ALEC pushes 117 bills to crush unions in 2013, report says

ALEC, the escort service for corporations and state lawmakers, was responsible for 117 bills in 40 states to lower wages, reduce benefits and weaken workers rights this year. That's according to a report released today from our friends at the Center for Media and Democracy called "Just How Low Can Your Salary Go."

"As working Americans speak out for higher wages, better benefits, and respect in the workplace, a coordinated, nationwide campaign to silence them is mounting -- and ALEC is at the heart of it," CMD tells us.

ALEC has been trying to tilt the playing field in favor of corporations -- and at the expense of workers -- since 1979, when it began pushing No Rights At Work bills. When Republicans took control of 26 statehouses in 2010, ALEC was emboldened to attack workers as never before. Newly elected Job-killer Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker followed ALEC's marching orders and took collective bargaining rights away from nurses, snow plow drivers and school teachers.  Ohio Gov. John Kasich soon followed with the much-hated (and ultimately repealed) SB5. All along, ALEC-supported extremists had the financial and political backing of the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers. 

The CMD report is the third in a series of four being written in the run-up to a protest against ALEC in Chicago on Aug. 8. The Chicago Federation of Labor will demonstrate outside ALEC's 40th anniversary conference at the Palmer House.

ALEC is bringing state politicians to Chicago to push their agenda that rewards CEOs at the expense of middle class families and our public schools and puts our safety at risk. Forty years of ALEC is nothing to celebrate.

(If you can make it, RSVP on Facebook.)

The report tells a frightening tale of giant corporations able to hijack governments in order to make their CEOs even more obscenely wealthy than they already are. CMD documents the sordid details. Here are a few:

• ALEC's No Rights at Work bill was introduced in 15 states;
• ALEC bills to silence workers' political speech were introduced in 11 states, to weaken unions' finances in four states, to prohibit employers from honoring employees' voluntary requests to deduct their union dues in five states;
• ALEC bills attacking prevailing wage, minimum wage and living wage laws were introduced in 14 states; 
• ALEC bills promoting the outsourcing of government services were introduced in four states. 

Here are the corporations that benefit from these policies: Pfizer, FedEx, Visa, Exxon Mobil; the Spanish company Cintra and the Australian companies Macquarie and TransUrban; tobacco companies Altria and Reynolds American. All charming folks.

Here's who doesn't benefit from these policies: non-billionaires. In Wisconsin, where Walker is the poster child for ALEC stooges, the state's economy has been in a freefall almost from the minute he took office.

Find out how ALEC is trying to turn your state into a feudal serfdom by reading the whole CMD report here. And if you can make it, go to Chicago on August 8.

Young union members protest No Rights at Work in Michigan

Young union members took to the streets of Detroit late last week to demand that Michigan lawmakers roll back the no-rights-at-work law imposed in March. The participants were in the Motor City as part of an AFSCME conference that highlighted new voices within the labor movement.

The protest comes at a time when there is growing support for unions nationwide, especially among young adults. A recent poll showed more than 60 percent of people under 30 approve of unions.

Protesters also rallied against Detroit's emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, who wants concessions from pensions and unions. CBS Detroit reported they also took aim at Gov. Rick Snyder, who calls himself "one tough nerd":

Wearing suspenders and taped glasses about 500 protesters chanted “Revenge of the Nerds” as they packed the street – then the entrance of the building – effectively disrupting business for about 10 minutes before Wayne County deputies and Detroit police were called in to secure the building. 

Reverend David Bulluck was among those protesting Friday afternoon. 

“We are not throwing the towel in,” said Rev. Bulluck. “This is the summer of our discontent and we will not let democracy be destroyed … we will not let the city of Detroit be fixed by putting the blame on the backs of citizens and retirees.”

Workers from 40 different states were on hand to show support for their Michigan brothers and sisters.

As Christopher Matthews wrote in Time magazine, the growing support for unions shouldn't be surprising given big businesses' poor treatment of working Americans:

...there are a few trends -- namely income-growth stagnation and the fact that corporate owners are taking a larger share of the national income than they have in generations -- that would lead one to expect increasing support for unions.

More than 280,000 college graduates work in minimum wage jobs that qualified them for government help The writing is on the wall for today's young workers. And they are beginning to see what many of us have known for some time -- without unions, the middle class will disappear.

Welcome into the fold!

ALEC gets a whitewash from the political press

You can draw a straight line from the Wisconsin uprising of 2011 through the No Rights At Work fight in Michigan to the Moral Monday protests now raging in North Carolina.  You can throw in the SB 5 fight in Ohio, the Prop. 32 battle in California, and skirmishes over voter suppression, privatization, regressive taxation and corporate empowerment in the 23 Republican-controlled legislatures in the country.

What you have is a national reaction to a single well-funded campaign to let billionaires take even more money from poor, middle- and working-class Americans.

The massive protests, the arrests, the Statehouse turmoil, the costly campaigns -- they're all convulsions over  the same thing: ALEC's attempt to dismantle America's public institutions and turn our government over to corporations.

And yet the political press treats each skirmish as an isolated outbreak.

One reporter who gets it is the Esquire blogger Charles Pierce. He nails it in a recent post:

...the elite political press is missing the real political action in this country because, for the most part, it concentrates either on what's going on in Washington, or in the horse race aspects of whatever election is next. But the real action -- and all the real damage -- is being done out in the states, especially in those states in which the 2010 elections brought in majority Republican legislatures and majority Republican governors. This is part of what we play for laughs every Thursday when we survey what's goin' down in The Laboratories Of Democracy. But what's goin' down is highly organized, tightly disciplined, and very sharply directed. By now, the American Legislative Exchange Council, and what it's about, is an open secret. Everybody covering politics knows about it. Everybody covering politics knows where the money for its activities comes from. Everybody in politics knows what its political aims are. And yet, when we have retrograde laws and policies pop up in state after state -- most notably in recent days, in the newly insane state of North Carolina -- it is always treated as a kind of localized outbreak.

How badly the press gets it wrong would be hilarious if it weren't so dangerous. A typical mistake is to describe the attempted corporate takeover of government as some sort of disagreement between "liberals" and "conservatives."

There's nothing conservative about a group that seeks to pervert democracy, eradicate public schools, destroy First Amendment rights, loot working people, plunder the public treasury and sell off every piece of public property for corporate profit-making opportunities.

And yet the Associated Press recently characterized ALEC as "a conservative think tank" -- in a story about how it's violating Wisconsin's Open Records law.

In a story about Georgia state lawmakers "staying informed," a gullible reporter for the Forsyth News notes that they intend to travel to "gather information" or "participate in panels" at ALEC's annual meeting. No mention of the lavish (and well-documented) resort settings or the bacchanals with deep-pocketed campaign donors.

Worst of all are the credulous accounts of ALEC's clownish reports on state economic outlooks, something no self-respecting economists would associate themselves with. You just know there's something wrong with ALEC's "Rich States, Poor States" analysis when it cites  job-killer Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker for his success in creating jobs.

Unions are fighting the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers purchase of the newspaper chain that owns the Los Angeles Times and the Chicago Tribune. (You can sign a petition here.) The brothers are key players in the billionaire empowerment movement and strong supporters of ALEC. But judging by the press coverage we've gotten so far, the Kochification of American newspapers is already well underway.

They already write some of them. 

How to talk about Right to Work

Here’s how to argue about Right to Work with people who think they know what it is.

Tell them (nicely) that they don’t know what Right to Work really is. Tell them it’s a confusing, complicated and controversial proposal that damages the working class.

It was cooked up decades ago by greedy billionaires. They named it Right to Work to fool people into thinking it means more freedom. It doesn’t. Right to Work means less freedom for workers – much less.

It puts more pressure on struggling working-class families. It eliminates job security, lowers pay, forces workers from full-time jobs to part-time, and gives workers less freedom and flexibility to spend time with their family or do whatever is important to them in life.

Corporate interests want to pass Right to Work so they can destroy unions that stand up for workers. Getting rid of unions would let them ship more jobs overseas, continue to rig the tax system in their favor and demand more work from employees while treating them with less respect.

Right to Work is being pushed in state capitols by ALEC, the escort service for corporations and state lawmakers. ALEC is supported by CEOs of multinational corporations who only care about profits and mistreat the workers that generate them; by the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers; and by predatory Wall Street banks.

Right to Work has had far-reaching consequences in states where it has been enacted. It has delivered lower pay for employees and higher unemployment rates in the states that passed it. And it threatens public safety by making it harder for nurses, police officers and firefighters to do their jobs. It guts workplace safety laws and eliminates protections for people who blow the whistle on threats to public safety.

So tell your misguided friends who think they know what Right to Work is that it does far more harm than good. It’s a risky, divisive, unfair and politically motivated attack on the working class.

And here’s a final tip: Don’t be too harsh on the CEOs. After all, some of them are good employers who create jobs. Be sure to distinguish them from overpaid and out-of-touch CEOs who care more about their bonuses than the workers who made their companies profitable. 

Kid Rock embarrassed to be a Republican (sometimes)

Kid Rock, the rapper-turned-rocker, famously supported Mitt Romney for president but now says he's ashamed to be a Republican. Sometimes.

Here's what he told Rolling Stone:

Athletes and musicians make astronomical amounts of money. People get paid $100 million to throw a baseball! Shouldn't we all take less and pass some of that money onto others? Think about firefighters, teachers and policemen. We should celebrate people that are intellectually smart and trying to make this world a better place.

We think maybe the Kid is confused. (It's been known to happen to rock musicians.) Kid Rock's concern about teachers doesn't square with support for the Republican Party. After all, it was Republican lawmakers who savagely attacked teachers last year by ramming No Rights At Work laws through the Michigan  Legislature.

Kid Rock is also trying to make his concerts more affordable, a laudable goal. But Republican lawmakers are repealing laws eliminating the cap on scalped tickets, which are aimed at protecting consumers. The Kid doesn't like that either:

That's one of the times I'm fucking embarrassed to be a Republican. It's fucking Republican lawmakers passing those laws, you dumbasses. They already did it in New York and they're trying to do it in Michigan. I've even called some of those guys to try and stop it.

Wish he'd call some of those guys when No Rights At Work was moving through the Legislature as fast as, um, poop through a goose.

There's further evidence that maybe Kid Rock was dropped on his head when he was a little boy. Remember his "Made in Detroit" line of clothing ... that isn't made in Detroit? The Detroit Free Press published an expose about it last year. Columnist Susan Tompor wrote,

So why in the world are Kid Rock's high-end "Made in Detroit" T-shirts made in the Dominican Republic? Or some other country?... 

On top of that, many of the adult-sized Made in Detroit shirts no longer have any labels to tell you exactly where the T-shirts themselves are made.

You just can't make this stuff up.

Mo. union members go door-to-door to fight ALEC No Rights At Work bill

(UPDATES with link to Facebook photo gallery.)

A Missouri state lawmaker and ALEC stooge is pushing a No Rights At Work bill through the Legislature.

Rep. Eric Burlison uses ALEC's corporate escort service, presumably to raise campaign funds and to take free vacations. As payment, Burlison has maneuvered an ALEC No Rights At Work bill through a House committee.

Union members called on Burlison's neighbors over the weekend to tell them the bill is bad for all working people. Their message: Working people in Right to Work states make less money.

KY 3 reports:

Members of "We Are Missouri" canvassed several Springfield neighborhoods on Saturday--all in Representative Burlison's district,--to campaign against the legislation. 

They say if it passes, it could make it harder on all workers in Missouri, not just public employees. 

"What we've seen, in state after state when right to work legislation is passed is that working people, whether they belong to a union or not, whether they have a job that's represented by a union or not, working people in right to work states make less money," said union volunteer Bradley Harmon.

Watch the video report here. View the Facebook photo gallery here. And stay tuned.

Woot! Paycheck deception, picket restrictions ruled unconstitutional in Ariz.

Call it ALEC overreach.

A federal judge ruled earlier this week that two anti-worker laws in Arizona are unconstitutional. One restricts picketing, which the judge ruled infringes on the right of free speech. The other forbids some employers from honoring employees' requests to have their union dues deducted from their paychecks (also known as paycheck deception). That violates the right to equal protection under the law, the judge found.

Both of these laws are linked to ALEC, the escort service for corporations and state lawmakers that's supported by the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers. Paycheck deception and picketing restrictions have been introduced in other states. The Missouri Legislature, for example, is moving a paycheck deception bill that Gov. Jay Nixon is expected to veto. Georgia's Legislature tried to pass a restriction on picketing last year, but failed.

Efforts to roll back ALEC-inspired anti-worker bills are succeeding in other states for the same reasons cited by the judge in Arizona. Wisconsin Job-killer Gov. Scott Walker's union-busting Act 10 has been partially struck down (for now at least) on the grounds of free speech and equal protection under the law. Legal questions are being raised about equal protection under Michigan's No Rights At Work law because it doesn't affect all employees.

KFYI News tells us more about the Arizona cases:

Senate Bill 1365 required employee consent before their employer could deduct money from their paychecks for "political purposes" including lobbying. Judge Murray Snow found the law was unconstitutional because it exempted public safety unions, which the bill's sponsor, former Republican Sen. Frank Antenori, said he had done because public safety unions told him they operate differently from most other unions. 

SB 1365 never took effect because it was put on hold due to the lawsuit against it.  The other measure, SB 1363, limited picketing by striking workers.  Judge Snow ruled that the law limited free speech. 

According to a Pennsylvania brother, these Koch-sponsored anti-worker laws aren't just unconstitutional. They're sinful and evil.

We're inclined to agree.

The 9 most insane laws proposed by extremist Republicans

A Missouri Democrat filed a bill last week that would make it a crime to propose No Rights At Work legislation.

Rep. Jeff Roorda wasn't really serious. He was responding to a bill filed by Republican state Rep. Mike Leara that would make it a crime to propose legislation to restrict gun ownership.

The Republican was probably serious given the long list of loony bills the GOP is promoting these days (many with the help of ALEC, the billionaire-backed dating service for state lawmakers and corporations).

The following proposals should make your head spin:

1. Ban paid overtime in the United States: U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor wants to get rid of  paid overtime.  Reports DailyKos, In Eric Cantor's February 2013 speech, he said he wanted to propose Federal Law that would end overtime pay for hourly workers. 

2. Give corporations the right to vote.  Montana Rep. Steve Lavin would give corporations that own property within a city to vote in a municipal election. ThinkProgress reports his bill would allow the president, vice president or designee to cast a ballot. 

3. Eliminate child labor laws: Utah Sen. Mike Lee thinks child labor laws should be illegal. So does former Missouri state Sen. Jane Cunningham, who filed a bill in the last session that would eliminate the prohibition on employment of children under age 14. Maine and Wisconsin's two wackadoodle governors, Paul LePage and Job-killer Scott Walker, have both signed laws that roll back child labor protections.  

4. Force unions to pay for non-union members' benefits. Last year, Michigan and Indiana passed No Rights At Work bills that will weaken unions, increase poverty, lower their citizens' standard of living and kill more people at work.  Republicans tried and failed to pass No Rights At Work in Kentucky and New Hampshire, but they're still at it in Missouri and Maine.

5. Raise taxes on everyone but the rich. Republican governors in Ohio, Louisiana, Kansas, North Carolina, Oklahoma and Nebraska are proposing tax hikes on the vast majority of citizens in order to cut taxes for the wealthy few.  

6. Prohibit living wage and minimum wage laws. Florida state Sen. Stephen Precourt filed a bill to overturn local laws in Orlando, Miami Beach and Gainesville that require some employers to pay slightly more than the minimum wage. The bill has passed through committee. 

7. Make it a crime to expose corporate crime. A bill is now moving through the Indiana Legislature that would criminalize the video or audio recording of unethical or illegal behavior on a farm or in a workplace. Similar laws passed already in Iowa, Montana, North Dakota, Kansas and Utah. 

8. Sell the national parks. Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz proposed selling off 3.2 million acres of public lands. Former Florida Rep. Cliff Stearns admitted on camera he wanted to sell off our national parks because we can't afford them anymore.

9. Make it a crime to make theft a crime: Last year, the Florida House of Representatives passed a bill to overturn local laws that make it illegal for employers to steal wages from their employees. It failed in the Senate. 

We fear we've missed a few of the GOP's most outlandish proposals. Sadly, we expect we'll be hearing more.

In Missouri, security for Limbaugh bust but not for workers

Missouri taxpayers are paying for round-the-clock security for a bust of Rush Limbaugh that sits in the Statehouse Rotunda.

This may strike you as a misplaced priority. So is this: The Missouri Senate is expected to vote soon on a bill to make it difficult for unions to collect membership dues.

And this: ALEC-backed lawmakers are trying to pass No Rights At Work. Reports the AFL-CIO Now blog,

Progress Missouri has taken a closer look at the bills and sees the fingerprints of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) all over them. At least 11 sponsors or co-sponsors of the various House and Senate bills have ties to ALEC and side-by-side comparisons of the bills to ALEC's model legislation border on plagiarism. 

"Legislators need to be listening to ordinary people, not corporate special interests pushing an extreme agenda," said Sean Soendker Nicholson, Progress Missouri’s executive director. "The bills being pushed by ALEC put corporate profits ahead of the well being of average Americans. It's time to make sure that ordinary people—not corporate interests—are in charge of our government."

Votes on the anti-worker legislation weren't taken during this week's session, which was shortened by bad weather. In the meantime, the bust of a hate-radio jockey is safe and sound.

Crooks And Liars reports,

At the request of Republican lawmakers, taxpayers are funding a 24-hour security camera to watch over a Rush Limbaugh bust in the Missouri Capitol building. 

State House Clerk Adam Crumbliss on Thursday told The Associated Press that he had authorized the $1,000 camera after Republican lawmakers expressed concerns about vandalism. Limbaugh's statue is the only one in the Rotunda with 24-hour security. 

"We recognize that there was a level of controversy around it, and we want to make sure that property is protected," Crumbliss explained.

There are no video cameras watching over busts of Harry Truman, Walt Disney, Walter Conkite, Mark Twain and Stan Musial.

Stop No Rights At Work in Missouri!

Extreme anti-worker lawmakers in Missouri say they're set to strike to pass No Rights At Work and paycheck deception bills.

Secret recordings reveal how these so-called representatives of the people are emboldened by greedy billionaires and CEOs. Their lackeys came to Jefferson City to promise campaign cash and plenty of  propaganda to give them cover.

Don't listen to the propaganda. Listen to what Michael Kuznetsov says about living in a No Rights At Work state:

As a Texas resident, I can tell you that you should all be very afraid of Right to Work laws! At every job I've had, we have to sign contracts acknowledging that employers in this state have the right to fire us for any reason or for no reason at all! 

And listen to what Jim Kabell,  president of the Missouri-Kansas-Nebraska Conference of Teamsters, told Missourians, the Joplin Globe reported:

“This is long-term bad for Missouri workers,” Kabell said of the measure...

“It won’t be immediate and you won’t see wages drop off the table the day after, but the impact will be residual. At a time we are trying to move out of a recession, this would be a giant step backward and it will cost us jobs.”

We Are Missouri is asking all Missourians to call their legislators today and ask them to oppose No Rights At Work and paycheck deception bills.

Dial 1-888-907-9711, listen to the message and enter your Zip Code to be connected to your legislator.

Tell them to vote No on "right-to-work" and paycheck deception and focus on creating jobs, not taking jobs from the middle class.

You can also send a letter to the editor of your local paper with the help of a tool created by the AFL-CIO here.

Ariz. tea party leader compares Hitler to unions

A tea party stooge planned to deliver a Hitler Valentine to Arizona Republicans who support workers. At the last minute he backed off.

The Arizona Capitol Times reported yesterday,

This morning, Stephen Viramontes, the state director of FreedomWorks in Arizona in 2012, wrote on his Twitter page that he would “be down at the Capitol shortly to give a few legislators some (Valentine’s Day) cards.” The post included a photo of a card that featured a drawing of Hitler along with the words “Be Mein.” 

He later posted that Hitler was one of six different dictators featured on a set of cards he planned to distribute to “all those (lawmakers) needing some help in supporting and passing #PaycheckProtection.”

(Paycheck deception laws are aimed at weakening workers' rights by making it hard for unions to collect dues.)

Umm, let's get this straight. Stephen Viramontes belongs to a front group that gets secret funding from billionaires. It's an offshoot of a Benedict Arnold Koch brothers front group. The group is part of a vast, shadowy billionaire-and-CEO conspiracy that bullies state lawmakers. Their goal is to  pass bills that empower corporations, destroy workers' rights, privatize government services, subvert democracy and raise taxes on everyone but the wealthy.

And Viramontes has greeting cards designed that compare democratically elected unions to a dictator? A dictator who abolished trade unions in May 1933? 

Nazi SA entering a trade union building in
Berlin on May 2, 1933 to seize Union assets:

Let's get the record straight, because billionaires' lackeys like Viramontes will try to confuse it: Hitler needed to appease and confuse the masses. He eliminated trade unions, jailed their leaders and seized their assets. He then formed the German Labor Front and called it a union. It wasn't a union. It lowered wages, eliminated collective bargaining and abolished the right to strike. That's not what unions do.

Today, billionaires and CEOs try to do pretty much the same thing. They claim they're trying to empower workers when they're actually crippling workplace democracy. Right now they're hell-bent on passing so-called "right-to-work" laws in Missouri, Pennsylvania, Maine, Ohio and Kentucky.  (They failed two days ago in New Hampshire.) The laws they want confer no rights on workers, but take them away. And like the German Labor Front, they lower wages and all-but-eliminate collective bargaining and the right to strike.

Check out what else those charming folks at FreedomWorks are up to: Mother Jones just reported they produced a video showing a fake panda performing a sex act on a woman wearing a Hillary Clinton mask.

Fortunately it isn't bad taste that's timeless.

Secret recording reveals billionaire stooges threatening Missouri lawmakers over No Rights At Work

Lackeys for out-of-state billionaires on Tuesday threatened to cut off Missouri lawmakers' funding if they don't pass the No Rights At Work bill pending in the Legislature.

Progress Missouri released a secret audio of a strategy session held in a government hearing room.  Legislators were meeting with representatives of two groups pushing the anti-worker bill: the National Tax Limitation Committee and the West Michigan Policy Forum. The first group was founded by a California plutocrat and the tobacco industry, the second by Ponzi scheme Amway heir Dick DeVos, who was instrumental in passing No Rights At Work in Michigan. 

We Party Patriots shares the highlights of the one hour, 20 minute meeting. The recording makes it clear that the recent wave of No Rights At Work legislation was ordered up by a network of billionaires and CEOs through the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC.

Tobacco industry flunkey Lew Uhler told lawmakers:

What you’re doing here, what you’re part of here, is a national movement, and you’re well positioned to keep this battle alive...

Steve Hunter, former state legislator from Joplin says,

If you don’t take on the fights, and these guys that are giving money? I mean, this is just all basic 101. You’re going to start losing donors.

Further proof that anti-worker legislation now being pushed through state legislatures has no popular support comes from the National Cancer Institute. The group just published a study showing the tea party is a creation of the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers. The Huffington Post reports, 

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene. 

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance.

Let's hope Missouri lawmakers are too embarrassed to cravenly follow the gospel of billionaire greed and empowerment.

Act now to repeal No Rights At Work in the US

A new petition is up on the White House website to repeal the federal law that allows states to weaken workers' rights through No Rights At Work laws.

Sign it here.

The petition is the brainchild of Stephanee Parks, a college student who is interning at Teamsters Local 142 in Gary, Ind. Here's what she told us about it (and herself):

So please pass this along to anyone and everyone, you do not have to be union and this isn’t just about Indiana, it’s NATIONWIDE, in order to sign the petition. In order to fill out the petition, you must be 18 years of age and have a valid email address. I need to collect 100,000 signatures by midnight 08 March 2013.
My name is Stefanee Parks, and I am currently a student at Purdue University Calumet in Hammond, IN. I am a psychology major with a minor in history and labor studies. I am also currently interning at Teamsters Local 142 in Gary, IN. I have several projects going on this semester, and the majority has to do with unions and my pro-stance on unions.
I read about the previous petition that I found on a Teamsters Nation blog and signed it, but I did not realize that it had an end date and can no longer be viewed. Being the crafty college student I am, well I made one myself and I have 30 days from today to collect 100,000 signatures. So in other words, I need to collect 100,000 signatures by midnight 08 March 2013.
If you would like to support my petition, I thank you ahead of time for signing this petition. So please share it with anyone you think would support this petition.
Yes it may be a school project but it is a project I deeply believe in. "The right to petition your government is guaranteed by the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Throughout our history, Americans have used petitions to organize around issues they care about from ending slavery, to guaranteeing women's right to vote, to the civil rights movement."
It reads as follows:
Please demand legislation to repeal the infamous section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act and to rid this country once and for all of the so-called Right To Work statutes.
Many states are passing this legislation because they want the ability to obtain a job to be without bias and discrimination based on whether or not you are a part of the union. Now that some of these laws have passed can we now say the opposite is true and RTW laws discriminate against folks who are union? Every worker benefits from the union contract, but under so-called RTW laws, some pay absolutely nothing to the union that negotiates that contract. That encourages others to choose to pay nothing, and eventually the union unravels.
Repeal 14(b)!
demand legislation to repeal the infamous section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act and to rid this coun
petitions.whitehouse.govPlease demand legislation to repeal the infamous section 14(b) of the Taft-Hartley Act and to rid this country once and for all of the so-called Right To Work statutes.

Vote No on No Rights At Work for Missouri! (Poll)

The Overpass Light Brigade says it best. 

The Missouri Times is running an online poll on No Rights At Work. You can find it here (upper right of the page). Please take a moment to vote 'No.'

Right now we're winning, 54-46, but let's croak 'em.

Here's what happened at today's hearing in the Missouri Statehouse, according to the Associated Press.

A standing room only crowd spilled into the Capitol hallway Wednesday to watch a Missouri House committee hearing on a bill barring payment of union dues as a condition of employment. 

Union members sat silently as the House Workforce Development committee debated the merits of "right-to-work" legislation. The measure's sponsor, Rep. Eric Burlison, said the measure would increase Missouri's economic competiveness. He said companies are not relocating to Missouri because it is not a "freedom to work state." 

The committee's Democrats argued that the measure would allow people to "freeload" by garnering benefits from a union contract but not paying any dues. 

Meanwhile, Progress Missouri posted audio of national No Rights At Work representatives conspiring with state lawmakers to pass the bill. They were holding a strategy session last night in the State Capitol. You can listen to the audio here.

ALEC pushing No Rights At Work in Penn.

The Benedict Arnold Koch brothers' campaign to impoverish the middle class is moving to Pennsylvania even as working families fight them off in Missouri. 

Bruce Vail at Talking Union reports:

Backed by powerful national business interests, conservative legislators in Pennsylvania announced last week a new push to bring so-called “right-to-work” laws to the Keystone state. State Rep. Daryl Metcalfe said January 22 that he and five other Republican legislators would introduce a package of bills aimed at crippling the ability of labor unions to collect dues from members. 

Pennsylvania labor leaders say the package is part of a broad assault on labor that began in 2010 when the GOP won control of the governor’s office and both houses of the legislature. 

It’s no coincidence that the proposal comes hard on the heels of similar legislation in Michigan ...  the Pennsylvania effort is part of a nationwide campaign against unions by rightwing business groups such as the David Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and the Tea Party organization FreedomWorks... (A) January fundraising appeal by FreedomWorks asking donors to finance a 2013 campaign to de-fund unions specifically named Pennsylvania.

All of these attacks can be linked back to the American Legislative Exchange Council, or ALEC, he says, a business-funded group supporting anti-worker initiatives nationwide. Legislative language in the Michigan and Pennsylvania anti-union bills are strikingly similar to ALEC’s own model right-to-work bill, he notes, and Metcalfe has well-documented ties to the group.

The good news, reports Vail, is that Pennsylvania labor leaders don't think it will pass because there are enough union-friendly Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature.

Let's hope.

No Rights At Work rears ugly head in Missouri today

Missouri workers are packing a Statehouse hearing room right now because politicians are once again trying to ram No Rights At Work through the Legislature.

Missourians rejected No Rights At Work years ago, but the politicians pushing the bill don't care what the people want. Many of them belong to the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers-funded ALEC, so they have access to plenty of corporate cash. (Plus, ALEC will take them on lavish vacations at little or no cost to themselves.) 

ALEC wrote the bill in order to lower working families' standard of living -- and to raise it for the 1 percent. (But you probably figured that out.)

Last night, lackeys for the vast anti-worker conspiracy met to plot with state lawmakers. They included the Koch-linked National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, the Western Michigan Policy Forum (funded by Ponzi scheme Amway heir Dick DeVos) and the National Tax Limitation Committee (founded by a Californian and funded by the tobacco industry).  

Mark Mix, chief stooge for the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, came to testify. 
Democratic Rep. Kevin McManus had a few words for him:

Thanks for coming down here and telling us what's right for Missouri.

So did Rep. Karla May:

Isn't this a national agenda to silence workers?

And Rep. Jacob Hummel asked:

Do the people that didn't vote for you still have to pay taxes to pay your salary, or can they refuse?

Hummel also pointed out that ExpressScripts is bringing 5,000 good jobs to Missouri WITHOUT No Rights At Work laws.

If you live in Missouri, please contact your state representatives today to tell them to stop these attacks on workers. Progress Missouri has a handy form you can fill out here.  If you don't know who your representative is, go here. For your senator, go here.

Hummel: ExpressScripts are moving TO Missouri, a non- #RTW state, bringing 5000 jobs and good wages.

Need a guide to myths and facts about No Rights At Work? You can find one here.

Snyder asks court if Mich. No Rights At Work is constitutional

Say it, Brother Hoogerhyde

File this under: Shouldn't you have thought of that sooner?

Gov. Rick Snyder is now asking the state Supreme Court if the No Rights At Work law can apply to government workers under the Michigan constitution. The Detroit News reports,

Gov. Rick Snyder on Monday asked the Michigan Supreme Court to consider the constitutionality of the new public sector right-to-work law and whether it applies to Michigan's 35,000 unionized state workers. 

In a letter to Chief Justice Robert Young Jr., Snyder asked the high court to decide whether Public 349 of 2012 interferes with the Michigan Civil Service Commission's ability to negotiate union contracts. 

Snyder also asked Young to have the court consider whether the law violates the 14th Amendment equal protection clause of the United State constitution "because the legislation does not apply to all employees in public or private sector bargaining units." 

The public right-to-work law exempts the Michigan State Police and unionized police and firefighters because they are governed by Public Act 312, which gives them special binding arbitration rights.

That's what happens when you ram a bill through a lame-duck session of the Legislature with no committees and no hearings. (So is this.)

Snyder is anticipating legal challenges from unions. His move is seen as a way to bypass those challenges and get a favorable ruling from the high court. The Detroit Free Press reports,

"I think he's reading the tea leaves on this one and trying to find a way to get around an injunction from a lower court and have the Supreme Court take it up immediately," said Robert McCann, spokesman for state Sen. Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing. "He's trying to short-circuit the appropriate legal route on this bill." 

Zach Pohl, executive director of Progress Michigan, a liberal activist group, said the governor's request was both misplaced and "pretty breath-taking." 

"First, the governor bypassed normal committee hearings to sign the right-to-work bill, and now he wants to bypass the normal legal procedure to get the Republican-controlled Supreme Court to rubber stamp that decision," he said.

Mich. senator says, on tape, DeVos $ bought No Rights At Work

This is the doofus who called Dick DeVos an "unsung hero" for buying No Rights At Work.

A Michigan lawmaker blurted out on tape that Ponzi scheme Amway heir Dick DeVos's money was critical to the passage of No Rights At Work last year. 

The legislator, state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, was recorded while speaking to a phony tea party group funded by the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers on Jan. 13. That was just days before a Kansas lobbyist admitted No Rights At Work is about bustin union and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder said it wasn't about jobs.

So in a sudden frenzy of truth-telling, extremists are admitting:

1. Billionaires bought No Rights At Work laws, 
2. No Rights At Work laws are all about busting unions, 
3. No Rights At Work has nothing to do with creating jobs. 

And they're doing it in front of electronic recording devices.

Colbeck gave credit to DeVos and former Michigan Republican Party Chair Ron Weiser for providing “air cover...financial contributions” for lawmakers who wavered in support of No Rights At Work.

Progress Michigan issued a statement:

“It’s amazing what Republican politicians will say to Tea Party activists when they think no one is listening,” said Zack Pohl, Executive Director of Progress Michigan. “This just confirms what we’ve long suspected, that Gov. Snyder’s so-called Right to Work bill was bought-and-paid for by billionaire CEO Dick DeVos. It’s time for politicians like Snyder and Colbeck to start protecting middle class families, not the special interests.” 

Colbeck has a history of accidentally telling the truth when the cameras are on. At a coffee hour with constituents in April 2011, he complained about taking a “40 percent pay cut” to run for office, and said the United States is not a democracy.

The audio of Patrick Colbeck talking about DeVos and Weiser providing “air cover” can be heard here. Colbeck spoke at the AFP-Michigan “Citizens Watchdog Training” on January 19, 2013.

The video above shows Colbeck saying the United States isn't a democracy.

What is it with these people?

Kansas lobbyist admits No Rights At Work is about union busting (video)

A senior lobbyist from the Kansas Chamber of Commerce admits that so-called "Right-to-Work" and "Paycheck Protection" bills are really just meant to bust unions and strip workers of their rights.

Two days later, Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder admitted the No Rights At Work bill he rammed through the Legislature has nothing to do with creating jobs.

But you knew that.

Canada: Better labor laws, 30% union density

Source: Bloomberg News

More workers want to join unions now more than any time since the 1980s -- but in the United States, bad labor laws (such as the No Rights At Work laws that just passed in Michigan) make it hard.

In Canada, better labor laws allow union density to remain stable for years. Bloomberg News reports,

First, Canadian law is simply far more hospitable to unions. Several provinces have bans on temporary or permanent striker replacement, which don’t exist in the U.S. And there is no Canadian equivalent of the “right-to-work” laws that have been enacted in 24 U.S. states, which prohibit unions and employers from requiring employees covered by union contracts to pay for representation. 

A second distinction is the manner in which Canada enables unions to be formed. In the U.S., most private-sector workers who wish to unionize must sign authorization cards, petition the National Labor Relations Board and then vote in an election. The time between the petition and the election often stretches to months, and sometimes for longer than a year. In Canada, the process is relatively quick. Card-check authorization, which is used in almost half of Canadian provinces, allows a majority of employees to form a union at their workplace simply by signing cards stating that they would like to do so...

Bloomberg also notes Canadian officials deal with illegal interference in union drives much faster than they do in the U.S. And Canada has first-contract arbitration, which encourages both sides to quickly negotiate a first contract.

The Employee Free Choice Act would have aligned U.S. labor law more closely with Canada. Sadly, a minority of U.S. senators filibustered the bill in 2009. Sadder still, efforts to reform the filibuster came up short today.

Politico reports,

Senate leaders agreed Thursday on a grand deal to reform filibusters that does little to end the practices that got the filibuster reform movement started in the first place: the ability of individual senators to block legislation or nominations and force the majority party to find 60 votes to get anything done.