SB 451 is the third wave of the war on workers

Senate Bill 451 is the third wave of major attacks on working people in West Virginia. Each wave targeted a particular group of workers by weakening unions, the organizations that protect their interests. And many people may not realize that unions that help set work standards and advocate for policies that benefit all workers, not just their own members.

Here are the basics: there are three main types of unions: industrial, craft unions (often building trades) and public sector unions--and each in turn has been targeted. Here's how:

Industrial unions. When Republicans (just a fact) gained control of the WV legislature in the wake of the 2014 elections, they moved quickly to undermine industrial unions through so-called "right to work" (RTW) legislation, which is really right to work for less.

RTW undermines the democratic process. In a free labor state, workers vote whether or not to join a union. If the majority votes yeas, all are members and are covered in the contract the union negotiates. If the majority decides they no longer want to be union members, they can have another election to de-certify the union.

With RTW, workers can continue receive the benefits of union membership--wages, benefits, hours, conditions--without paying dues, even though the union is obligated to represent them in grievances. The end result is weaker unions, which ultimately leads to worse conditions for all workers, union or non-union.

Craft unions. For many decades, construction workers were protected by a prevailing wage laws, which was designed to ensure that workers on public construction sites were paid decent wages. This was designed to protect the public against fly by night contractors that use cheap and often unskilled labor and to protect local skilled workers. Building trade unions generally offer apprenticeship programs that guarantee a trained and skilled workforce. Non-union contractors are under no such obligation.

In 2016, the Republican-led legislature (again, just a fact) repealed West Virginia's prevailing wage laws.

That leaves...

Public employee unions. Probably the largest group of public sector workers protected by unions or workers' associations are those in the education field, including teachers and school service personnel. In some places, public sector workers have collective bargaining rights. In WV, they don't as of know, but still advocate for members and represent them in the workplace.

Senate Bill 451 goes after them by the so-called "paycheck protection" provision, which is more like "paycheck reduction. It makes it more difficult for workers to pay dues to the organizations that represent their interests. It also adds a penalty for work stoppages.

The biggest threat, however, is that of undermining public education altogether via charter schools, education savings accounts, and privatization. Teachers in charter schools aren't required under 451 to be covered by PEIA or the teachers' retirement system. Private entities can set their own payment and standards.

Conclusion: at least they're consistent. And working people need to be just as consistent, by showing solidarity with all workers, regardless of industry or type of union or any of the many ways rulers have tried to divide us. And, let's face it, it's high time to recognize the pattern.

KANT STAND IT

Caption: Lily is completely Kantian

This is official Immanuel Kant Week on Goat Rope. El Cabrero has long been a fan of this somewhat obscure Prussian philosopher who lived between 1724 and 1804. He was famous for his contributions to moral philosophy, enlightened political theory, and epistemology or the theory of knowledge.

He didn't get out much, being pretty much a fixture of Konigsberg, where he lived a life of such regularity that it was said you could set your watch by the time of his daily walks.

Although I can't claim to have made it all the way through his major work, The Critique of Pure Reason, I'm pretty convinced by its main argument. Basically, it's this: we don't see the world as it is but as we are. The mind is not a passive blank slate or tabula rasa on which sensory experience makes its mark.

Instead, it actively organizes our perceptions into mental categories like space, time or causality. Although our knowledge can be fairly secure within that sphere, we can really only know the world of phenomena or appearances, not the numina or things in themselves.

He also believed that we couldn't know metaphysical things like whether God or immortality exist through pure reason alone, since we could make equally convincing arguments on both sides of any issue. He postulated that such beliefs could be inferred instead through practical reason such as the moral sense.

The part of Kant that I'm going to brood about this week is his philosophy of history and human destiny, which he lays out in a pretty clear (for him) essay called "Idea for a Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View."

About which more next time.

LABOR RALLY IN HUNTINGTON, WV. I didn't make it to this one, but it sounds like fun. Hundreds of union members rallied in Huntington Saturday against so-called "right to work" (for less) legislation. The rally was called when state Republicans announced that a speaker from the National Right to Work Committee would speak there July 14. The speaking engagement was cancelled but the rally proceeded.

Labor organizers stressed that the target was right to work (for less) rather than the party itself.

Recently the issue, long dormant here, was raised again with the favorable publicity in the right wing press given to the book Unleashing Capitalism, which among other things supports right to work (for less), opposes minimum wage, and is opposed on principle to government regulation of things like worker and coal mine safety.

If the right wing wants to stir up a hornet's nest trying to make this happen, an event that seems unlikely now, this could be fun.

ANYTIME. This is old news by now (from Saturday), but for what it's worth, the Prime Minister of Iraq, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, said U.S. troops could leave that country "anytime they want."

LAST WEEK I WANTED A GIANT SLOTH BUT THIS WEEK, it's a wooly mammoth. They found one in Siberia that's pretty fresh and we're getting close to being able to do that stuff now...

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED