Labor & Employment Law

Attack on Middle-Class Jobs, Workers Is Nationwide

By Mike Hall

The incredible response and mobilizations against the coordinated attacks on workers’ rights and middle-class jobs in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana have grabbed most of the media spotlight during the past few weeks.

But there are other serious assaults under way in dozens of states, pushed by corporate CEOs and their Republican puppets. Perhaps flying lowest under the radar is one of the most drastic measures, one that even its own supporters blatantly call Michigan’s ?financial martial law.?

The so-called emergency managers bill would allow Gov. Rick Snyder (R) to declare a ?financial emergency? in a city or school district and appoint a manager with broad powers, including the ability to fire local elected officials, break contracts, seize and sell assets, eliminate services?and even eliminate whole cities or school districts without any public input, according to the Michigan Messenger.

Last week, more than 1,500 people jammed the Lansing Capitol building to protest the bill during the state Senate?s debate. Ken Bower, a United Steelworker (USW) Local 2-21 member from Escanaba, Mich., said:

I?m here to tell the governor that he has to stop this attack on working-class citizens. Removing the people that we put into office without any check or balance is completely undemocratic.

U.S. Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) warns that that the bill:

empowers this financial czar with the governor?s approval to force a municipality into bankruptcy, a power that will surely be used to extract further concessions from hardworking public-sector workers.

Different versions of the bill have passed the state Senate and House and final action is expected early this week.

In a related note from Michigan, if there is any question what side Snyder stands on?CEOs’ or working people’s?his budget and tax proposals show he is firmly camped out with his corporate friends. Pat Garofalo at Think Progress points out:

Snyder has proposed ending his state?s Earned Income Tax Credit, cutting a $600 per child tax credit, and reducing credits for seniors, while also cutting funding for school districts by eight to ten percent. At the same time, as the Michigan League for Human Services found, the state?s business taxes would be reduced by nearly $2 billion, or 86 percent.

Elsewhere:

• So-called right to work bills have been introduced in more than a dozen states, including Indiana (temporarily off the table), Maine, Michigan and Pennsylvania with Republican legislatures and governors.

• Paycheck deception bills that would silence workers? voices in the election process have been or soon will be introduced in nearly two dozen states, including 15 where Republicans control the legislature and hold the governor?s office, including Florida where the bill was approved by a Senate committee this morning.

• Prevailing wage laws protect communities and workers from unscrupulous contractors low-balling bids on taxpayer-funded construction projects by setting wage rates to the local or prevailing standard. Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), with the support of construction industry CEOs, vows to eliminate Ohio?s prevailing wage law, and legislation has been or will soon be introduced in 19 states, including  nine with dual Republican control.

• In 22 states?12 with Republican governors and legislatures?moves are under way to eliminate Project Labor Agreements (PLAs) that would hurt communities, workers and small businesses by lowering wages.

• Public school teachers and employees are fighting back against assaults in more than a dozen states, including some so-called ?education reform? proposals that are thinly veiled attacks on teachers’ rights and privatization schemes.

• Bills attacking immigrant workers? rights and immigrant children?s education, including many patterned after Arizona?s anti-immigrant law passed last year, have been or will soon be introduced in some 30 states, half of which are Republican controlled.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on March 14, 2011 (boomark / email).