Monthly Archives: February 2013

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Right-to-work legislation has been in the news lately as the newest push by the ruling class to cut the benefits and living standards of the working class. Cleverly named “right”, it exudes freedom just by the sound of the word. In fact it’s quite the opposite. This is part of the austerity drive taking places across the world this one masquerading as an increase in rights. Capitalism in decay has never granted a person more rights (see Nazi Germany). It’s imperative that we look past the rhetoric and see the truth. This is what right-to-work legislation brings to the working class.

Lower Wages
The average worker in a right to work state makes about $5,333 a year less than workers in other states ($35,500 compared with $30,167).1 Weekly wages are $72 greater in free-bargaining states than in right to work states ($621 versus $549).[2]

Fewer People with Health Care
21…

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For the second time in three years, right-to-work legislation has gone down to defeat, 212-141, in the New Hampshire House of Representatives. The bill killed today, like the bill in 2011, would have prohibited employers and labor organizations from including fees for non-union members in collective bargaining agreements.

Opponents argue that right-to-work is little more than a political power grab that does nothing to generate jobs or help the middle class, and in fact drives down both union and non-union wages. Educators, labor organizations, firefighters, small business owners and workers rights groups prepared for this year’s right-to-work legislative push by banding together months before the 2012 elections to help elect a pro-education and pro-worker governor and state legislators.

The state Senate tabled similar legislation last year. More…

via New Hampshire House kills right-to-work bill | Education Votes.

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Bartley Street watch

By Travis Waldron on Feb 19, 2013 at 3:45 pm original article here

Missouri Republicans this month touched off the latest push for a so-called “right-to-work” law, introducing legislation similar to the union-busting laws signed by Republican governors in Indiana and Michigan last year. The right-to-work proposal, which prohibits unions from requiring workers to join, is just one of multiple bills targeting unions that are making their way through the GOP-controlled state legislature. Others would end Missouri’s prevailing wage law and prohibit unions from using dues for political purposes unless workers gave them permission to.

Right-to-work, the most pernicious of the proposals, faces an uphill battle even though the GOP holds veto-proof majorities in both the state House and state Senate. Still, Republicans have been emboldened by successful right-to-work efforts in Michigan and Indiana, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports:

“I’ve seen a momentum building around the country, and I…

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