02 September 2019

Happy Labor Day > Right-To-Work Laws vs Basic Demands For Human Freedom & Dignity

Strike!
Unbreakable human solidarity is what we need, and mass strikes are the strategy to get it.
By Jane McAlevey 
"On August 24, at midnight, 20,000 AT&T workers walked off the job. Big strikes are surprising enough in the post-Reagan era, but this one spanned nine of the 13 states that once made up the Confederacy.
Although slavery officially ended in 1860, the political elite in the South never let go of the idea that large numbers of people should work for extremely low wages with little to no rights or protections on the job. The legal structures that first endorsed slavery and then Jim Crow finally settled on an extreme form of anti-unionism called right-to-work laws. The AT&T strike last week began over basic demands for human freedom and dignity. . .
That strike was not about money; like most strikes, it was about injustice on the job and workers standing up to confront it. Since the spring of 2018, when 34,000 educators in West Virginia walked off the job, closing every school in the state for nine days, workers in the United States have been reviving the strike, their most powerful tool. . . . “Enough is enough already!”
The recent wave of strikes show that American labor will fight to regain ground lost to decades of defeats and setbacks. Today’s rampant inequality—the direct result of a 50-year assault on unions—is getting more attention each time workers walk off the job in disgust and win. A bevy of new policy proposals have been floated on how to rebuild worker power. But that rebuilding is happening precisely because workers themselves are doing it, not because national union leaders, labor think tanks, or presidential candidates have newfangled ideas about solving the crisis of inequality. . . .
WHAT WORKS > Massive strikes, lots of them, in strategic industries—13 of the 16 strikes involving 1,000 or more workers so far in 2019 have been in education or health care, jobs that can’t be easily shipped to another country—and geopolitically strategic states. What clearly won’t work are more endless debates about legislative policy.
To force corporations and the political elite to the negotiating table to reverse income inequality requires workers—and their families, friends, and communities—to create a crisis for capital serious enough to end in a labor win. This isn’t complicated—but it is hard and involves risk.
READ MORE > The Nation: Unbroken Human Solidarity
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RELATED CONTENT:
Here are the states that treat workers the best —
and the worst
Guess which states ban businesses from silencing employees who discuss their salaries.
By Alexia Fernández Campbell alexia@vox.com 
"Workers in Arizona have the right to paid sick leave. Breastfeeding mothers in Oregon get time to pump milk at work.
(The index has three dimensions: Wage policies, worker protection policies, and right to organize policies. This map illustrates the combined scores.)
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Arizona ranks #21       Arizona ranks #21 overall
 #4 for wage policies
 #19 for worker protection policieS 
 #41 for rights to organize.
In Arizona, the minimum wage is $11.00.
How does Arizona score in the policy areas?
Wage policies ranking: #4
  • The minimum wage is $11.00
    This is 42.7 percent of the living wage for a family of four ($25.79).
  • Localities in Arizona have the capacity to raise the local minimum wage if they choose.
Worker Protection policies ranking: #19
Arizona:
  • Does not provide accommodations for pregnant workers.
  • Does not offer protections for workplace breastfeeding.
  • Does mandate equal pay across gender and race.
  • Does not prohibit pay secrecy practices in the workplace.
  • Does not restrict access to salary history to reduce gender and racial bias.
  • Does not mandate job protected leave for non-FMLA workers.
  • Does not mandate job protected leave longer than is required by FMLA.
  • Does not provide some form of paid family leave.
  • Does provide some form of paid sick leave.
  • Does not provide flexible scheduling of worker shifts.
  • Does not mandate pay reporting or ‘call-in’ pay by employers.
  • Does not provide split shift pay regulation.
  • Does not provide workers advanced notice of shift scheduling.
  • Does provide some form of sexual harassment protection in state law.
Right to organize policies ranking: #41*
Arizona:
  • Does have a so-called “Right-to-Work” law (which suppresses unions).
  • Does not provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to teachers.
  • Does provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to police officers.
  • Does provide both collective bargaining and wage negotiations to firefighters.
  • Does not fully legalize project labor agreements to ensure a fair wage to workers on contract.
* 21 states tie for #1.
How does Arizona compare to other states in the region?
Arizona is ranked first in the nation. It leads the nation with laws aimed to improve compensation and conditions in the workplace.
Arizona is ranked last in the nation in compensation, worker protections, and rights to organize.
Arizona is ranked first in the Southwest region. It leads the region with laws aimed to improve compensation and conditions in the workplace.
Arizona is ranked last in the Southwest region. It falls behind the region in compensation and conditions in the workplace.
Arizona and New Mexico rank closely in the labor index.
New Mexico leads the Southwest region through worker protections and livable wages. It has a minimum wage of $7.50 per hour, 29.7 percent of what it takes a family of four to live in the state. In Arizona, the minimum wage is $11.00, 42.7 percent of the livable wage for a working family.
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In New York, employers must give workers two weeks notice of their schedule.
While Congress may not be accomplishing much these days in regards to labor laws, dozens of state legislatures have been super-busy in the past few years giving workers more rights than ever before.
A new report from Oxfam America, an anti-poverty group, analyzed labor policies in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, ranking the best to worst places to work in 2019. Surprisingly, not all the best places to work are liberal states (though a lot of them are there). The states with the worst labor practices, however, are mostly in the South.
Oxfam researchers ranked states by evaluating policies on wages, worker protections, and union rights. . . .
It also notes whether or not state law allows cities and counties to pass their own minimum wage increases; takes into account policies that protect workers from abuse and exploitation, especially women and working parents; and looks at how easy it is for workers in a certain state to form labor unions. Unsurprisingly, Republican-controlled states that have passed right-to-work laws to weaken labor unions fell toward the bottom of the list.
Better work conditions is more than a labor issue, too. Oxfam researchers found a link between states with strong labor laws and states with higher life expectancy, median income, and labor force participation as well as lower poverty and infant mortality rates.
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Groups vow to push ‘right to work’ in other states
12 Dec 2012 by
 Felicia Sonmez
National reporter on The Washington Post's breaking political news team
David A. Fahrenthold
Reporter covering the Trump family and its business interests
EXCERPT
". . . National unions, . . consider the laws a direct attack on their finances and political clout at a time when labor influence is already greatly diminished.
In addition, few Republican governors who could enact such legislation seem eager to bring the fight to their states.
“There is not much of a movement to do it,” Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett told a Philadelphia radio station this week, according to the Associated Press. His lack of enthusiasm was shared by two other governors who have battled with unions, Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich.
States that have enacted right-to-work laws. (The Washington Post/-)
Right-to-work measures like the one Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed Tuesday allow workers to opt out of paying union dues. Advocates say the laws, now in force in 24 states, offer employees greater freedom and make states more competitive in attracting jobs.
 
 
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