Louisiana Association of Business and Industry

The Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, known by the acronym LABI, is the largest and most successful business lobbying group in the U.S. state of Louisiana. LABI serves as the state chamber of commerce and manufacturing association. It was founded in Baton Rouge in 1976, when Louisiana adopted a new right-to-work law during the administration of Democratic Governor Edwin Washington Edwards. The previous law, passed in the 1950s during the Robert F. Kennon administration, was repealed in 1956 by the Louisiana State Legislature under Kennon’s successor, Earl Kemp Long. Teeming from its success with right-to-work, LABI quickly unified the state's business community into a visible, well-financed, fully staffed organization to speak for business year-round as well as during state legislative sessions. Its original long-term executive director was Edward J. Steimel of Baton Rouge, previously with the Public Affairs Research Council, a "good government" think tank.

LABI has been extensively involved in education reform. In 1987, LABI issued the report "Ten Years of Education Reform in Louisiana: A Long Journey to Nowhere". Most reforms, LABI found, had been "watered down, ignored, not implemented properly, taken to court by the teacher unions and others, mired in turf battles, or not funded." Similar reforms pushed by Governor Buddy Roemer in 1988 met the same opposition from particular constituency groups. LABI maintains that parents in effect must "pay twice" to obtain educational reform—taxes for public schools and their own private tuition.

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