Indiana became the 23rd state to institute a so-called “right to work” law yesterday. Across the country these laws have depressed wages for union and non-union workers alike, and have contributed to unsafe working conditions.
Unfortunately, anti-worker forces in other states are looking to follow Indiana’s lead.
An Ohio group has been cleared to continue its effort to push a ballot initiative that would keep workers covered by labor contracts from having to join a union or pay dues.Attorney General Mike DeWine on Wednesday said Ohioans for Workplace Freedom has provided a "fair and truthful" summary of its proposed right-to-work amendment.
In Minnesota:
A bill to put the right-to-work issue on the November ballot is being authored by state Republicans Sen. Dave Thompson from Lakeville and Rep. Steve Drazkowski from Mazeppa.
And in Michigan:
Some Michigan Republicans have been pressuring Governor Snyder to get behind a right to work bill in Michigan but he wants nothing to do with it, reiterating during congressional testimony yesterday that it would just bring everything to a grinding halt in Lansing.
The political situations in all of these states are different, but fortunately they are all tougher terrain for union-busting bills than Indiana.
Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich has not expressed interest in making “right-to-work” a priority, especially after his similarly anti-worker Senate Bill 5 got overwhelmingly spanked last year at the polls. "If people in this state feel that you need right-to-work, I don't think people even know what that is," Kasich said. That’s politician code for “please, leave me out of this.”
Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder is trying to position himself as the moderate of the freshman bunch. Talking about the backlashes in Wisconsin and Ohio, Snyder indicated he doesn’t want a similar situation in Lansing. "If you want to draw it as a contrast, you look at now that they've had those things happen, do they have a productive environment to solve problems? Not necessarily,” he told the Huffington Post, “They're still overcoming the divisiveness, the hard feelings from all of that."
And thanks in part to Working America pounding the pavement in 2010, Minnesota working families have an ally in Governor Mark Dayton, who opposes right to work. However, he doesn’t have the power to veto constitutional amendments proposed by the majority of the legislature. The current effort by Republican legislators is to put the issue on the November ballot.
All these efforts pale in comparison to Arizona’s blitzkrieg against public unions that caught workers by surprise this week. A series of bills were introduced late at night on Monday and passed out of committee just 48 hours later – including a Wisconsin-style bill that would ban unions from representing any state, county, or municipal employee.
A high profile New York Times piece talked about Republican governors moderating their agendas in 2012. We’ll believe it when we see it. For now, all we’re seeing is a continuation of 2011’s all-out war on workers, and a complete nationwide negligence of the jobs and unemployment crisis.
by Doug Foote - Reposted from Working America's Main Street Blog