The bills in the House and Senate are ALEC model bills, inspired by none other than Wisconsin union-buster Gov. Scott Walker. Quick story: In early 2011, Walker pushed and passed a preemption law in Wisconsin, completely invalidating the will of Milwaukee voters who had just passed a sick days ordinance.
And, as if by magic, preemption bills have been introduced in Michigan, Mississippi, Washington, Arizona, Indiana, and Oklahoma. Such laws are already on the books in Wisconsin and Louisiana. Just this week, a preemption bill passed both houses of the Florida legislature. Textbook ALEC.
In Michigan, along with statewide mothers’ organization Mothering Justice, Working America delivered petitions signed by over 2,500 Michiganders to the Michigan Restaurant Association and the state legislature.
All workers deserve the opportunity to earn paid sick days, so that not another person has to make their choice between going to work sick and not making rent, or not being able to eat, or not being able to care for their child.
But even the threat of workers in a few cities and towns having this basic right has the restaurant lobby and ALEC running scared, using their politician pawns to introduce ridiculously undemocratic preemption bills that won’t create a single job. Since when did these “small-government” obsessives get into the business of telling cities and towns how to conduct their business?
Arizona Governor Jan Brewer and her allies in the state legislature are seeking to use millions of dollars intended for struggling homeowners to pay for prison construction and tax cuts instead, echoing a policy put in place earlier this year in Wisconsin by Governor Scott Walker.
Remember the $26 billion foreclosure settlement, the one agreed upon by the five biggest banks and 49 state Attorneys General? As one of the hardest hit states, Arizona is getting $1.6 billion, as well as an additional $97.7 million to be overseen by the office of Attorney General Tom Horne, to be used for “housing counselors, legal aid, hotlines, and to help stressed homeowners with their payments.”
Two main things to understand about these funds: they are wildly insufficient given the scale of the problem, but all the same they are extremely crucial. In March, Arizona had the highest foreclosure rate in the country, according to RealtyTrac, with 9,497 foreclosures. If any state needs all the help it can get when it comes to homeowner education, assistance, and relief, it’s Arizona.
Even so, Governor Brewer and Republican state legislators want to siphon $50 million from those funds to “relieve pressure on the budget.” So in other words, use money intended to help homeowners for…other things.
Lawmakers say the money amounts to a pricey outreach and education fund. It won’t hurt to take half of it, House Speaker Andy Tobin said.
“We’re using the funds to relieve the pressure on the budget,” said Tobin, R-Paulden. Those stresses range from a push to replace welfare dollars lost to federal budget cuts to prison construction, he said.
How is this justified? You can thank a loophole in the settlement language, which says the funds can be used “to compensate the state for costs resulting from the alleged unlawful conduct of the defendants.” Arizona lawmakers like House Speaker Tobin are claiming that since foreclosure fraud hurt homeowners, which in turn hurt tax revenues and by extension the state budget, they can use the money for whatever they damn well please.
They can make this logical jump without acknowledging a.) that the big banks committed any actual fraud, or b.) that maybe Gov. Brewer’s $538 million tax handouts to businesses has anything to do with budget problems.
In February, Walker and Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen decided to use $25.6 million of Wisconsin’s share of the foreclosure fraud settlement to plug holes in his state budget. For justification, he used the very same loophole in the settlement language:
“Just like communities and individuals have been affected, the foreclosure crisis has had an effect on the state of Wisconsin, in terms of unemployment. . . . This will offset that damage done to the state of Wisconsin,” Walker said.
A week later, Missouri followed suit, taking $40 million from their share for the state’s general fund. Ohio decided to allocate $75 million meant for homeowner assistance to actually demolish vacant homes. South Carolina legislators insidiously pushed for using $31 million of settlement funds for corporate tax breaks.
Of all the horrific policies that have come out of the offices of governors like Walker in the past two years, this is one of the worst – and the most under-reported. With Walker and Brewer giving out huge tax handouts to businesses, cutting services and education, and then dipping into foreclosure fraud assistance to pay for their bad decisions, they are no different than a modern day Bonnie and Clyde. Robbery in multiple steps is still robbery, even if you’re a governor.
But at least two of those anti-union bills, including one that would outright ban collective bargaining for state workers, are on the rocks – and we may have pro-worker Republicans to thank for it.
On Tuesday, however, two Republican leaders in the Senate told the Arizona Guardian (sub. req.) they don’t have enough votes to keep the bill alive.
“Senate President Steve Pierce and Senate Whip Frank Antenori expressed serious doubt that there were enough Republicans in the upper chamber willing to pass a bill ending collective bargaining,” the Guardian reported. Antenori described the bill’s chances as “questionable.”
Even Gov. Brewer, no stranger to controversy, is keeping the collective bargaining bill at an arm’s length. “All I can tell you definitively,” said Gov. Brewer’s spokesman Matthew Benson, “is that…there was no coordination with the governor or her office in the development of those bills.” Benson also said that if the bills reach the Governor’s desk that she would “weigh them on the merits.”
That’s political speak for “please don’t write in the paper that these bills were my idea.”
As Dave Dayen writes at Firedoglake, this is the departure from the pattern of 2011. In Wisconsin, it’s been well-documented that Republicans pulled out all the stops to ram through their anti-union “budget repair” bill. In Ohio, which has a much stronger labor presence than Arizona, Senate Bill 5 was passed the same way. And of course, in Indiana last month, Speaker Bosma and Gov. Daniels risked enormous Super Bowl protests to push through a ban on fair share clauses.
We’re remaining vigilant on this issue: even though Arizona GOP doesn’t seem fully behind the collective bargaining ban, that bill has already been passed out of committee, and could get a full vote any day.
Besides, two other anti-worker bills will see a vote today: one would prohibit the government from paying an employee for union activities, while the other would prohibit automatic deduction for union dues which help pay for basic representation. Arizona already has a ban on fair share clauses for all workers.
Until we hear official commitments to keep basic rights for public workers from legislators on both sides of the aisle, there’s no reason to assume these attacks on workers won’t continue. But the apparent lack of interest in the war on workers (in a state that has never backed down from useless, punitive, ALEC-inspired laws) is a heartening, if small, sign of hope.
Yesterday afternoon, a crowd of 100 assembled on the lawn of the Arizona State Capitol to hold a press conference to oppose four anti-worker bills under consideration by the state Senate. Representatives and supporters of AFSCME, AFL-CIO, education and a public safety union demanded that Gov. Jan Brewer and Rebublican state legislators put hard-working Arizona families above corporate interests. State Sen. Steve Gallardo, a Democrat and AFSCME member, kicked the event off with a rousing speech in support of unions and against special interests trying to cut the pay and benefits of teachers and emergency responders.
It’s time for us to say enough! Let’s not let these bills see the light of day. Let’s focus on the real priorities of the state of Arizona—jobs, the economy, health care, education. Those are the priorities of Arizona, not the type of legislation that is pushed by the Goldwater Institute.
Gallardo went on to demand that the Goldwater Institute register as a lobbyist, as every other organization that influences legislation in Arizona has to do. (Watch his speech here.)
Some local reporters covering the press conference were surprised that much more ire was directed at the Goldwater Institute and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) than at Republican state senators. This might serve as a cue to them to go after these powerful groups with more vigilance than they’ve shown up to now.
Last year, the War on Workers came to Ohio, Florida, New Hampshire, Maine, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and most notoriously, Wisconsin. Seemingly identical bills containing collective bargaining restrictions sailed through statehouses all over the country in 2011, and 2012 is proving just as dangerous to workers’ rights.
Gov. Mitch Daniels and the Indiana legislature kicked off the year by ramming through a right-to-work law, with identical measures making their way to ballots in Ohio and Minnesota. This week, Arizona shocked workers advocates by introducing four bills with the most egregious attacks on workers’ rights in the country.
Now two new fronts have opened.
In Utah, legislators introduced a measure that Democratic Rep. Brian King called “our little version of Scott Walker.” See if this sounds familiar:
A bill introduced last week in the Utah legislature would ban government employees from collectively bargaining on any issue except for wages and health benefits. The proposal would bar unions from having a say in things like training, equipment and disciplinary procedures.
Like Arizona, Utah is already a “right-to-work” state, so these measures are completely punitive, political, and intended to put politicians in charge of the decisions that affect workers lives.
In South Dakota, we had some luck. Again, this is also a “right-to-work” state with a low 5.1 percent union density. Average state worker salaries have actually been decreasing in South Dakota. But that’s not enough for the anti-worker crowd, who want to remove any chance of working families advocating for themselves and their future.
A ban on public worker collective bargaining was introduced by Republican Rep. Brian Liss, but was quickly killed by lawmakers in a House committee. Liss was the only one who spoke in favor of the bill. In fact, Liss’s co-sponsor in the Senate, fellow Republican Sen. Stan Adelstein, withdrew his support after “conversations with friends and supporters on both sides of the aisle,” according to Stateline.org. “The bill would be in opposition to my values of supporting fair compensation, and recognition for our state’s capable public employees,” said Adelstein.
Sen. Adelstein’s comments reflect a barely noticed trend throughout the War on Workers. For the most part, the battle lines on collective bargaining issues have been based on party. But the attacks have been revealing moderate or otherwise reasonable Republicans who are recognizing these efforts for what they are: punitive, unnecessary, and not at all related to creating jobs and getting the economy back on track.
This is going to be especially important as we fight back against the War on Workers in states like Utah and Arizona, where Republicans dominate the legislatures.
Last week, while many of us were focusing on Indiana’s “right to work” fight and the Super Bowl, the Arizona legislature introduced four virulently anti-worker bills. They are as follows:
SB 1484 would require public employees to “obtain authorization for any third party payroll deductions.”
SB 1485 would prohibit any public sector collective bargaining. This goes much farther than Scott Walker’s law in Wisconsin. This means no bargaining at all for teachers, nurses, firefighters, or police officers. It also preempts any local laws allowing for collective bargaining.
SB 1486 also outlaws public sector collective bargaining and prohibits a public employer from compensating an employee for “third party or union activities.”
SB 1487 again outlaws payroll deduction for all public sector union dues.
Translation: the Arizona legislature wants to make sure that all public workers are stripped of anything remotely resembling union representation. Arizona is already a “right-to-work” state, but these four bills make all pertinent union functions illegal. Filing a grievance would become nearly impossible. Contract negotiations would be completely one-sided.
Just like the case of Issue 2 in Ohio, this bill would keep public safety workers from bargaining for the parts of their jobs that keep them alive. Nurses couldn’t bargain for adequate staffing levels. Firefighters couldn’t bargain for the right equipment.
And if the legislature decides that the good bullet proof vests cost too much, and that they’d rather spring for the bargain basement bullet proof vests, because hey, times are tight, Arizona’s police officers would just have to accept that.
This is what these bills do. They take the decisions of the workers themselves and put them in the hands of politicians. In other states, the professionals that make up the public sector unions can band together and say “when it comes to keeping ourselves alive, we know best.” But with these Arizona bills, that voice is gone – made completely illegal.
These four bills do nothing to create jobs in Arizona. These four bills do nothing to address the homeowners on the brink of foreclosure. These four bills do nothing to invest in Arizona’s students, its children, or its future.
Our friends at AFSCME have launched a new website, “Razing Arizona,” to tell Arizona lawmakers to reject these bills. Please sign, share, and help spread the word. This is warfare against the middle class, and we can’t let them win.
Indiana became the 23rd state to institute a so-called “right to work” law yesterday. Across the country these laws have depressed wages for union and non-union workers alike, and have contributed to unsafe working conditions.
Unfortunately, anti-worker forces in other states are looking to follow Indiana’s lead.
An Ohio group has been cleared to continue its effort to push a ballot initiative that would keep workers covered by labor contracts from having to join a union or pay dues.
Attorney General Mike DeWine on Wednesday said Ohioans for Workplace Freedom has provided a “fair and truthful” summary of its proposed right-to-work amendment.
A bill to put the right-to-work issue on the November ballot is being authored by state Republicans Sen. Dave Thompson from Lakeville and Rep. Steve Drazkowski from Mazeppa.
Some Michigan Republicans have been pressuring Governor Snyder to get behind a right to work bill in Michigan but he wants nothing to do with it, reiterating during congressional testimony yesterday that it would just bring everything to a grinding halt in Lansing.
The political situations in all of these states are different, but fortunately they are all tougher terrain for union-busting bills than Indiana.
Ohio’s Gov. John Kasich has not expressed interest in making “right-to-work” a priority, especially after his similarly anti-worker Senate Bill 5 got overwhelmingly spanked last year at the polls. “If people in this state feel that you need right-to-work, I don’t think people even know what that is,” Kasich said. That’s politician code for “please, leave me out of this.”
Michigan’s Governor Rick Snyder is trying to position himself as the moderate of the freshman bunch. Talking about the backlashes in Wisconsin and Ohio, Snyder indicated he doesn’t want a similar situation in Lansing. “If you want to draw it as a contrast, you look at now that they’ve had those things happen, do they have a productive environment to solve problems? Not necessarily,” he told the Huffington Post, “They’re still overcoming the divisiveness, the hard feelings from all of that.”
And thanks in part to Working America pounding the pavement in 2010, Minnesota working families have an ally in Governor Mark Dayton, who opposes right to work. However, he doesn’t have the power to veto constitutional amendments proposed by the majority of the legislature. The current effort by Republican legislators is to put the issue on the November ballot.
All these efforts pale in comparison to Arizona’s blitzkrieg against public unions that caught workers by surprise this week. A series of bills were introduced late at night on Monday and passed out of committee just 48 hours later – including a Wisconsin-style bill that would ban unions from representing any state, county, or municipal employee.
A high profile New York Times piece talked about Republican governors moderating their agendas in 2012. We’ll believe it when we see it. For now, all we’re seeing is a continuation of 2011’s all-out war on workers, and a complete nationwide negligence of the jobs and unemployment crisis.
For political newcomers, here’s what you need to know: the good guys won.
Not only did we win. We won big. We won in friendly territory and difficult terrain. And the credit for our victories belongs firmly to the working men and women – union and non-union alike – who were fighting for their rights, their jobs, their values, and their future.
Ohio
When John Kasich was sworn in as Ohio’s Governor at the beginning of this year, he didn’t immediately focus on job creation, as he had promised during the 2010 campaign. Instead, he launched a full scale attack on the rights of Ohio’s teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public workers. Senate Bill 5 was signed into law, restricting the collective bargaining rights of over 350,000 workers in Ohio.
What happened next was incredible. Working Ohioans joined petition drives all across the state to get a repeal of Senate Bill 5 on the November ballot. Among them were Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, and moderates who were outraged over Kasich’s overreach and callousness toward the working people of the Buckeye State; the idea that public workers should serve as an ATM while corporations saw tax reductions offended them. Many police officers and firefighters who traditionally voted for Republicans joined the effort against SB 5; they knew that public safety workers, not politicians, know best about the staff and equipment they need to protect Ohio’s communities.
John Kasich’s allies, including the Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity, Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, and a host of other shadowy out-of-state groups, poured millions into Ohio to protect Senate Bill 5. They tried every dirty trick in the book. But in the end, Issue 2 was defeated by a massive 21 point margin. In fact, more people voted to repeal Senate Bill 5 than to elect Governor Kasich. We’ll have more on what this Ohio victory means later today.
Maine
In June, Maine Governor Paul LePage signed LD 1376, which banned the practice of registering to vote on Election Day. Same-day registration had been in place in Maine for 38 years without any problems, but backers claimed it would “cut down on election day mistakes,” and “cuts down on voter fraud.” Maine GOP Chairman Charlie Webster was less subtle, saying same-day registration allowed Democrats to “intentionally steal elections.” Did Webster fail to notice Maine’s two Republican U.S. Senators and Republican Governor? This was just another attack in the nationwide war on voting rights, which has spread to Wisconsin, Ohio, Florida, South Carolina, Georgia, and many other states.
Luckily a collection of organizations including the Maine People’s Alliance and Working America formed Protect Maine Votes, and gathered 70,000 signatures to restore same-day registration. Question 1 on yesterday’s ballot passed by a wide margin, with nearly 60 percent of the vote. With last nights victory, the people of Maine have started the fight back against the war on voting.
Why does this matter? County Executives often become candidates for statewide office. The Democratic candidate for governor in 2010, Dan Onorato, was Allegheny County Executive. In Wisconsin, a certain Mr. Scott Walker held the seat of Milwaukee County Executive from which he launched his gubernatorial campaign.
Michigan
It’s what Chris Savage calls “the little recall that could.” Of all the races last night, it was the recall of anti-teacher Michigan Rep. Paul Scott that faced the steepest climb.
Paul Scott is the kind of politician we all wish we could remove from office: Ambitious, ideological, and a outspoken opponent of his state’s teachers and teachers’ union. His attacks on education as the Chair the House Education Committee lead to a grassroots campaign to unseat him. Of the 47 attempts to recall Michigan legislators this year, only Paul Scott’s succeeded.
The story then has a lot of legal twists and turns. But for us, the most amazing part of this story happened last night, when the recall passed by 197 votes out of 24,371 cast. Talk about “every vote matters!”
Iowa
Iowa has a Republican Governor and a rabidly conservative House. The lower chamber in Iowa has passed measures attacking the state healthcare system, making huge cuts in education, and restrictions in collective bargaining rights.
Arizona
State Senate President Russell Pearce was known as a key mover and shaker behind Arizona’s controversial immigration law, SB 1070. He was also an opponent of workers’ rights, once “joking” that he wanted to throw union protestors in desert tent prisons. We didn’t find that joke very funny, and neither did the people of Arizona. By a seven point margin, voters removed Pearce from office and replaced him with moderate Republican Jerry Lewis.
Did we miss any races? What were you watching last night? Let us know in the comments or on Twitter at @WorkingAmerica.
