Union Perspectives

The offshoot of the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC is the American City County Exchange or ACCE. ALEC operates at the state level while ACCE is at the city/county and both are the product of the Koch brothers, etc., to create legislation for these government levels. This is where the low-wage corporations expect to beat back minimum wage hikes. If the wage hikes do become law in cities, then ALEC will pass laws to stop the wage hikes at the state level and these laws will supersede city laws. This type of strategy will also be used against unions. To write Right to Work laws, they will take away the cities’ local control and right to protect themselves against ways to save their water, air, and environmental laws, such as Austin, Texas’ plastic bag ordinance, which was overrule by the ALEC-controlled state government. At this time in the U.S., of the 10 most populous cities, only San Diego, CA, has a Republican mayor, all the rest are Democrats. But the anti-workers, ant...

Meet the American Legislative Exchange Council’s little brother, the American City Council Exchange The awakening of the silent low-wage workers may be driven by the new American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), which is the group funded by the Koch brothers, who have bought state governments. The new Koch brothers funded organization, American City Council Exchange (ACCE) which has and intends to now buy local government. The anti-worker right wing has figured out that the biggest threat for a higher minimum wage of $15 to $18 is coming from the local level, cities and counties, which labor has known for a long time, but been slow to take advantage of. Cities are, in short, the home of the Democratic base and it is also labor’s base—the greater the population density the bluer they become. The anti-union GOP Koch brothers puppets also know this and the ACCE will hold its second annual meeting this summer on local labor issues, like minimum wage laws and collective bargaining. The...