Right-to-work laws are great for businesses, not workers Missouri might be the start of a similar backlash, one targeted toward Republican right-to-work policies that hurt labor unions and the middle-class workers they represent. With the support of their labor unions, teachers in states like Arizona, Oklahoma, and West Virginia have forced state lawmakers to raise business taxes to pay better wages. Teachers across the country have led the revolt against such pro-business policies that swept through conservative states in the past decade - policies that never led to the promised economic boom. That message has resonated with unionized workers across the country, whose wages remain flat as CEOs earn record-high salaries and corporations reap massive tax cuts. “It’s being sold as a way to help Missouri workers, but look a little deeper and you’ll see it’s all about corporate greed.” “The bill will not give you the right to work,” Goodman says in the spot. The campaign even enlisted actor John Goodman, a Missouri native, for a 30-second radio ad. Labor groups had framed the issue as a fight between workers and greedy billionaires. A union-backed group raised $15 million for the effort - more than five times the amount of money raised by two business groups supporting the right-to-work bill. Construction workers, ironworkers, and steelworkers knocked on about half a million doors to mobilize voters to the polls, according to the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest federation of unions. They built a massive campaign to defeat the Republican law, gathering 300,000 signatures to put the referendum on the ballot. This is known as the “free rider” problem, in which some workers benefit from union contracts but choose not to pay for it.īut workers and unions in Missouri have fought back. Right-to-work laws make it illegal for a union to charge those fees, which can strain its finances and give workers an incentive not to pay dues. In states without right-to-work laws, employees at unionized workplaces don’t have to pay union dues, but they do have to pay “agency fees.” These fees are lower than the dues members pay, but they cover the union’s cost of negotiating employment contracts that benefit all workers. Workers have been waging a war in Missouri to defeat the law AFSCME, which mandated right-to-work rules for all government unions, Missouri’s vote is a sign that unions are far from dead. And after the US Supreme Court’s June ruling in Janus v. It’s also a major victory for the US labor movement at a time when Republican leaders, big businesses, and the courts have doubled down on their attempts to weaken the influence of labor unions and the workers they represent.
No other state has even tried to in recent years. Tuesday’s election marks the first time voters have overturned a right-to-work law through a ballot referendum since Ohio did something similar in 2011. They gathered about 300,000 signatures - more than double the number needed - to freeze the law and put it on the ballot for voters to decide. Missouri would have followed Michigan, Wisconsin, and other Rust Belt states that have passed similar anti-union measures in recent years under pressure from business groups.īut workers and union leaders in Missouri put up a fight. Last year, the state’s then-governor, Republican Eric Greitens, signed the right-to-work bill, saying that it would encourage businesses to move to the state. Missouri was on track to become the 28th state to enact such a law. The state’s primary voters rejected Proposition A, which would have made it illegal for unions to charge fees to workers they represent who don’t want to pay them, by a two-to-one margin when the vote was called by Decision Desk around 10 pm Eastern. Missouri voters made history on Tuesday, blocking the state’s Republican lawmakers from enacting right-to-work laws to cripple labor unions.
0 kommentar(er)
