

Not the sort of title you normally expect to find on a Conservative site. But it’s a question that needs asking in the face of a brand new study, the first of its kind, issued today by The Alliance for Worker Freedom. Entitled ‘2007 Index of Worker Freedom: A National Report Card’, the report lists how each of the 50 states does in treating their workers.
Each state is measured on ten variables: right to work (RTW), minimum wage (MW), union density (UD), paycheck protection (PP), prevailing wage (PW), defined contribution pension (DC), collective bargaining rights (CB), public sector union membership (UM), entrepreneurial activity (EA), and workers compensation (WC).
For each variable where a state receives a passing grade, it gets one point. If they fail to do so, they get no points at all. A perfect score is 10, an “A+”, and a perfect failing score would be 0, an “F”.
Not a single state managed a perfect score. Only one, Utah, received a 9, the only “A” on the report card. Only four states, Colorado, Idaho, Mississippi and South Carolina joined Utah in the “A” range. They each scored an 8 for a report card grade of “A-”.
The bottom of the rankings found 11 states with either 0 points or just 1 point. Connecticut, Hawaii, Minnesota, New York, Pennsylvania and Rhode Island all had perfect failing scores of 0 for an “F”. California, Delaware, Illinois, Massachusetts and New Jersey managed to find a point somewhere to score a 1 and earn a report card grade of “D”.
Tennessee finished in the middle with a score of 5 and a grade of “B-”.
The report is well done and easy to understand and navigate. Each state’s grade is explained and depicted in several different ways. There are individual state reports highlighting where the state is strong and where it needs some work and there are great graphics included that will make a excellent transition to PowerPoint and other presentation formats.
The best part of the report is near the end. A map of the US is shown with each state’s grade depicted by different shadings, light to dark based on their report card grades. Think of the red/blue map of the country. The darker the shading, the lower the score. It provides an interesting “data at a glance” take on the study’s findings.
Thinking again of that red/blue map, it’s striking to note that the bluer the state, the worse it treats their workers. The NorthEast portion of the country has significant grades of “D” and “F”. So do perennially “Blue” states like Illinois and California. Southern states, Plains States and Mountain States - “flyover country” - do much better.
That one observation, for me, is the most revealing. It’s the states that score the worst when specifically measured on how they treat their workers that seem to be praised the most when all one does is talk about how their workers are treated. There’s a great deal of talk about how the Democrats are for the regular guy and just look at how Illinois and California and New York have great deals for their state’s residents. They’re supposed to be the “Worker’s Paradise” dreamed of by Socialists.
When you do more than just talk, however; when you actually objectively measure how the states treat their workers, the results and the conclusions are far different.
The only variable that remains to be measured is, will the workers overthrow their oppressors? Will they vote the scoundrels out that set up the system that so badly abuses them? Will they dig in and vote to change the laws and regulations in their state to make it better for the regular guys? Or will they vote with their feet and head for greener pastures a state or so away? Thanks to Brian Johnson, the Alliance for Worker Freedom and the 2207 Index of Worker Freedom they’ll know just what to do and where to go regardless of which option they choose.
Wondering if “Workers of the World, Unite!” might not have some Conservative application after all ...
(newsbyus.com)