The Alliance for Worker Freedom has released its second biennial report, the Index of Worker Freedom: A National Report Card. The index is a state-by-state comparative study that measures worker freedom through an analysis of policy implications as well as quantitative state data. One of the key findings from this year’s index was the negative correlation between a state’s union density and its level of worker freedom. Unsurprisingly, workers and employers are fleeing states with low levels of worker freedom – generally heavily unionized states – in favor of states with high levels of worker freedom. The study’s findings parallel an earlier Gallup poll indicating that a majority of Americans think “unions mostly hurt the economy.” An economist writing for the Christian Science Monitor contributed a short article using simple math to explain statistical productivity and job loss as it relates to unions. As he makes clear, unions push low-productivity workers into the ranks of the unemployed. When this occurs, the level of output of the remaining workers is impacted slightly, showing a statistical “rise” in productivity (the output divided by the number of workers). The workers that kept their jobs are no more productive than before, it is just that the efforts of the lower productivity workers are no longer counted, so the average rises. Thus the union claim that union workers are more productive is a myth.
