Right-to-work laws are union-hating Republican’s weapon of choice (xpost frm Poverty)

[unhappycamper]

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/02/right-to-work-laws-are-union-hating-republicans-weapon-of-choice/



Illinois governor Bruce Rauner

Right-to-work laws are union-hating Republican’s weapon of choice
Michael Paarlberg, The Guardian
10 Feb 2015 at 09:20 ET

There are few crusades in American politics more quixotic than bashing unions. They are a threat that exists mostly in the imaginations of their opponents: an all-powerful, resurgent labor movement that scares investors and imperils the economy, despite representing just 11% of the US workforce. Right-to-work laws are their weapon of choice.

Last week, the Supreme Court announced it would hear a case that could very well finish off American unions in the last bastion where they have any significant presence at all, the public sector . The case, Friedrichs v California Teachers Association, will decide if right-to-work laws (designed to bankrupt unions by encouraging employees who benefit from collective bargaining agreements to not pay for them) will extend to all public employees nationwide – an outcome Justice Samuel Alito has all but promised to deliver .

Lest you think such measures only target politically unpopular public sector unions, Illinois governor Bruce Rauner just announced he would create “right-to-work zones” for private businesses throughout the state, encouraging municipalities to follow Michigan and Indiana’s lead. Those two states were the latest to pass right-to-work laws in 2012, a remarkable shift in that last geographic stronghold of organized labor. Rauner contends that businesses, unshackled from the burden of union contracts, will rush to create jobs in Illinois communities – contrary to a University of Illinois study that found no such evidence for such a broad claim.

Economic arguments for right-to-work are, however, always highly speculative, proposing that the low-wage jobs that might be created by companies attracted by such laws would offset the very real, calculable income losses that inevitably accompany deunionization.

[TexasProgresive]

1. I call them "right to work for less"

Sad to say Texas was one of the early "progressive" states to enact these repressive laws.

[cstanleytech]

3. "I call them "right to work for less"" Thats what they have been turned into all right. nt

[Sherman A1]

2. +1000

[wolfie001]

4. Another state joins the race to the bottom.

Their next step is plantations. They'll use a euphemism of course.

[mountain grammy]

5. Right to work for less.. for sure.

And to all the workers in the past who died for the labor movement, it's all for nothing in America where a majority of people believe the bullshit.

My husband and I both had union jobs, and at least a quarter of the members wanted all the wages and benefits, but not the union, because, and these are the actual things members said:

We make good money already.
It's 'their' company, they can do what they want.
I made good money across the street and didn't have to pay union dues.
The union is stealing my money.

This from union members. My sons both work in union shops and still hear the same shit. Wonder how many union members put old union busting Rauner in office.

[rurallib]

6. Who can forget the Memphis Sanitation workers strike in 1968

that eventually got MLK involved and where he was shot to death?
Municipal workers prior to unionization were some of the poorest and least respected workers in the nation.
I am old enough to remember. Sure wish Rauner and Pence et al. could remember

[freebrew]

7. Central MO here...

watching the morning 'news', the RtW subject was reported as an issue because businesses won't locate in a union state..

Funny, same thing was said about corporate taxes. Yet, for some reason, with some of the lowest taxes in the nation, businesses are leaving here in droves.

Possibly because the RWNJs here are known as some of the most corrupt, ignorant assholes on the planet and the MO legislature is full of them?

Gerrymandering at its worst, we have a 'Dem' governor, yet a veto-proof majority of idiots in congress.

[Pakid]

8. America is fast become the land where stupidity reign supreme

It never ceases to amaze me at just how many working people buy into this right-wing corporate BS and how how many of them keep on voting against their own best interest and even vote in such a way that they often in the end lose their jobs because of the greed and foolishness of the people they vote into office. When the 1% have complete power there are a whole lot of people who are going to wake up and find just how stupid there were when they find themselves working for next to nothing with no safety net or protection of any kind.

[Cryptoad]

9. Anybody else ever notice,,,,

that the GOP is defined by what it is against, rather than what it is for!