Skip to main content

ALEC vs Cops and Firefighters

American Legislative Exchange Council is pushing the union busting resolutions to make states “right to work” states. Dr. Martin Luther King had said was one of the greatest frauds ever perpetuated on workers.
What ‘right to work’ would do is let workers, who are in a union pay dues or opt not to pay. If they opt out they still get the benefits from the union as the dues-paying workers. Some pay, while others get a free ride. I always thought Republicans and the Tea Party members were against free rides – something for nothing.
What the ‘right to work’ does is weaken the unions by sharing the benefits in an open shop whereas in a closed shop everyone pays their fair share. Weakening the unions is what ‘right to work’ and ‘pay check protection’ is all about and ALEC and the GOP won’t give up until they succeed in destroying all the protections in place for workers. This is what this is all about.
There are currently 23 states with ‘right to work’ legislation; and Arizona is currently trying to outlaw unions. Now ALEC is going after the law enforcement, firefighters and all civil servants. If ALEC and Arizona are successful it will set unions back 100 years.
This is another example of the GOP and corporations hitting the 99% over the heads yet again. There is no doubt this is class war with the 99% vs the 1%. The next year will be the turning point for the 99%, and it will up to unions to win it or lose it.
There are assaults on our civil government unions, but we also have some major assaults on labor unions, such as the Local 21 International Longshore and Warehouse union. The Longshoremen are in for a major battle very soon as the National Guard will be escorting grain ships into ports. Another union battle going on is the Cooper Tire and Rubber Co. in Findlay, OH. One thousand-fifty workers are in a battle with the company over wages and benefits and California workers are not exempt from this assault as the payroll protection will once again be a ballot measure this November. There are five states that have payroll protection: Idaho, Ohio, Michigan, Wyoming and Washington, and one only has to look at their workers’ situation to see how the payroll protection has helped them out.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Fight or Perish

In 2012 more than a quarter of all political contributions came from just 30,000 people who represented the 1 percent of the 1 percent, 90 percent who spent the most won. Today, we are an experiment in either a democracy, which started in 1787 or an oligarchy, which is winning. The nonunion people, like Trump and Musk, have most all the tools in their pockets to destroy our unions. They have money, they have the courts, they have law enforcement, they have the media, and 50 percent of workers that don’t know this don’t know the history of the working class people. This is the perfect storm to lose all the gains workers have made whether they’re union or not, even our Social Security and Medicare, and the Affordable Care Act. So, now we will have to go way back to the late 1920s and ‘30s and dig up the old labor party books. One book, written in 1964, has the information, The Rebel Voices, an IWW Anthology by Joyce L. Kornbluh, educator, activist, and advocate. The history of our labor...

Project 2025 will be the Death of Unions

Each blog I write from here on out could be my last. I don’t know if or when they will shut me down, but I will keep the blog going for as long as I can. I’m not engaging in hyperbole, not with what is coming at us in January. We need to protect and defend the National Labor Relations Board. When Trump was last in office, he systematically eliminated workers’ rights to join unions and negotiate collective bargaining with employers—this not only hurt employees, but their communities and the economy overall. Trump weakened worker protections and actively worked at eliminating rules that protected workers. We need to keep the NLRB for all workers, for organizing workers and nonunion workers and build a workers’ union that is much stronger than the MAGA or the old Tea Party. Our unions will fight and win. The benefits unions fight for eventually work their way down to nonunion workers. If MAGAs weren’t so hellbent on owning the Libs, they, too, would enjoy a four-day work-week with full p...

Support Those Unionizing

Workers are still unionizing their workplaces so here is a shoutout to the nurses at the University Medical Center, a private hospital in New Orleans and the only level-one trauma center. The nurses held a one-day strike, but had been bargaining with the hospital for eight months regarding workplace concerns, such as safety and more money. There are about 600 nurses, considered the backbone of all hospitals, working at UMC. All of our unions should be giving them our support in any way that helps them succeed. If the election doesn’t go blue, this type of worker protests could very well end if the election goes red. This year with our president’s and vice president’s support of unions, there have been some big wins for labor. If we lose, the National Labor Relations Board will be eliminated and all states will become right to work states, which is the kiss of death to unions. Today, twenty-seven states have right to work laws, which prohibits union contracts. Right to work is a new t...