AFL-CIO Night in Annapolis – O’Malley Promises Labor Agenda Will Pass While Maryland’s Business Ranking Continues Its Free-fall 3-23-09

A large crowd of representatives from labor organizations gathered on Lawyer’s Mall tonight to hear Governor O’Malley pledge support for labor’s wide-ranging legislative agenda.  Topping the AFL-CIO's "scratch sheet" this session is a bill that would require non-union state employees to pay service fees to their exclusive representation unions which would result in millions of new dollars to labor's coffers (Senate Bill 264).

To further reward the unions, Governor O'Malley also introduced a bill to limit private businesses from using independent contractors throughout Maryland (Senate Bill 909).  To see our prior post of how state employees are being saddled with many burdens to balance the budget without a whimper in opposition to O'Malley's plans from the unions, see Administration Continues to Pick-Pocket State Employees click here. Obviously, the unions do not want to bite the hand that feeds them.

While labor rejoices in its likely legislative victories this session, Maryland's business rankings continue to be in free-fall.  Just at the time when the Governor should be positioning the state to attract new business to spur an economic recovery, a survey of 592 chief executives from across the nation places Maryland at a lowly 31st place for business climate (to see the survey results in Chief Executive magazine click here)

Wonder why O'Malley's first appointee as Secretary of Business and Economic Development resigned after two years in office.  While Virginia and Delaware rank 7th and 12th respectively, Maryland ranks in the bottom half of states for jobs and business growth.  Moreover, economic development has an exceedingly low priority in light of the O'Malley agenda of unionism and environmentalism.

The bottom-line on Maryland business is:  "Our survey, year-over-year proves that those states with the worst records continue to practice the same policies that alienate businesses," said JP Donlon, Editor-in-Chief of Chief Executive magazine. "As the nation’s economic problems continue to snowball and an increasing number of states experience budgetary problems, state governments ought to take a hard look at their taxation and unionization policies if they want to turn the page and attract new businesses and capital to their provinces."

For comparison purposes, Maryland ranked 21st in the last year of the Ehrlich Administration in the same survey of CEOs.  The state  has dropped 10 positions over the last 3 years under Governor O'Malley.