Labor & Employment Law

U.S. Workers Fighting to Keep What Other Countries Want

By James Parks

While workers across Egypt and other nations are marching in the streets to advance their countries toward democracy and a better life, workers in the United States are facing attacks on every advance they’ve gained in decades. Case in point: yesterday, three state legislatures tried to weaken unions with so-called “right to work”  laws.

Also the states’ battlefront, Indiana teachers  are fighting to protect public education. See video.

No one is working harder at reversing the course of history than Missouri state Sen. Jane Cunningham. After she introduced legislation to abolish child labor laws, yesterday the committee she chairs approved a “right to work” bill. At least one of the seven Republicans on her committee sided with workers and refused to vote for the bill.

In New Hampshire yesterday, the state House of Representatives also dumped on America’s workers when it passed a “right to work” bill by a margin of 221-131. Forty Republicans and all 91 Democrats voted against the bill. The bill now goes to the state Senate where workers believe they have a chance to kill the bill.

And then there?s Ohio, where Gov. John Kasich has declared all-out war on workers. But Ohio’s workers are fighting back in a big way. More than 1,000 people showed up yesterday at a hearing to oppose “right to work” laws in the Buckeye State.

This is the second time in a week that Ohio workers packed a legislative hearing room to oppose Republican efforts to take away their freedoms. Last week hundreds of firefighters, nurses, sanitation workers, bus drivers and other public employees pushed back against a bill to  eliminate bargaining rights for  state workers. The Columbus Dispatch said the turnout of workers “was remarkable for an initial bill hearing.”

It not only filled the large hearing room to capacity?stacked three deep in the balcony?but also spilled into two other rooms and the spacious atrium.

Meanwhile in Indiana, teachers are fighting back against Gov. Mitch Daniels? attack against public education that would make it easier for charter schools to operate under far less rigorous standards than public schools.

This video from the Indiana Federation of Teachers (IFT) shows teacher from around the state explaining why Daniels? plan would result in less quality education and harm the state?s students. Says Marci Cochran, a Literacy Data Coach:

That charter school bill will allows those buildings to be run an administrator who has no background in education, and worse than that the legislation will allow for 51 percent of the teachers to not have a college degree in education.

Says IFT President Rick Muir, ?Public education for every child cannot be dismantled.?

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 16, 2011 (boomark / email).