From America's Dirty Thirty:
o Attacking Unions/Collective Bargaining
A Tea Party-led movement is afoot to attack collective bargaining and public sector pay as responsible for our nation’s economic woes even though the problem is clearly Wall Street. Fights are going on in several Republican-controlled states:
Wisconsin
Ohio
Iowa
Indiana
Michigan
Tennessee
Florida
Pennsylvania
New Jersey
[img Year Right to Work Statute Enacted]
o Right to Work Laws
According to the New York Times, “Twenty-two states, mainly in the South and the West, have long had “right to work” laws forbidding contracts that require workers to pay union dues. After a decade in which business has ignored the issue, Republicans in more than 10 states over the last year have begun pushing similar laws.” The Republican claim that unions weaken economic and job growth is disproved by the facts on the ground, as the Times points out: “In fact, six of the 10 states with the highest unemployment have right-to-work laws. North Carolina, a right-to-work state, has a private sector unionization rate of 1.8 percent, the lowest in the nation. It also has the sixth highest unemployment rate: 10 percent.” Currently, says the Wall Street Journal, “At least nine states have right-to-work legislation pending, including Michigan.”
In Indiana, on January 25, 2012, the Indiana House passed a bill, the Wall Street Journal reports, that ” would ban contracts requiring employees to pay union dues,” The bill will now go to the Republican controlled senate with its 37-13 GOP majority. It could be law by February 1. As the WSJ points out, “Indiana would become the 23rd right-to-work state in the nation, and the first in the industrial Midwest, home to many of the nation’s manufacturing jobs and a traditional bastion of organized labor.” Despite RTW states having higher unemployment, Gov. Mitch Daniels insists the law will somehow create jobs. Daniels isn’t about to mention Oklahoma, where the same rhetoric was used to support RTW legislation in 2001. Says the Nation: “In the ten years since Oklahoma adopted RTW, the number of manufacturing jobs in the state has fallen by about one-third.” The “right to work for less” bill was passed by the Indiana State Senate on February 1, 2012 and signed into law that afternoon by Governor Mitch Daniels. Update: Reuters is reporting (March 6, 2012) that “Opponents of Indiana’s new ‘right to work’ law have withdrawn a request for a court order to block the anti-union measure after the state said it will not enforce it retroactively. But opponents of the law said on Monday they will press on with their larger legal challenge and may seek a preliminary injunction against the measure on other grounds in federal court in the coming weeks.”
Here’s a new one, suspending the First Amendment in order to destroy unions: in Georgia, a new bill – Senate Bill 469, introduced by state Sen. Don Balfour (R) – would, writes AlterNet, impose “felony penalties for ‘criminal trespass’ and, unbelievably, ‘conspiracy to commit criminal trespass’-the punishment being a $10,000 fine or a year in jail, or possibly both” in order to curtail picketing of workplaces. It could also affect anyone else wanting to publically protest or picket for reasons of activism. The AFL-CIO reports that in true Republican democracy-neutering fashion Georgia’s House Industrial Relations Committee staged a surprise vote on S.B. 469 on Monday, March 26, 2012, “with little notice, posting the hearing on the calendar less than an hour prior—and waiting until just 10 minutes beforehand to post a note on the hearing room door. Not surprisingly, the measure easily sailed out of the committee without any legislators present to represent Georgia’s working families.” Remember when Republicans in Wisconsin did the same thing in 2011? Georgia Republicans have managed to accomplish something no one else has ever accomplished: they brought the Tea Party and the Unions together on the same side against S.B. 469. The Atlanta Tea Party/Tea Party Patriots Georgia sent this email to its members: “This is not a right or left issue, it is a right or wrong issue. We may not agree with all of the politics…but we will defend their right to speak and protest, because this is America. If we destroy the First Amendment, we cease to be a free nation.” Even the Fulton County Sheriff, Theodore “Ted” Jackson, opposes this one, writing to Balfour that, “The role of law enforcement should not be to police free speech. But the intent of the bill seems to be just that.” The bill, having now passed the Senate, will go to the House.
Not to waste an opportunity to undermine working families, the George House Industrial Relations Committee also took the opportunity to pass S.B. 447 which, says the AFL-CIO, “would gut unemployment insurance down to the fewest number of weeks in the country.”
New Hampshire is voting on a right to work law this week. The new piece of legislation, House Bill 1677, “relative to choice as to whether to join a union and eliminating the duty of a public employee labor organization to represent employees who elect not to join or to pay dues or fees to the employee organization,” is sponsored by Smith, Rep. D.J. Bettencourt, the House Republican Leader from Salem, and Sen. Jim Forsythe, R-Strafford. The same bill (as HB 474) was defeated last year when Gov. John Lynch’s veto withstood an attempt to overturn it by a vote 240-139 in the state legislature.
In South Carolina, Governor Nikki Haley, saying, “Unions are not needed, wanted or welcome in South Carolina,” introduced with state Rep. Bill Sandifer, R-Oconee, a new bill in the State House of Representatives that, reports The State:
Require S.C. employers to display a poster in the workplace, alerting workers that they do not have to be union members in order to work. State law already gives workers the right to turn down union membership.
Increase civil penalties for those who violate the state’s right-to-work laws
Allow workers to resign their union membership and stop paying dues at any time. Currently, union members have to wait a year.
Require unions to file financial information with the state. Unions already must file some of that information with the federal government.
Also in South Carolina, Gov. Haley signed an executive order on January 24, 2012, that prohibits workers who are on strike from receiving unemployment benefits. Of course, that was already state law but maybe she just likes redundancy, waste, and spending money the state can’t afford to spend.
o Deregulating Wall Street – The Great Recession Part Two Plan
The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, tasked with overseeing derivative swaps and financial instruments, would lose $56.8 billion in the House budget. President Obama did not want to cut the CFTC at all; he wanted to increase its funding, and for good reason following the irresponsibility on Wall Street that led to the Great Recession of 2008.
Reuters reports that “Congressional Republicans on Wednesday will stage their first outright challenge to 2010-s Dodd-Frank financial regulation reforms with a fistful of bills favoring private equity firms, derivatives end-users and corporate CEOs.” This legislation “would repeal or amend parts of the laws approved after the severe 2007-2009 financial crisis.” Unsuccessful at defunding these important economic protections the Republicans have resorted to voting them away.
o The War on Lunch Breaks
In New Hampshire, Republicans, through legislation sponsored by Rep. JR Hoell of Dunbarton and backed by Rep. Kyle Jones of Rochester are ready to eliminate a law mandating a lunch break after five hours of work. Why do those filthy workers think they deserve to eat during the day? (I bet the legislators behind this intend to take their lunch breaks). Hoell claims “I believe employers will treat their employees well. This is a moot point.” He ought to take a look at labor history (or get a real job) before he opens his mouth again – I wish I had a dollar for every time I was made to work without a break, even through a 15-hour day.
Full article:
http://www.politicususa.com/2012/01/...ng-agenda.html