Researchers debunk claims that Employee Free Choice Act would cause unemployment

This past March, Facing South was one of the first places to reveal that a widely-quoted study claiming the Employee Free Choice Act would lead to widespread unemployment was, in fact, the product of a for-hire consultant, paid for by prominent business interests lobbying against the labor bill.

Facing South not only showed that the study by Anne Layne-Farrar of LECG consulting was funded by trade associations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, but that the underlying methodology was shaky, basing its conclusions on decades-old data from three Canadian provinces.

Media outlets are still quoting the study -- often without disclosing who paid for it. But now Canadian economists are fighting back, challenging Layne-Farrar's findings about the Canadian experience.

This month, staff at the Centre for Research on Work and Society at York University began circulating an Open Letter from Canadian Scholars on Employee Free Choice Act. In introducing the letter, they argue that "Canada's more extensive collective bargaining system has not undermined our aggregate labour market performance, and has had generally positive impacts on economic and social well-being."

The letter directly takes on Layne-Farrar's claims:

Some U.S. opponents of the Employee Free Choice Act have argued thatCanada's history demonstrates that increased union membership (which isa likely long-run outcome of the Act, if it is passed and implemented)will lead to lower employment and higher unemployment in the U.S..  Inour judgment as scholarly observers of Canada's labour market andlabour relations system, this argument is not supported by scholarly,peer-reviewed empirical evidence.

Canadian labour market outcomes are presently superior to those inthe U.S.  Canadian job-creation has been more robust for several years,a larger share of working-age adults is employed in Canada than in theU.S., and Canada's unemployment rate is lower than America's.

In short:

[I]n the Canadian case there is no consistent empirical evidence thatCanada's more extensive unionization has affected employment orunemployment either way -- whether positively or negatively.

However, the authors say there IS evidence of many economic and social benefits of unionization in Canada -- something that Layne-Farrar's industry-backed study completely left out of the equation:

There are also significant social benefits from Canada's more extensivecollective bargaining system.  Income inequality is less extreme inCanada compared to the U.S., according to a variety of measures.   Theincidence of poverty (including poverty among employed persons) issignificantly smaller.  The impact of unions and collective bargainingsystems in limiting low pay and providing more comprehensive and secureemployee benefits to workers has surely contributed to these positiveoutcomes.  Empirical evidence also indicates that union membership andcollective bargaining has had an especially significant impact on thewages and benefits of workers who are most susceptible to precarious orinsecure employment, including women, racialized groups, and newCanadians.

I wonder if the views of these economists will make Fox News?