Do you have a right to work?

According to many reports, when Obama visited Silicon Valley last year he asked Steve Jobs, "What would it take to have the iPhone manufactured in America?" As I understand it, Jobs replied, "Those jobs are not coming back." Obama's inquiry demonstrates his lack of understanding of business. The manufacture of electronic products require flexibility and adaptability. Product designs often change at the last minute and the workers who assemble these products must be able to adapt and change quickly to meet shipping schedules.

Adaptability and flexibility are not characteristics of American unions. I have had to have products built in Holland rather than Pennsylvania because the unions in Pennsylvania would not allow a union painter to do a bit of light assembly. The union worker could pick up a brush, but not a wrench without violation of the union work rules.  A worker in Holland could paint, assemble and box without a separate union agreement and separate pay scales for each different work activity. By the way that firm in Pennsylvania, Bethlehem Steel is defunct.

Obama and Santorum have the same problem. At the southern debates, Rick Santorum proffered that a new 'Buy American Act" would bring those jobs home. Any person that has been in an international business, as I have, scoffs at the insanity of a forced "Buy American Act." Have you ever heard of Wal-Mart? Also, IBM is one of the largest supplier of data services to the Federal Government and has most  its employees in other countries, India for example.

Santorum also claimed that Apple had 500,000 employees in Asia, which they do not. These are employees of an Asian company, not Apple employees. Santorum is over his head. It discredits the entire political system that he is even in the debates. He is smart enough just inexperienced. As a Senator from Pennsylvania, his state does not have a right to work law, which means you can be compelled to join a union to work. You remember Pennsylvania. It used to be the steel manufacturing capital of the world.

There are only 22 states that have a right to work law. Most of us in the other 28 states do not have a right to work.  And to put vinegar on the sore, you may not have to join a union to work, however, you may be required to pay union dues. Read it again. I wrote it correctly. The issue really is why do we need a "right to work law" at all?

Obama could have answered his own question that he posed to Steve Jobs by looking at the unions that are among his biggest supporters. I do not have the answer to the lost manufacturing jobs problem, but I am sure the unions do not either.