A message from Speaker O'Brien on HB474 - Right to Work
Dear Republican colleague,
As you are undoubtedly aware, the House is facing the override of Governor
Lynch’s veto of the Right to Work legislation. This will be a defining moment to
determine if the Republican supermajority that the voters elected last November will
be able to set the policy for the state of New Hampshire.
For Republicans, the case for Right to Work has been made clearly and effectively
through data and precise language in both our state and national Party platforms.
To reinforce this, I am including below a copy of an editorial that ran in the weekend
Wall Street Journal, America’s leading pro-growth and free market publication,
calling for New Hampshire to pass Right to Work, as well as an op-ed of mine in
today’s New Hampshire Union Leader on the subject.
While it is important to set good policy as a legislature, the issue of a veto override
is no longer just about Right to Work. Very simply, the issue is about whether the
policy of the State of New Hampshire will be set by a Republican supermajority or
by a Democrat Governor.
Rest assured that if we do not override this veto, that Governor Lynch will feel
emboldened to veto more bills that are central to our party and critical to reform in
New Hampshire, such as parental notification, retirement reform and, most
importantly, a fiscally responsible budget that does not raise taxes and lives within
our means. Not overriding this veto leaves all of these and other important issues in
jeopardy.
To make this point abundantly clear, Governor Lynch is now calling Republican
members, asking them to support him over our caucus. Governor Lynch knows
that if he is successful here, he and the House Democrat minority can begin to undo
all our efforts to bring needed change to state government.
In order to bring perspective to this matter, some of you will be receiving calls in
support of overriding the veto from noted Republicans such as Governor John
Sununu, John Stephen, Ovide Lamontagne, Jeb Bradley, Jack Kimball as well as
members of our congressional delegation and candidates seeking the nomination
for president.
On the issue of this veto override, the choice could not be more apparent – Will
you stand with your caucus and the Republican Party, or with the Democrats?
I would be happy to discuss this issue further with any member who has questions
or concerns. Please feel free to contact me at any time.
Sincerely,
William O’Brien
Speaker of the House
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Wall Street Journal
MAY 21, 2011
Right to Work in New England
New Hampshire could become the 23rd free union state.
Twenty-two states have right-to-work laws, most of them in the faster-growing
South and West. The big news is that New Hampshire is edging closer to becoming
the 23rd, which would make it the first new right-to-work state since Oklahoma in
2001 and could lead to a regional revolution.
The state House and Senate in Concord have passed a right-to-work statute, but
Governor John Lynch, a Democrat, vetoed the bill. On May 25 the legislature will
attempt to override that veto, and House Speaker Bill O'Brien says he is "cautiously
optimistic" that he can gain the two-thirds majority to do so.
This would be a landmark victory for the right-to-work movement. All other
Northeastern states operate under forced-union rules, so the Granite State would
gain a decisive competitive advantage over its neighbors in attracting investment
and jobs. "Passing right to work on top of not having an income tax could make us
the Hong Kong of the region," Mr. O'Brien says. The precedent would put
enormous pressure on Maine and Massachusetts to follow. We assume Vermont is
hopeless and prefers to be a tourist and natural history museum.
Right-to-work laws don't outlaw unions. They simply allow each individual worker to
decide whether or not to join the union. In compulsory-union states, workers
employed in unionized workplaces are required to have union dues withheld from
their paychecks as a condition of employment, so there's big money at stake here
for unions.
The issue has taken on national prominence since the National Labor Relations
Board announced it will try to block Boeing's new airplane manufacturing plant in
right-to-work South Carolina. Boeing decided to build its second plant for its 787
Dreamliner outside of Washington state, which imposes compulsory union rules and
has been the scene of many work stoppages at Boeing.
The Boeing incident underscores that more businesses are migrating each year to
states with right-to-work laws. It's no accident that so many of the foreign auto
plants in America that employ tens of thousands are located in right-to-work
southern states like Alabama, South Carolina and Texas.
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the consulting firm Haver
Analytics show that private business creation was 46% higher in right-to-work
states (497,000 new businesses) than in forced union states (340,000 new
businesses) from 1993 to 2009. That's a remarkable difference given that about
60% of American workers reside in non-right-to-work states.
This year five states have tried to adopt right-to-work laws, but it appears that
unions have stopped them everywhere except in New Hampshire. It is a sad
testament to Big Labor's financial and political influence that not a single one of the
more than 100 House and Senate Democrats in New Hampshire voted for right to
work. These politicians would deny the right of 68,000 unionized workers to choose
for themselves whether to stay in the union, no matter how much that hurts the
working families they claim to speak for.
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William O'Brien: Bringing more jobs by curbing union power
Published May 22, 2011
The New Hampshire Republican Party Platform promises New Hampshire that, “in
an effort to expand the market both at home and abroad and develop productive
employment with safety, rewards and dignity for workers of all ages, (Republicans)
will work to … support the “right to work” by adopting legislation necessary to
ensure this principle for all workers.” The national Republican Party Platform goes
on to say, “We affirm both the right of individuals to voluntarily participate in labor
organizations and … states to enact Right-to-Work laws.”
In this inspiring language, Republican candidates last fall committed to the voters to
support worker freedom. In passing HB 474, the Franklin A. Partin Jr. Right to
Work Act, New Hampshire House and Senate Republicans were faithful to this
commitment.
The House and the Senate passed right-to-work because we know that economic
liberty and employment freedom are fundamental building blocks of a dynamic
economy. At a time when we need to become even more competitive to maintain
the New Hampshire Advantage, we are quickly falling behind the 22 others states
that have passed this important worker protection that turbo-charges economic
growth.
The ongoing efforts of Boeing to put its newest factory and several thousand jobs in
South Carolina, a right-to-work state, demonstrate the clear need for this law to
produce jobs in New Hampshire. Non-right-to-work states are simply not
competitive for employers looking to create manufacturing jobs.
The Boeing experience further demonstrates the need for a right-to-work law in
New Hampshire to limit the corrupting power of labor unions, as they now direct the
Obama administration’s efforts to prevent that Boeing factory from being built for
the sole reason that the new factory will not be a closed union shop.
What these unions fail to realize is that, for many employers, the choices are very
simple: move to a right-to-work state, or take business, and jobs, to another
country.
If the unions’ efforts to cripple Boeing are not sufficient reason alone to limit the
power of closed-shop unions, we should also consider the fact that the largest
single contributor in the 2010 elections was the American Federation of State,
County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which alone spent $87.5 million on
Democrats this past election. In fact, 10 of the top 13 national political contributors
from 1989 to 2010 were labor unions, and many of those contributed nothing, or
next to nothing, to Republicans, whom they have consistently worked to defeat.
It is time that New Hampshire stops requiring workers in closed shops to contribute
their hard-earned income to candidates who they do not support and often find
objectionable. The New Hampshire House can allow for this political freedom by
overriding Gov. John Lynch’s veto of the right-to-work law. In doing so, we will go
far to break the unions’ control over our state government that they tried to buy with
$112,000 in political contributions to Gov. Lynch.
In an effort to be as fair as possible to unions, the House amended HB 474 before
it went to the Senate to avoid any argument that unions are required to bargain for
non-members not paying union dues or agency fees. To make sure that that the bill
came back to the House with what they view as “poison pill” language they hope
will prevent votes for right-to-work, the unions asked the Senate to remove that
amendment.
Now, although the union lobbyists directed the removal of this language that was to
make clear that unions do not have to bargain for non-members, we hear the
argument from union-generated opposition to HB 474 that it is unfair for non-union
workers to not pay their share of the cost of bargaining. This cynical manipulation of
the system is without parallel in recent legislative history.
The “fair” response to this insincere and legally baseless argument by the unions is
to override the veto of HB 474. New Hampshire needs to show unions that they
cannot play our citizens and legislators for fools.
More importantly, Republican legislators need to show voters they made the right
decision in electing our party last November, and we will fulfill our promise to bring
jobs to New Hampshire and grow our economy. It would be impossible for any
legislator to vote against right-to-work and tell constituents that he or she had done
everything possible to create jobs.
Rep. William O’Brien, Republican of Mont Vernon, is speaker of the New
Hampshire House of Representatives.
