Click here for Part I, Part II, Part III, Part V & Part VI

Building connections between Maryland’s businesses and the people who represent them in government

Scott Dorsey is the CEO and chairman of MBRG—Maryland Business for Responsive Government. Duane Carey is the organization’s president. Since 1985, MBRG has educated the members of Maryland’s political and business communities on the questions, challenges, and opportunities facing the state’s private companies, with a focus on holding elected officials accountable to the overall goals of an improved business climate and sustained job growth. A nonpartisan institution, MBRG is supported by corporations, trade associations, chambers of commerce, and individuals.

EDWIN WARFIELD: What’s MBRG’s stance on right-to-work and union laws?

SCOTT DORSEY One other point that is emphasized in Wealth of States, but it’s out there everywhere, has to do with right-to-work. There has been a perception, probably since Grapes of Wrath, back in the 30s that the relationship between workers and business owners must necessarily be adversarial. I reject that notion completely. They have the same interests.

When you go to states like Michigan, visit Detroit… Detroit was bankrupt in 2009. The entire economy of the state was in shambles. One of the things that happened was Michigan shocked the rest of the country by becoming a right-to-work state in 2009. We’re talking about the bastion of unionism, the UAW, the big three automakers. If somebody had asked me in 2008, “Which will be the last state in the union to become right-to-work?” I would have probably guessed Michigan.

DUANE CAREY: And then maybe West Virginia.

SCOTT DORSEY: And what happened is that the business leaders in Michigan got together and they said, “We’re rock bottom. We’re desperate. If Detroit does not survive, does not turn the corner and start to thrive, the entire state is in big trouble.”

They got support, politically, from the entire state, and started implementing right-to-work laws that apply to private sector employers—not to public sector. In Maryland, and many states, union employment really is public sector. It’s municipal employees, it’s police, fire, school teachers—you name it. Right-to-work—I’m not saying that all of a sudden all kinds of manufacturers came to Michigan because now they have a right to work, but I can tell you that when companies are looking to locate in a state the first box they check is “Is this state right to work?” And if it’s not, that state probably isn’t even considered.

DUANE CAREY: You know that as a developer, not just as someone representing MBRG. You see that every day in your business.

SCOTT DORSEY: Absolutely. We have enormous opportunity in Maryland with Sparrows Point and now Trade Point Atlantic. It is probably the best manufacturing site in this hemisphere. If Maryland were to enable right-to-work laws, possibly analogous to enterprise zones, Eastern Shore, Western Maryland—obviously the entire Sparrows Point Dundalk area has been very negatively impacted by the changes that occurred with the closing of not just the Bethlehem Steel Mill, but also we saw the GM plant closing earlier than that. It wasn’t that long ago we were making airplanes in Essex. The opportunity to bring high-paying jobs back is there. It’s the political will to provide right-to-work legislation, even on a limited basis. It could really move the needle on opportunity in Maryland.

DUANE CAREY: And there are models out there for doing it on a limited basis. You have Kentucky that did it county by county. In this case, I think we’re talking about some kind of an enterprise zone approach, where the areas of the state that desperately need it—western Maryland, they have no work. They desperately need something like that.

SCOTT DORSEY: If you just Google “right-to-work states” and look at the map of right-to-work states, you’ll see that basically everything, with a few minor exceptions, east of the Mississippi and south of the Mason Dixon line is right-to-work. The most recent state to become right-to-work was West Virginia. I mean, you’re talking about you know union mining industry, and they realized that in order to have opportunity they’re going to have to become right-to-work. It seems that the states that have done that have done it because they recognize that they need to do something and there was a desperation.

In Maryland, I don’t know that we have that level of desperation, I’m going to say probably since the 1950s. Eisenhower was president; we had the growth of the military–industrial complex; that’s when the federal government just grew geometrically. They provided an awful lot of opportunity in Maryland. It’s why we rank high in income. I’is one reason why our income tax is high, because we had many federal workers living in Maryland that were not working within Maryland. It was smart for Maryland to have higher levels of income tax, because that’s how we got the money.

I’m not sure that is the case now. I drive down 83 in the morning and I’m telling you I see an awful lot of Pennsylvania license plates when I am driving to work in the morning, so I think we might have flipped, where we have more people actually working in Maryland and living outside of the state now.

DUANE CAREY: A lot of people don’t really understand what right-to-work means. It’s easier to look at the other side of that thing, and what it really is is forced unionism. Right-to-work says that you have a right to work anywhere you want to and don’t have to join a union. When you think about what Scott’s saying about someone coming in and looking at a state is a right-to-work or is it not? “Am I going to have to deal with forcing my workers to become unionized?” Look at all the industries in America that are really hurting or barely existing anymore: they are all heavily unionized.

SCOTT DORSEY: One nuance about the right-to-work is, in many cases, you’re not actually required to join the union; you’re only required to pay union dues. The theory being join a union if you want to or not, but you’re getting the benefit of the collective bargaining, and that’s why they require the people to join the union. All we’re suggesting is that it is worth a conversation in Annapolis—serious confirmation, open-minded: “What might this do to Maryland?”

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Edwin Warfield, CEO of citybizlist, conducts the CEO Interviews.

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