A little good news...really

 

(This exploited dog has had enough.)

If, like me, you're looking for good news anywhere you can find it, here's a bit: for the first time in many years, union membership grew in 2025. And yes, this happened in spite of the Trump administration's war on federal workers. Numbers were up by almost half a million (463,000 to be exact). The number of workers covered by a union contract grew from around 16 million to 16.5. Much of that gain is in the public sector, but there were gains in the private one as well.

That's still not enough. We desperately need changes in federal labor laws to make organizing easier and make it harder for employers to retaliate. And we need to roll back state anti-labor legislation, restoring prevailing wages for state and local projects, sending "right-to-work-for-less' laws back to their rightful place in hell, and rolling back legislation that defunds public education.  Such policies are deliberately designed to reduce the bargaining power of workers and prevent organizing.

Still, it's a start. In the meantime, audacity and creativity by worker-organizers can prepare the way.

Pro PRO Act

 There are several exciting pieces of federal legislation that are at least getting talked about these days, including the American Jobs Plan, the American Family Plan, the For the People Act and the John Lewis Voting Rights Act are a few. 

One near and dear to my heart is the PRO Act (as in Protecting the Right to Organize), which would basically overturn state anti-union right to work for less laws. (For a look at the slimy and racist history of right to work for less laws, check out this old post.) Undoing RTW(FL) laws would be a huge game changer in terms of raising wages and living standards for all workers, union or otherwise.

In a time when all eyes are on West Virginia, about which I have mixed feelings, our senators are split, with Manchin being in favor (!) and Capito opposed. 

The PRO Act was the topic of a commentary by an influential conservative WV commentator with whom I occasionally agree. It said in part that the PRO Act was "a federal overreach that infringes on the ability of individual states to conduct business and craft their work economies as they see fit."

Uhhh...the states rights argument in favor of regressive policies that keep people down has a pretty ugly history. In fact, I think some people used a version of it to oppose the emancipation proclamation.

Not exactly good company.

Told ya

 Some of the hardest fights and most painful losses of the last few years were the passage of state anti-labor laws in a state with a long and proud union history. Specifically, these include passage of union busting right-to-work-for-less (RTWFL)  and the repeal of prevailing wage for public construction projects. Union members and supporters of working families fought those tooth and nail.

Supporters of these anti-worker bills promised the moon. Employers and workers were supposed to flock to West Virginia with the passage of RTWFL. The repeal of prevailing wage was supposed to save taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. None of those things happened. In fact, the state has lost around 60,000 people since 2015.

WV Governor Jim Justice admitted that these were epic fails yesterday. Here's a snip from MetroNews:

“Really and truly, let’s just be brutally honest,” the governor said about a half-hour into Wednesday night’s town hall. “We passed the right-to-work law in West Virginia. And we ran to the windows looking to see all the people that were going to come — and they didn’t come. We got rid of prevailing wage. We changed our corporate taxes and we’ve done a lot of different things. And we’ve run to the windows and they haven’t come.

“We’ve absolutely built the field in a lot of different places thinking build the field and they’ll come, and they didn’t come.”

 Lots of us were saying "No ****" when we heard that. Unfortunately, the governor was saying that while all those things failed, this time around repeal of the state income tax will REALLY work.

It reminds me of the cartoon Peanuts when Lucy repeatedly held the football for Charlie Brown only to yank it away at the last minute. Will we fall for that again?

The good guys won one

If you're hungry for some good news, working people got some this week when Missouri voters overwhelmingly defeated so called right to work (really right to work for less) legislation. They didn't just beat it by a few percentage points: they crushed it by a two to one margin. This is the first time the union-busting measure was defeated by a referendum.

Here's wishing that West Virginia will remove this blot of shame from the state code before too long.

From the Goat Rope archives, here are a couple of posts on just how evil "right to work" legislation is and the slimy history of its racist origins.

From the WV teachers' strike to the wave of unrest it helped spark to this victory, it's clear that organized workers are a force to be reckoned with--if and when they choose to be.

The good, the bad and the anciently weird

Labor supporters in West Virginia got a boost recently when a Kanawha County judge issued an injunction temporarily blocking the implementation of the recently enacted right to work for less law. I hope she takes her good old time in making a decision, although the case is expected to be concluded within 90 days. It's totally OK with me if it goes longer.

On the downside, outgoing senate president and gubernatorial candidate Bill Cole came out for more mandatory minimums and building more prisons in a state that can't even afford to do adequate flood relief. This would undo the fairly recent growth of common sense on the subject that is supported by many Republicans.I'm hoping that's a nonstarter.

Then there's this odd item about ancient South America from the BBC. Enjoy!

A little good news

I don't know about you, Gentle Reader, but I could use some of that. Here are two items.

First, it looks like 12,000 new and previously uninsured West Virginians signed up for health care on the exchange under the Affordable Care Act. That means there's about 37,000 getting care through the exchange with over 170,000 more getting care under expanded Medicaid.

Second, a judge actually acted with justice (!), siding with the Teamsters union which filed a rat-smelling lawsuit about how WVU may have played footsie with labor- hating  WV Republican legislators on a bogus "right to work for less study." With any luck, the public will get to read redacted emails that went back and forth between legislative leaders and...those people.

And here's a bonus item for cicada fans. Here they come!

Three for a Monday

First, here's a link to the latest Front Porch, in which we discuss:

1.  the recent passage of right to work for less legislation in WV (short version: I didn't like it); and

2. the 2nd Chance for Employment Act, a decent bill introduced in the legislature that would allow first time nonviolent nonsexual offenders to petition the court to have their record expunged after 5 years. If passed, it would likely help lots of folks who made mistakes in the past to move ahead.


Second, here's a great op-ed by an old friend of mine about right to work for less, WV's toxic climate these days and the outside money driving it.

Third,by way of a pal,  here's a look at a weird cave dwelling Slovenian amphibian that people used to think was the spawn of dragons.

More of a tweet than a post (but think about it anyway)

Reckon things like this could have anything to do with things like this?

Such a long day

If I had to come up with a title for a story about the WV legislature today, it would be something like "Beyond Whack."

Among the reasons for this was a public hearing on the Some PeopleReally Hate and are Scared of Gays Act Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which is mostly about protecting the rights of people who hate gays to hate gays in the name of religion.

Before that was another public hearing on proposed right-to-work-for-less legislation at which I spoke against the legislation. It's always nice to hear from out of state billionaire-funded groups talk ****. It was clearly and "all hands on deck" command performance for the various representatives of WV's colonial overlords.

It would be hard to say whether screwing over workers or the politics of cultural jihad are the top priorities this session, but WV would be better off without either.

On the bright side, several hundred people of all ages attended Kids and Families Day at the capitol and tried to support a positive agenda.

I'd really like for all this to be a bad dream from which I will soon awaken.

A new low

The WV legislature hit a new low today, which is kind of an accomplishment these days. The Senate voted along party lines by a margin of one to support right to work for less. That was bad enough, but one Republican senator felt obliged to insult the working people who were watching the spectacle. Meanwhile, the House moved closer to abolishing the state's prevailing wage for construction workers working on public building projects.

On other fronts, this may be the last post for a while. WV is about to get hit hard by a winter storm if predictions are right. Around here, that usually means no phone, electricity, internet or water for several days.

Stay safe!

Some words of Dr. King to consider in WV

 (Image by way of wikipedia. Circa 1963.)

“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.

Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.” —Martin Luther King, speaking about right-to-work laws in 1961

More on a bad idea

This op-ed of mine against right-to-work-for-less ran in today's Huntington Herald-Dispatch.

One piece of legislation likely to be considered in West Virginia in 2016 is misleadingly called "right to work," or RTW. It really has nothing to do with that right but a lot to do with targeting all working families. It's more like "right to work for less."

According to current law, if most eligible workers in a private-sector job vote to join a union in a National Labor Relations Board election, all belong.

And all benefit from wages, benefits, conditions and representation in grievances that membership provides. RTW would weaken unions and ultimately all workers by allowing some to benefit without contributing.

So why care? Consider the following:

1. RTW undermines labor standards. Union workers are likely to earn living wages and benefits that make for a stable family - benefits like health care, sick days, vacations and pensions. Unions also help set the standards for nonunion employers. This is known as the spillover effect. RTW laws would reduce union membership and ultimately weaken the position of all workers.

2. Unions fought for years for policies we sometimes take for granted, like abolition of child labor, overtime laws, basic safety regulations. Weakening unions makes it easier to undermine these programs and policies.

3. Upper Big Branch is an extreme example of what can happen if unions are taken out of the picture. UBB was originally a union mine. After acquiring it, Massey made promises and the union was decertified. Without a union, workers had little voice about working in unsafe conditions. We know what happened next.

4. RTW undermines the democratic process. If workers want to form a union, they have to win an election, which is often difficult due to intimidation by employers. If they win, the union represents all eligible members, who benefit from collective bargaining. If workers believe the union no longer serves their interests, they have another election to decertify it. RTW short circuits this, allowing people to benefit without paying dues.

5. This creates a free rider problem. The union is obligated to bargain for and represent all eligible employees in grievances. But with RTW, some benefit without contributing. This has the effect of ultimately weakening the union, its bargaining power and the benefits it can gain.

6. If workers object to union political activities, they can become a "Beck objector" (the name comes from a court case). This means they can only pay for the costs associated with their representation.

7. If you look at multiple measures of quality of life, RTW states don't come off very well. A while back, Politico came up with a ranking for 50 states and the District of Columbia, looking at things like income, life expectancy, education and graduation levels, crime etc. Only three of the top 10 were RTW, while all five of the lowest were. RTW states made up nine of the top 25 but 15 of the bottom. While Politico didn't explicitly look at labor laws, this at least suggests that RTW isn't a cure-all.

8. Finally, it comes down to whether we want to take the low road or the high road to West Virginia's future. The low road means weakening labor standards and supporting policies that reduce wages and benefits for working people. A high-road approach would aim at lifting people up and dealing with critical problems like education, workforce development, infrastructure, etc.

This shouldn't be a partisan issue. As the libertarian Foundation for Economic Education put it, "Right-to-work laws limit workers' and employers' freedom of contract. They prevent workers and employers from making mutually beneficial agreements. They don't belong in a free society."

Get ready

Working families in West Virginia had better get ready to take some major hits--or, better, to get back to basics and stand up for themselves and each other. One hit coming is the likely push of the Republican led legislature to pass RTW (right to work for less). Another union busting move is a likely attempt to repeal prevailing wage for construction on public projects.

Next in line are teachers, police and other public employees, who are about to get hammered with "draconian" cuts to benefits. Republican leaders want to resist adding money to help with the program's deficit and are blaming the administrators of the program, charges which are refuted here.

In a word, or maybe two or three, depending on whether you count contractions, it's on.

Mark me as a "no"

On the latest Front Porch podcast, we debate "right-to-work-(for-less). Check it out here.

Sheep guts, then and now

In ancient times, the Greeks and Romans would practice augury, which meant seeking for signs on which course of action to take through various means. One method consisted of looking at sheep's intestines. Sometimes, if they didn't get the answer they wanted, they kept on cutting up sheep's guts until they they got it.

Recently, the Republican leadership of the WV legislature consulted the contemporary augurs, to wit, the WVU Bureau pf Business and Economic Research. Having a certain advantage over sheep, they came up with the desired answer right away.

The question was whether right-to-work-for-less legislation would be good for WV's economy. The political leadership wanted to hear a resounding "yes" and it got what it wanted.

Surely this has nothing to do with the fact that the Koch brothers recently gave $5 million to WVU, right?  Hmmmm. Maybe not. Maybe this was a good faith effort. But this isn't the first time plutocrats have bought shares in WVU or many other institutions of higher ed.

Meanwhile, stop calling me Shirley.

Getting it right

This op-ed of mine ran in yesterday's Gazette. It's about the study of right-to-work-for-less mandated by the legislature earlier this year. It also gave me a chance to give some love to one of my dear departed professors.

Most people probably had a teacher or professor who left a mark. One who did for me was late Marshall sociology professor Bill Westbrook, who some readers may recall.

When I knew him, he taught basic and advanced research and statistics, four classes I avoided as long as possible. Given the option, I preferred to BS my way through theory classes. But you couldn’t BS Westbrook.

He taught that doing research right really matters, especially when peoples’ lives are at stake.

A case in point is the Republican-led Legislature’s decision to have WVU study proposed “right to work” legislation (RTW), which I think of as “right to work for less.” I believe this legislation, if enacted, would reduce wages, benefits and living standards for workers across the state, union and non-union.

But love it or hate it, it’s important to get the research right. We’re playing for real marbles.

Westbrook emphasized three things relevant to any credible RTW study: causality, validity and reliability.

We’re great at shooting from the hip about cause and effect. Turn on any talking heads TV show or listen to many conversations and you’ll hear all kinds of wild claims about this causing that.

For example, a friend of mine believes that unpleasant events are caused by the planet Mercury being in retrograde, whatever that means. A school friend once went on an extended rant about how juvenile misbehavior was caused by teaching evolution. (I was tempted to interject that the delinquents I knew didn’t seem to grasp the finer points of natural selection, but he was on a roll.)

Supporters of RTW often claim that huge benefits will follow as a direct result or that harm is done by not implementing it.

I learned from Westbrook that before you can say X causes Y, three criteria need to be met, two of which are easy and one of which isn’t. First, the proposed cause and effect have to be associated or correlated. Second, the cause has to come before the effect. Then the kicker: you have to be able to rule out everything else. Most of the time, direct causality is hard to establish. Often, the best we can do is to calculate how much we can reduce our errors if we take certain variables into account.

Two other key ideas for a credible RTW study are validity and reliability. To be valid, the methods chosen need to be ones that can actually measure what one is trying to study. Thermometers are great for measuring heat, but not so much for measuring speed. Clocks are great for measuring time but lousy for measuring weight. Individual case studies or surveys might be right for some kinds of research but not for others, which may require statistical analysis, controlled experiments or other methods.

Reliability simply means that if others repeat the study using similar valid means, they should get the same result. That too can be a kicker. Several years ago, some scientists made worldwide headlines that they’d discovered cold fusion. If that was really true, it would provide a clean and virtually endless supply of energy. Alas, their research couldn’t be replicated.

Now back to RTW. Recently, two heavy hitting economists, Dr. Richard Freeman of Harvard and Dr. Paula Voos of Rutgers, sent WVU a letter outlining five standards for a credible (i.e. valid and reliable) study of the subject. Here goes:

•  First, the study should measure outcomes most directly impacted by RTW (i.e. weakening unions and lowering wages and benefits), rather than factors such as per capita income, which includes things like profits, dividends and interest income.

n Second, the data should cover a relevant time period, with more recent information given greater weight. “Data that go back to the 1950s or 1960s are less relevant to assessing the likely impact of a RTW law in 2015 than data for recent years, when globalization and inequality have massively changed the U.S. labor market.”

•  Third, the study should select “appropriate and robust statistical design.” This means controlling as much as possible for other factors that could influence a state’s economy and growth, such as geography, natural resources, etc. Translation: not shooting from the hip about causality.

•  Fourth, the study should compare with already existing research and “consult the major, rigorous studies done by other organizations,” particularly a recent study by the University of Kentucky. In addition, “It is critical that any study make its data and methodology transparent and available to the public so that others can test and confirm the results.” Translation: transparency helps ensure the study was valid and its results will be reliable.

•  Finally, the study should rely on quantitative evidence, not anecdotes or testimonies from business groups, unions or other interested parties.

Freeman and Voos argue that this is a big decision that should be made only after a careful look at all the possible upsides and downsides and a careful review of how this would or would not fit in with the state’s economic development strategies.

This is no time to shoot from the hip — especially when West Virginia’s working people are the targets.

It's not all bad

There's a little more than a week to go in WV's legislative session and things are not great by any means but they aren't nearly as bad as they could have been. (Not counting snowstorms, freezing temperatures and floods.)

Some real howlers, like the bill that would ban local anti-discrimination ordinances, got smacked down pretty hard. A bill that would fine teachers for teaching inappropriate subjects didn't go anywhere.

Some other bad bills that died--or appear to have died at this point--are drug testing for TANF recipients, bringing back the death penalty, and right to work (for less).

Some really bad ones got a little better, like scaling back rather than repealing prevailing wage and a wide open campaign bill that threatened to open the floodgates to corporate money from anywhere.

The jury is still out on other issues, like water protection and access to courts for workers and survivors of those killed on the job.

There might even be a decent bill or two passed, like reforms to truancy laws and the juvenile justice system.

I have a pretty wise yoga teacher who once suggested that we use the following mantra as we observe what is happening outside and inside of ourselves: "It's like this now."

So, yeah, it's like this now.

Strange bedfellows

This item from the NY Times caught my eye today. It looks like groups across the political spectrum--from Koch Industries and Freedom Works to the ACLU and Center for American Progress--are uniting to support policies to reduce the US prison population and recidivism.

One thing I'm hopeful about in the WV legislature is that there may be similar agreement about reducing the number of children in the juvenile justice system. I mean, really. If those guys can agree on the need to make the adult system a little less awful, one would think we could do something like that here for young people in the system.

IT'S NOT ALL LOVE-AND-HUGS. Here's an op-ed by a friend of mine on why right to work (for less) is a bad idea.

Racing to the bottom

I've been unusually prolific in writing op-eds in the Charleston Gazette lately, mostly because things are so awful. Here's the latest, about efforts to bring right-to-work-for-less to WV. Somebody has to feed the trolls.

It’s starting to feel like open season on working people at the state Capitol.

First, the Senate Government Organization committee pushed through a bill attacking West Virginia’s prevailing wage law, which could reduce the number and quality of local jobs for local workers. It could also compromise worker safety while opening the door to cheap, low-quality labor from out-of-state for public projects.

If that wasn’t enough, there is also likely to be a push for misnamed “right to work” legislation, which has nothing to do with the right to employment. It can more accurately be called “right-to-work-for-less.”

If enacted, it promises to speed up the shrinking of what remains of the middle class in West Virginia and adversely impact non-union as well as union workers.

Here’s a brief summary of the situation: As things now stand in free labor states like West Virginia, if the majority of eligible workers in a private sector site vote to join a union in an election overseen by the National Labor Relations Board, all workers belong to the union.

Getting to that point isn’t easy, as some employers intimidate workers in an effort to discourage or defeat the election.

Once in a union, all workers then have the right to representation in the event of grievances and all benefit from the wages, job safety, benefits and working conditions negotiated by the union, which can be substantial.

After a successful vote to organize, if the majority of workers no longer want to be represented by the union, they can petition for a vote to decertify the union.

(Historical note: the coal miners who worked at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine were once represented by the United Mine Workers union. Once Massey acquired the mine, it was successful in pushing through an election to decertify the union. You know how that story ended.)

The current process for union representation is no different from any other kind of election. For example, if the majority of voters elect someone to political office, that person will generally serve in that position until he or she retires or is voted out of office. Or if duly elected representatives pass a law, that law goes into effect until it is repealed by other legislation or declared unconstitutional by the courts.

Further, if a union member conscientiously objects to the use of union dues to support other purposes than direct representation, he or she has the right under the Supreme Court Beck decision to pay reduced dues that only cover those expenses.

Right-to-work-for-less laws undermine the basic democratic process. In states that have such legislation, unions are legally obligated to represent all workers, even those who don’t support the costs of such representation. The free riders get all the benefits of membership without contributing to the cost of getting them. In the end, this drags down wages and benefits for everyone.

If that kind of thing applied to other areas, I suppose you could drive 100 miles per hour in a school zone if you didn’t want to be represented by the officials who set the speed limit.

So much for the technicalities of the law: Why should we care about this?

n First, if right-to-work-for-less laws were a cure-all for quality of life and well-being, we’d expect states that have them to be at the top of the list on such things. However, last year, Politico compiled the results of 14 state rankings on quality of life issues, such as income, education levels, graduation rates, life expectancy, crime, etc. They came up with a ranking for 50 states and the District of Columbia. It didn’t specifically look at labor laws.

Only three of the top 10 states ranked for quality of life had right-to-work-for-less laws. On the other hand, all five of the lowest-ranked states did. Right-to-work-for-less states made up only nine of the top 25 states, but 15 of the bottom 25.

That reminds me of some drug commercials on television, where side effects sound worse than the conditions the pills aim to cure.

n Second, wages for all workers are lower in right-to-work-for-less states than in free labor states. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the average worker makes $1,500 or 3.2 percent less per year in those states than comparable workers in free states, even if you factor in differences in the cost of living.

n Third, a 2011 study found that employer-provided health insurance and employer-sponsored pensions were both lower in those states than in free labor states.

It’s true that union members generally earn higher wages than their non-union counterparts. They are also more likely to have health care benefits, paid sick leave, vacations, and pensions. Those are the kinds of benefits that make for stable families and communities.

However, there is a positive “spillover effect” from union to non-union workers. Many non-union employers offer competitive wages and benefits due to the standards set by collective bargaining agreements. Some employers even pay higher than union wages to avoid unionization.

Further, some of the basic things that we take for granted as part of living in a decent society are hard-won gains that union members fought and sometimes died to gain for everyone. These include things like the abolition of child labor, basic safety regulations, limits to the hours someone can be compelled to work, overtime laws and programs such as Social Security.

In the public policy arena, union members frequently support legislation that benefits all workers, not just union members. To use a local example, last year, unions supported an increase in the state minimum wage, even though their members earn higher wages. Labor has also been in the front lines of other struggles for justice, such as the Civil Rights movement.

Bottom line: if extremists in the West Virginia Legislature push this law through, it won’t just affect union members. It will drag down many more working families and communities and speed up our race to the bottom.

On being blinded with science too many times

OK so I got this new used car when my Old Faithful was on its last legs. As part of the deal, I got three free months of satellite radio. My experience therewith reminds me of Bruce Springsteen's song 57 Channels (and nothing on).

I think this is a case where legislation is in order. For example, in a just and rational world, any 80s music channel should be required to play Safety Dance at least once an hour, with Sledgehammer following close behind. Instead, I've heard She Blinded Me with Science more times in the last week than in that entire decade.

And don't even get me started on the 90s. As far as I can tell, the only musical justification for that decade was Counting Crows doing Mr. Jones and I haven't heard that one yet either.

I guess I'll keep listening to recorded books.

WORSE THAN WISCONSIN: Michigan.

MORE ON THAT here.

THE CLIFF THING. Here's an interesting look at public opinion.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED