bowl is long gone. Watch video.

Far, far too many times criticism of K-12 education is seen as an attack on teachers. In the vast majority of cases, it’s not the educators in the classroom (or anywhere in the school building for that matter) who are standing in the way of what is in the best interests of students.

Consider these recent cases from around the country (courtesy of the Education Action Group):

• For one Michigan educator, the annual costs of “non-membership” in the local, state and national teacher unions total $544.28. Andrew Buikema has been trying to leave the union since last spring, when he realized that union leaders were uninterested in helping the district control costs, even in the face of a multi-million dollar deficit.

 
“They keep asking for more and more, even though the school district can’t afford it,” he told EAG. “They’re concerned about taking care of the adults and have no consideration for the kids. I don’t want to be part of an organization that says one thing and does another,” he said.   

The union responded to his resignation request last month by sending approximately 150 pages of documents. The upshot of all those documents is this: Buikema can technically quit both unions, but he must still pay them $544.28 in “service fees,” which equals 67.7 percent of a normal union membership.
 

• These days a lot of school budgets are being held together by the accounting equivalents of bailing wire and duct tape. But one Pennsylvania school district is so broke that it needs the state to provide the wire and the tape.

The Chester Upland School District began this week with only $100,000 in its savings account, and had no way of meeting its $1 million payroll – that is, until a judge ordered the state to give the district a  $3.2 million advance in its allowance.

The money will allow the teachers to be paid and the lights to remain on, at least for a few more weeks. The district is on track to be $20 million in debt by the end of the school year.

Since 2006, Chester Upland’s enrollment has dropped by almost 1,000 students. During that same time, the district has increased its workforce by 145 employees and its budget by $28 million.

• Florida’s Marion County school district drew national headlines last summer when it announced that it was switching to a four-day school week as a way to save money. 

Other school officials took a more conventional route by laying off teachers and cutting student programs, all the while blaming Gov. Rick Scott for underfunding Florida’s public schools.

Now comes a report that finds 946 school employees in the Sunshine State earned at least $100,000 in 2010. That’s up 818 percent from 2005, according to the Foundation for Government Accountability.

The foundation also finds the percentage of non-school employees who earn at least six-figures has increased by only 7 percent during that same period.

 “During these five years, you have flat student enrollment, the biggest recession since the Great Depression and skyrocketing six-figure salaries – that adds up to a raw deal for Florida parents and taxpayers,” says Foundation CEO Tarren Bragdon.

Ask the professionals in the middle of federal health care reform their opinions about the future impacts and the answers are downright scary. In a new survey, doctors fear both short-term and long-term declines in the quality of care, while costs will only continue to increase. The National Center for Policy Analysis concludes:

America’s doctors have conducted a full examination of the president’s health reform law, assessing it in a number of variables, and have concluded that it will fail to live up to many expectations and will aggregately hurt consumers in the short and long runs.  Few people know more about the health care system than doctors working on the frontlines.

Policymakers should pay heed to their indictment of the Affordable Care Act and revisit the disastrous law, says Sally Pipes, president and CEO of the Pacific Research Institute.

• Nearly two-thirds of doctors expect the quality of care in this country to decline, according to a new survey from Deloitte.
• Nearly seven of every 10 doctors believe that medicine is no longer attractive to America’s "best and brightest."
• Seventy percent of doctors believe that long wait times will plague emergency rooms.
• Further, 83 percent of physicians foresee increased wait times for primary care appointments.

And doctors did not stop at criticizing the quality of care that health reform will deliver — they also addressed its likely impacts on the cost of health care.

• While Obama pledged $2,500 in health insurance savings for the typical American family, 90 percent of doctors believe that insurers will raise premiums for employers and individuals.
• This argument is supported by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), which estimates that premiums will actually rise for families in the non-group market by about $2,100.
• Richard Foster, the Chief Actuary of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, concluded that American spending on health care through 2019 will be $311 billion higher than if the law had never passed.

Many of these results stem from two large impacts of the law: shutting down health care facilities and sharply increasing demand as it extends coverage to millions of people.  Doctors respond to this latter "benefit" by pointing out that coverage counts for little if patients are unable to see doctors due to increased demand.

A few Chamber staffers joined hundreds in attendance at today’s Economic Club of Indiana luncheon featuring Arthur B. Laffer, an economist, author and former member of President Reagan’s Economic Advisory Policy Board (though he also asserted that Bill Clinton was "a great president"). When asked about right-to-work legislation, he lauded Indiana’s efforts to become the 23rd right-to-work state. Back in May, he co-wrote an editorial on the issue in the The Wall Street Journal. An excerpt:

The Obama administration’s National Labor Relations Board filed a complaint last month against Boeing to block production of the company’s 787 Dreamliner at a new assembly plant in South Carolina—a "right to-work" state with a law against compulsory union membership. If the NLRB has its way, Dreamliner assembly will return to Washington, a union-shop state, along with more than 1,000 jobs.

The NLRB’s action, which Boeing will challenge at a hearing next month, is a big deal. It’s the first time a federal agency has intervened to tell an American company where it can and cannot operate a plant within the U.S. It lays the foundation of a regulatory wall with one express purpose: to prevent the direct competition of right-to-work states with union-shop states. Why, as South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley recently asked on these pages, should Washington have any more right to these jobs than South Carolina?

A recent New York Times editorial justified the NLRB decision by arguing that unions are suffering from "the flight of companies to ‘Right-to-Work’ states where workers cannot be required to join a union." That’s for sure, and quite an admission. We’ve been observing that migration pattern for years, but liberals have denied it’s actually happening—until now.

Every year we rank the states on their economic competitiveness in a report called "Rich States, Poor States" for the American Legislative Exchange Council. This ranking uses 15 fiscal, tax and regulatory variables to determine which states have policies that are most conducive to prosperity. Two of these 15 policies have consistently stood out as the most important in predicting where jobs will be created and incomes will rise. First, states with no income tax generally outperform high income tax states. Second, states that have right-to-work laws grow faster than states with forced unionism.

As of today there are 22 right-to-work states and 28 union-shop states. Over the past decade (2000-09) the right-to-work states grew faster in nearly every respect than their union-shop counterparts: 54.6% versus 41.1% in gross state product, 53.3% versus 40.6% in personal income, 11.9% versus 6.1% in population, and 4.1% versus -0.6% in payrolls.

For years, unions argued that right-to-work laws were bad for workers and for the states that passed them. But with the NLRB complaint, they’ve essentially thrown in the towel. If forced unionism is better for the economy of a state, why would the NLRB need to intervene to keep Boeing from leaving Washington? Why aren’t businesses and workers moving operations to heavily unionized places like Michigan, New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania and fleeing states like Georgia, Tennessee, South Carolina and Texas?

In reality, the stampede of businesses from forced-union states like Washington has accelerated in recent years. A 2010 study in the Cato Journal by economist Richard Vedder of Ohio University found that between 2000 and 2008 4.8 million Americans moved from forced-union states to right-to-work states. That’s one person every minute of every day.

Right-to-work states are also getting richer over time. Prof. Vedder found a 23% higher per capita income growth rate in right-to-work states than in forced-union states, which over the period 1977-2007 amounted to a $2,760 larger increase in per-person income in those states. That’s a giant differential.

So now the unions concede that this migration is indeed happening, but they say that it is unhealthy and undesirable because workers in right-to-work states are paid less and get worse benefits than the workers in union states. Actually, when adjusting for the cost of living in each state and the fact that right-to-work states were poorer to begin with, a 2003 study in the Journal of Labor Research by University of Oklahoma economist Robert Reed found that wages rose faster in states that don’t require union membership.

Employers that move away from forced-union states mainly do so not to scale back wages and salaries—although sometimes that happens—but to avoid having to deal with intrusive union rules, the threat of costly work stoppages, lawsuits, worker paychecks going to union fat cats, and so on.