PROPPED up by out-of-state interests, extremists in West Virginia are pushing ‘right to work’ legislation that takes away rights from hardworking people trying to support their families.
The AFL-CIO, the US trade union body, has published examples of out-of-state interests pushing this anti-working people legislation:
• Last week, the unofficial leaders of the anti-worker movement in the United States, the Koch brothers, held an exclusive donor meeting at a luxurious locale in Palm Springs, California. Bill Cole, the president of the West Virginia Senate and major proponent of the right to work bill, was one of seven elected officials from the entire country to participate in the event.
• The legislation mirrors model bills promoted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, and the organisation is closely tracking the West Virginia outcome. ALEC receives a significant portion of its funding from entities controlled or funded by the Koch brothers.
• Americans for Prosperity, another Koch-related organisation, has spent significant funds on direct mail and TV ads in West Virginia, pushing right to work, much like it did in Michigan in 2012 and Wisconsin in 2015.
• AFP’s Pete Lund, formerly the sponsor of similar legislation in Michigan, has been promoting the legislation in West Virginia and advising legislators on the bill.
• The Koch-funded State Policy Network as a chapter in the state, the Public Policy Foundation of West Virginia, that serves in a support role for the right to work push, much like similar SPN-related groups did in Michigan and Wisconsin.
• Koch-related groups also are backing a proposed repeal of the state’s prevailing wage. Union-busting policies like those pursued by the Koch brothers are unpopular in the state. Public Policy Polling conducted surveys in several state House districts and found that:
• In House District 1, 51% of voters said they would be less likely to vote for supporters of anti-worker legislation. More than 60% of voters also said that the state would be worse off if fewer workers belong to a union.
• In House District 32, 49% of voters would be less likely to vote for supporters of anti-worker legislation, and 64% said the state would be worse off with fewer union workers.
• In House District 54, those two numbers were 54% and 64%, respectively.
Elsewhere, unions warned they could be decertified, their leaders fined and teachers suspended under advancing state legislation designed to crack down on ‘mass sickouts’ in the Detroit Public Schools.
‘I think that there’s an organisation that’s keeping kids from the classroom,’ sponsoring Senate Education Committee chair Phil Pavlov, R-St. Clair Township, said after his ‘anti-sickout bill’ advanced to the floor in a 4-1 vote.
Pavlov said his bill addresses ‘a glaring hole’ in state law that makes it illegal for teachers to strike. It would speed up an existing process for the Michigan Employment Relations Commission to determine whether a sickout amounted to a strike, and it would penalise participants.
New provisions added in committee would temporarily freeze union dues collection and bar the incumbent bargaining unit from representing teachers for five years in a district where a strike occurred. ‘We’re trying to make sure the kids are getting a good education, and that requires teachers being in the classroom,’ Pavlov said.
Ivy Bailey, interim president of the Detroit Federation of Teachers (DFT), testified against the legislation and said the union did not play any role in organising the sickouts that have led to the closure of dozens of city schools in recent months.
‘There’s a bigger picture here – they want to destroy unions, plain and simple,’ Bailey said. ‘They don’t want to have people with collective bargaining rights, but the thing that really infuriates me is it’s always when Detroit teachers speak up.’
Bailey was among a number of union leaders, parents and other advocates who praised teachers for drawing attention to ‘deplorable’ conditions in Detroit schools. She testified alongside David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan, who held up oversized pictures showing a dead rat and a roof leak in two Detroit schools.
‘They’re refusing to deal with the real issues of what we need to do to address the issues that teachers and the DFT has brought to light regarding the problems in Detroit,’ Hecker said of the Republican bill sponsors. ‘There are building problems, oversized classrooms, lack of supplies and unhealthy conditions in so many of our schools.’
The sickout protests were organised by ousted DFT union president Steve Conn.
Current leadership did not help organise, according to Hecker and Bailey, who nonetheless supported the teacher actions.
‘There were discussions with people that maybe this wasn’t the best strategy,’ Hecker said of the sickouts, ‘but people did what people did because of their frustration because of what they’ve had to deal with’.
Under Pavlov’s bill, union leaders would face a $5,000 fine for each day of a sickout and teachers would lose their pay if the Michigan Employment Relations Commission determined strike conditions were met.
The commission would have two days, as opposed to 60 under current law, to hold a hearing and consider strike allegations. Companion legislation introduced by Sen. Joe Hune, R-Hamburg, would withhold school aid funding to a district that fails to deduct a fine from an employee’s paycheck.
Another bill sponsored by Sen. Dave Robertson, R-Grand Blanc, would require the state superintendent to suspend for two years the teaching certificate of any teacher found to have engaged in a strike. Teachers would first have the right to an administrative hearing.
Hecker called the bills ‘unconstitutional,’ saying they would deny teachers free speech and due process guarantees. Sen. David Knezek, the lone Democrat on the committee, compared the proposed sickout penalties to the state’s initial dismissal of water contamination concerns in Flint.
‘When the teachers brought to light the conditions in the Detroit Public Schools, our first response is to try to punish those teachers!’ said Knezek, D-Dearborn Heights. ‘To me, that is contrary to the type of state government we are running – one that should be responsive to those needs and looking for solutions rather than punishing the whistle-blowers.’
Meanwhile, Chicago Public Schools on Tuesday announced plans to cut $100 million in spending and staff, a move leaders of the Chicago Teachers Union said was an attempt to bully teachers after the union rejected a contract offer. Union leaders said the school district’s move was ‘the latest act of war’ in contract negotiations that have dragged on for 14 months, one that could see 1,000 teachers laid off and ratchet up tensions with union members that last year overwhelmingly supported a strike.
Union members in December voted in support of a strike, though the walkout could not happen until mid-May at the earliest under state labour laws. However, CTU leader Karen Lewis said a walkout could happen sooner.
‘We have dealt with a myriad of lies and financial myths that are designed to create a doomsday narrative needed to provide them cover as they continue with their austerity agenda,’ Lewis said at a press conference at CTU headquarters.
‘Due to their attack, we have no choice but to express our outrage at this latest act of war by rallying against CPS and the bankers who are siphoning off millions from our schools.’
The union staged a rally yesterday outside Bank of America on LaSalle Street, and also closed a union account at the bank, one of the institutions Lewis said has been getting paid fees for ‘toxic swap’ investments by CPS even as the district makes cuts elsewhere.
The deal offered by CPS last week included a promise of raises, no layoffs and a cap on charter school expansion – in exchange for union members paying all of their pension costs. Union leaders said the pledges were empty because a state board could overrule the Chicago Board of Education if it blocked a charter school application, and the district also wanted to offer buyouts in hopes of getting up to 1,500 teachers to retire.
Union leaders last week claimed the proposal was a ‘serious offer,’ indicating they were on board with most of terms. But the union’s Big Bargaining Team, a group of 40 union members that includes teachers, social workers and other school staffers, unanimously voted down the deal on Monday.
Union vice president Jesse Sharkey said on Tuesday that the cuts were a ‘provocation’ that will do little to build union members’ trust in CPS leaders. ‘The board has been threatening layoffs for a long time… If they were going to make cuts they would figure out a way to make cuts, (and) figure out a way to blame the union,’ Sharkey said.
‘Last week, we were looking at an offer from the board that there were no cuts across the board and no layoffs, and they were saying there was no problem with the bonds. What changed this week? Is it that we didn’t take the deal?’
