Former Manufacturing Engineer here. One plant I worked for is gone. All 1000+ jobs are in China now. Another I worked at is half its former size locally, with t

Former Manufacturing Engineer here. One plant I worked for is gone. All 1000+ jobs are in China now. Another I worked at is half its former size locally, with the other half of the jobs shifted to Mexico. A third was a smaller plant, with only a few hundred workers but 5 unions. They still have an operation locally but shifted their growth operations to a right to work state. You could make all the charts you want that show some vague correlation and dismiss my statements as anecdotal, but in some areas the jobs have just gone and the anecdotes represent the lives of real people. The site linked to (ourfuture.org) is a progressive site, so I'll link to a conservative piece as a counter-argument. There has a been a significant difference in the manufacturing growth in right to work states vs forced unionization states: http://www.americansforprosperity.org/021909-right-work-and-productivity-numbers http://www.americansforprosperity.org/021909-right-work-and-... While the site I linked to tries to make a single issue of it, there has been a large scale shift from the rust belt to the sun belt in the last few decades. Right to work vs forced unionization is one issue, but I'm sure that state taxes and regulatory policies played a hand as well.