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Rig the Vote is the evil opposite of Rock the Vote. Rock is the campaign by a nonprofit to increase political engagement and register young people. Rig is the campaign by the GOP to suppress political engagement and subvert balloting.

The GOP rigged the vote by limiting registration, demanding specific photo ID at the polls and creating hours-long waits in poor and minority districts.  The GOP also connived to re-apportion state electors to the Electoral College. And if six key states had adopted the change, President Obama, who received the majority of the popular vote by a margin of nearly 5 million, would not be president.

All of this was calculated to stifle and sabotage voting by those who lean Democrat, particularly the 47 percent of Americans who Republicans disdain. Republicans, who grovel to the 1 percent, realized they weren’t going to win if they played fair and square by those pesky old American tenets of one-person-one-vote and majority rule. They figured the more Democrats they could prevent from voting, the weightier Republican ballots would become. In this scheme, Republicans wouldn’t have to bother winning the hearts and minds of the majority. Instead, this bull-dozing of democracy would enable rule by the minority.

The minority – specifically Republican Mitt Romney who received only 47 percent of the popular vote – would, in fact, be ruling had the GOP’s Electoral College rigging plot succeeded. Currently, the Presidential candidate who receives the majority of popular votes in a state receives all of its electors, except in Maine and Nebraska. The GOP wanted to change this system, but only in blue states – those that traditionally have voted for Democrats.

Here’s GOP Chairman Reince Priebus endorsing it:

“I think it’s something that a lot of states that have been consistently blue that are fully controlled red ought to be looking at.”

“Controlled red” are those states with Republican governors and Republican majorities in both houses of the legislature. In vote-blue-controlled-red states, which happen to be large and densely populated – Florida, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Wisconsin – the GOP wanted to apportion electors by congressional district. Those districts that voted Republican would get an elector for Romney; those that voted Democrat would get one for Obama. Under this plan, Michigan would have given Romney the majority of electors, 9, while awarding 7 to President Obama, although President Obama won the popular vote in Michigan by nearly 10 points.  This enables the loser to win; it facilitates minority rule. (more…)

On December 11, 2012, Michigan became the twenty-fourth state to enact so-called “right to work” (RTW) laws. Though elsewhere these laws are not a new phenomenon, it was nevertheless shocking when Michigan took the plunge. Michigan, after all, is the birthplace of the United Auto Workers, has provided the backdrop for many historically significant labor struggles and, until December 11, has stood as a bastion of unionization in a country that has seen organized labor dwindle to 11.8 percent of the workforce [PDF].

That RTW could happen in Michigan may tell us something dire about the future of the American dream. Regardless of whether the latter was merely a bill of goods before, Michigan’s RTW statutes now surely reduce that vision to cruel myth. The demotion is assured by the fact that RTW laws severely weaken labor unions, the very institutions created and controlled by workers to improve their economic circumstances. As such, unions are uniquely situated to make rank-and-file dreams a sometime reality. If unions are to be weakened in Michigan, then where will they be strong?

So, what is this law that puts unions and their constituencies into such bleak decline? Despite the name, RTW enactments do not give anyone a right to work that he or she would otherwise not have. A RTW law, instead, permits workers in an organized bargaining unit to refuse to join the union and refuse to pay union dues while still enjoying all the benefits of union representation. Indeed, the union remains legally bound to fairly represent all employees in the unit, whether they pay dues or not. Though this arrangement is unjust in more ways than one, the focus of this article is on the institutional damage RTW statutes wreak upon unions primarily by depriving them of funds. With less funding, of course, unions are less able to organize, negotiate for and otherwise represent employees.

Yet, the US economy has long been structured so that, in all but the coziest of “mom and pop” businesses, employers possess massive power (subject to statutes setting only minimal protections for workers) to dictate the terms and conditions of employment to unorganized workers. This extreme imbalance is caused not only by the privileged position of capital in our society, but also by the circumstance that, when employees have no union, each employee must fend for himself or herself in dealing with the employer. Visualize, for example, a lone worker asking the likes of Boeing or Exxon Mobil for a raise, and the problem becomes clear. (more…)

This was a tumultuous year for working people and their families. From the grassroots uprisings last winter to the low-wage workers’ strikes at year’s end, 2012 saw many people coming together for the first time and finding their voices. Below are the items that I would highlight as the best and worst developments of 2012 in the world of labor and progressive social movements.

The Worst:

Conservatives have repeatedly tried to pass anti-worker legislation under misleading names and false slogans in 2012. This approach hasn’t always worked — California’s Prop 32, which would have unfairly restricted workers’ political speech in the state, failed at the polls in November. Sadly, though, at the end of the year, Michigan’s lame-duck legislature, dominated by a billionaire-funded GOP, passed a so-called “right to work” law. As has happened in other states, the new law will pit Michigan workers against each other by forcing those who pay union dues to represent and bargain for those who don’t. The state has been a union bulwark historically, so this is a sad sign for working people all over the country.

Neoliberal trade policy has continued to undermine the American middle class in 2012. As reporters Donald Barlett and James Steele have documented, the so-called “free trade” deals modeled after NAFTA are part of a pattern that has resulted in huge job losses here in the United States. This year, the Obama administration has been promoting a new pact based on this same model that would create a “free trade zone” made up of ten countries along the Pacific Rim, called the TransPacific Partnership (TPP). As Matt Stoller has said in Salon, the creation of the TPP has mostly flown under the radar, but it could lead to “offshoring of U.S. manufacturing and service-sector jobs, inexpensive imported products, expanded global reach of U.S. multinationals, and less bargaining leverage for labor.” None of this is good for Americans who desperately need jobs to be created here.

Another disturbing trend that continued this year was giveaways of public funds to private companies. As watchdog Good Jobs First documented earlier this year, state and local governments handed out $32 billion to private corporations in the name of job creation, but with no real accountability or guarantees of public benefit.

THE BEST:

Not everything was bad news; there were also some positive developments that offer hope for the future. Four of these were: (more…)

That is what the headlines would say if anyone really believed that the anti-union laws passed last week in Michigan actually had anything to do with the rights of workers. When the legislature outlawed contracts requiring workers who benefit from union representation to pay for that representation, it explicitly exempted the police and firefighters’ unions. If this law was actually about the “right to work,” the Republican legislature and Governor Snyder were effectively denying the right to work to the state’s police officers and firefighters.

Of course this law has nothing to do with the right to work (RTW), as everyone involved knows; that is just the spin from the anti-labor coalition. This is why police unions and firefighters’ unions were exempted. The Republicans were trying to buy off these workers with special favors, not singling them out for punishment.

There is no issue of rights involved in this dispute. The question is whether workers, through their union, can sign a contract that imposes conditions on employment, just as the employer can impose conditions on employment.

When an employer advertises a job, it offers a specific pay and benefit package. If a worker doesn’t like that pay and benefit package no one says that she is being denied the right to work. The obvious answer is that the worker should go somewhere else.

In this case, the question is whether a union contract can require that everyone who benefits from the union’s representation to pay for that representation. (Under the law, a union is required to represent everyone in a bargaining unit, whether or not they join the union.) This is a condition of work, just like the pay and benefit package offered by the employer. And the answer for the people who don’t like a particular union, or unions in general, is that they have the right to work somewhere else.

Republicans have not suddenly developed a fondness for workers’ rights. They know the obvious. If workers are given the opportunity to freeload on the union that represents them, then some workers will take advantage of this opportunity. This will make unions weaker and therefore less effective in bargaining with management. (more…)

Last week, after Michigan became the latest state to pass “right to work” for less legislation, many began to dig into the history of such laws and discovered that one of the earliest pushes for “right to work” came from an extreme right-wing activist Vance Muse, who was staunchly anti-communist, anti-integration and anti-union. Muse was the leader of the Christian American Association, an organization that fought to pass “right to work” in more than a dozen states in the 1940s.

Muse was a Texas conservative activist in the 1930s and 1940s who founded the Christian American Association, the first notable organization to push for “right to work” laws. Prior to the big push for “right to work,” he was involved in opposing women’s rights, child labor laws, integration and Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal programs. Muse and the Christian American Association ramped up their activism in the 1930s as Texas saw massive growth in union membership. Working with conservative business leaders and segregationist groups, the Christian American Association first pushed for so-called “anti-violence” laws that were designed to clamp down on picketing by unions. After they successfully passed that law in Texas and in other Southern states, they moved on to “right to work” in 1945, passing the first such law in Texas in 1947. In Florida and Arkansas, the Christian American Association used messaging that compared union growth to race-mixing and communism.  (more…)

Michigan Republicans are pushing low wages, claiming that “right-to-work” laws will “attract businesses.” Does it work?

Conservatives argue that strong unions cost jobs and anti-union “right-to-work” laws will bring jobs, because companies will move to places where workers are less able to fight for good pay and benefits. What do the numbers tell us?

Last week the far-right CNSNews carried a post, Right To Work States Have Lower Unemployment, Higher Income and Healthcare Coverage, NRTW President Says, quoting the head of the corporate-funded, anti-union organization, National Right To Work. He claimed that passing right-to-work laws not only increases employment but actually increases wages and benefits.

Mix notes that workers in Right to Work states not only tend to have as much as $4,300 more purchasing power, but also are more likely to have health insurance:

“And if you look at the other 22 Right to Work states, you find when it relates to private sector job growth, when it relates to increase in private sector per-capita purchasing power, or adjusted for cost of living, you find those states are doing much better.

“So, there’s lots of data out there that talks about this, including a study from the George Mason Department of Economics. They did a study when, adjusting wages for cost of living, they found workers in Right to Work states have about $2,300 more to spend than workers in forced-unionism states.

More on this in a minute…

The Detroit Free Press took a deeper look at the numbers, in Right-to-work law’s impact on Michigan debatable based on other states, and found that it was inconclusive. While they found that some “right-to-work” states do have lower unemployment, the reasons are not clear.

“You can cherry-pick individual states that have done well,” said Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “What nobody has done is report convincing, statistical evidence that right-to-work by itself makes a statistically discernible difference in economic outcomes, whether for good or ill.”

Hicks studied right-to-work laws and their effects on manufacturing. His findings: Right-to-work can indicate a more accommodating business climate, but the law itself will not attract more manufacturing or result in better wages or employment numbers.

Another factor to consider is the race-to-the-bottom effect as other states (like Alabama) suppress unions even more, forcing wages even lower, and also offer tax incentives to “attract” businesses. From the Detroit Free Press report,

The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based liberal think tank, published an article last week about Indiana’s right-to-work experience that highlighted tax credits and state assistance packages as a less-hyped factor in some businesses’ expansion decisions.

The article noted how Busche Enterprise obtained $750,000 in assistance from the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the state’s main economic development agency and recruiter. The article also noted that Indiana’s right-to-work law didn’t keep Busche from recently acquiring another plant site in October for a separate project in Alabama, its first non-Indiana production site.

Indiana offered up the moon, but Alabama offered up the moon and the stars, so they went with Alabama.

Neither the Detroit Free Press nor CNSNews factored in that their statistics were influenced by states like North Dakota that are currently enjoying an “energy boom.” Also, this idea that these low-wage states have a lower cost-of-living is another way of saying that they are poor. And they are poor because their leadership is offering them up as low-wage states “to attract businesses.”

Energy Boom States

Advocates of pushing down wages and suppressing workers rights use numbers that include the gains in energy-boom states to make their point.

The statistics that show job and wage growth in RTW states rely heavily on gains in North Dakota, Wyoming and other states that are currently having an “energy boom.” This would clearly indicate that the gains have nothing to do with suppression of unions. (Unless suppressing unions causes supplies of energy to suddenly appear under the ground.) (more…)

Apparently, uncertainty is a fate worse than death for a CEO. Billionaires bellyache about it constantly on TV, contending they must know, right now, whether next year’s tax rates will rise. Republicans bewail uncertainty, insisting CEOs must know, right now, whether they’ll get a tax holiday for overseas profits.

Their deep, abiding concern about the ill effects of uncertainty doesn’t extend, however, to the middle class. To Republicans and far too many billionaires and CEOs, weighing down workers with uncertainty about wages, health insurance and retirement is a fate well deserved.

In fact, Republicans in the past two years have gone hog-wild heightening middle class fear and uncertainty. In addition to demanding cuts to programs crucial to middle class certainty like Medicare and Social Security, Republican lawmakers in GOP-controlled states across the country have passed laws prohibiting union security clauses in collective bargaining agreements. This results in weaker unions and lower benefits and wages, not just for union workers but for everyone in union insecurity states.  That creates financial insecurity, the worst kind of uncertainty.

Union security clauses give labor organizations some financial certainty. They require any worker who benefits from a collective bargaining agreement to either join and pay dues or to decline membership and pay a smaller fee covering the cost of union services like negotiation and grievance resolution.

Some states – union insecurity states – forbid these clauses. There’s a total of 24 now, with GOP-controlled Michigan and Indiana joining this year. These governors say their efforts are intended to assist workers in union shops who don’t want to pay anything toward the cost of union services.

So, of course, these governors wouldn’t exclude a union, which would allow that union to retain security while denying it to all the rest. Right? (more…)

On Tuesday, Gov. Rick Snyder signed legislation making Michigan the country’s 24th union insecurity state, citing “more and better jobs” as his reason.

Outlawing union security clauses in labor agreements, which is what Michigan did, doesn’t create good jobs or raise wages. In fact, the nation’s union insecurity states have lower wages and reduced rates of employer-sponsored health insurance.

Union security clauses require workers who receive the benefits of a labor agreement to either join the union and pay dues or decline membership and pay a fee covering a share of the costs of operating the union. Outlawing union security means that a worker can choose to pay nothing, yet still receive the benefits.

That tends to bankrupt unions because they’re required by federal law to provide services to everyone covered by the labor agreement, not just those who pay dues or a fee in lieu of dues. So, for example, if a worker who refused to pay dues is fired, he can demand that the union file a grievance on his behalf to try to get his job back. And the union has to pay the costs.

Economic studies have shown that as union insecurity laws weaken unions, wages and the number of quality jobs for all workers decline.

A study by the political economist Gordon Lafer for the Economic Policy Institute found that union insecurity legislation lowers wages an average of 3.2 percent.  This means that after accounting for all other variables, workers—union and non-union alike—made an average of $1,500 less than their counterparts in union security states.  Workers in union insecurity states also had a significantly lower likelihood of getting employer-sponsored health insurance or a pension.

Lower wages and reduced benefits have a ripple effect throughout the economy.  Smaller incomes restrict consumer spending, which in turn limits economic growth.  The EPI study found that “for every $1 million in wage cuts to workers, $850,000 less is spent in the economy, which translates into the loss of six jobs.”   By lowering wages, union insecurity laws reduce employment. (more…)

Michigan has just passed a corporate servitude law. It is designed to take away many of the worker rights that unions have conferred throughout their history: the right to a living wage. The right to equal pay for women. The right to deferred payments in the form of pensions. The right to negotiate workplace standards and working conditions. The right to overtime pay.

The law is intended to destroy unions, or at least make then ineffective. It says simply that workers do not have to pay union dues to take a job — even if they get benefits previously negotiated by a union. Most workers who don’t have to pay dues won’t pay, and that will defund the unions, killing them and taking away rights unions have fought hard for over generations. Without workers negotiating as a unified group, corporations will not have to grant those union-created rights. Corporations will have take-it-or-leave-it power over individual workers. In short, this is corporate servitude: You do what you are told and take what you are offered.

The deeper truth about unions is that they don’t just create and maintain rights for workers; they work for and create crucial rights in society as a whole. Unions created weekends, the eight-hour workday and health benefits. And through their politics, they have been at the center of support for civil rights and other social justice issues. In short, unions don’t just work for their members. They work for all of us. Including businesses: Workers are profit creators.

Since Democratic candidates tend to support the same progressive views, defunding unions would take away their power to campaign for Democratic candidates. The new Michigan law is thus also a partisan law supporting the Republican party.

Language matters. Republicans understand this better than Democrats. Republicans have called their corporate servitude law a “right to work” law, as if the law conferred a right instead of taking many away. The first principle of political and social communication in cases of conflict is: avoid the other side’s language. The Democrats keep violating this principle, using the Republicans’ name for this law. In this way they are helping Republicans, because using the Republican language activates Republican framing, not just for this law, but for conservative ideology at the deepest level.

Progressives and conservatives have opposing views of democracy. For progressives, democracy is based on citizens caring about each other and acting responsibly on that care, with both individual and social responsibility, to provide through the government protection and empowerment for all. Government thus becomes a means by which citizens pay for public provisions to benefit all: public infrastructure (roads, bridges, hospitals, public buildings), public education, public health and safety (clean air, clean water, safe food, disease protection), a patent office to protection innovations, a justice system, and networks for energy, communication, and transportation. Without all these public provisions, we are not free: Business cannot thrive (if it can operate at all) and we cannot live decent, civilized private lives. It is a deep truth about our democracy: our freedom depends on such public provisions and the private depends on the public. Unions both defend these freedoms and add to them the worker rights unions have created. (more…)