Missouri Dems Propose To Make It A Felony To Oppose Unions

Perhaps they should make it a felony to propose to make it felony to limit collecting bargaining.

Missouri Dems want to make it a felony to restrict union power​

Three Missouri Democrats signed on to a bill that would make it illegal for state legislators to even suggest laws limiting unions’ collective bargaining powers.

The legislation was sponsored by Rep. Jeff Roorda. According to the text of the bill, any legislator who proposes restrictions on collective bargaining will be subject to prosecution for a class D felony.

“Any member of the general assembly who proposes a piece of legislation that further restricts the right of an individual to bargain collectively, as set forth under section 29, article I of the Missouri Constitution, shall be guilty of a class D felony,” reads the text of the bill.

The legislation would prevent state congressmen from proposing laws such as right-to-work, a popular labor policy reform that gives individual workers the right not to join unions. Michigan recently became the 24th right-to-work state in the nation. Missouri does not have right-to-work.

Roorda’s office did not immediately respond to requests for comment. His bill likely came in response to one proposed by Republican Rep. Mike Leara, which would similarly criminalize any efforts by legislators to restrict gun ownership.

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2013/02/22/missouri-dems-want-to-make-it-a-felony-to-restrict-union-power/#ixzz2LhCJNw4n​

 

Stupidity

 

Amazing how many oppose unions, yet appreciate all unions have given them, such as child labor laws, paid vacations, medical benefits, safety regulations. The list goes on and on. These aren't things companies just hand out by their own good will. People fought for these things so that everyone, even non union employees could have them. It's simply amazing how ignorant most people are about such things.
Guy

 

And people fought and died for your right to say that - and any legislator's right to speak against unions. My freedom of speech still serves a purpose, does any organization or person opposing my freedom of speech serve a purpose?

 

Oh, that's just the socialist, nanny-state, big-government, unions-as-a-political-arm-of-the-Democratic-party liberal in you talking.

 

They aren't banning you saying anything. And I'm not a liberal or conservative, thank you. Just a guy who knows how unions really operate as opposed to believing what I hear on Fox fairytales.
Guy

 

Guy,
You are so correct. And lets get this straight for rlm and CoinOKC one more time. When you say "unions" you might as well say workers because there is no difference. Why you are against workers is beyond me. It sounds pretty elitist to me. I am for the working man who has seen his wages fall for the past 30 years exactly as unions have decreased in membership. If you think people should work for a dollar a day and work in dangerous sweat shops, go live in China. That is where your silly hatred of unions will bring this country if we are stupid enough to let it happen. You are nothing but tools of the wealthy.

 

So maybe we should charge all who speak FOR unions with a crime also. I wonder how loud you two would scream if that were a proposed law.

 

Let's get this straight. Unions haven't been for the "working man" since, oh, about 1937. Unions are simply corporations by another name who raise money for the Democratic Party and liberal agendas through forced membership. No, "unions" and "workers" are not synonymous unless you want to label workers greedy and partisan. HOSTESS workers would love to have stayed employed, but the baker's union wouldn't have any part of it. Stupid unions.

 

Sure, you have such a conveniently short memory.


1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend: Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that the relatively labor-free 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now. Yet in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes in order to demand shorter workweeks so that Americans could be home with their loved ones instead of constantly toiling for their employers with no leisure time. By 1937, these labor actions created enough political momentum to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped create a federal framework for a shorter workweek that included room for leisure time.
2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality: As ThinkProgress reported earlier in the week, the relative decline of unions over the past 35 years has mirrored a decline in the middle class’s share of national income. It is also true that at the time when most Americans belonged to a union — a period of time between the 1940′s and 1950′s — income inequality in the U.S. was at its lowest point in the history of the country.
3. Unions Helped End Child Labor: “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined” in U.S. history, with organization’s like the “National Consumers’ League” and the National Child Labor Committee” working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor. The very first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment” in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.
4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: “The rise of unions in the 1930′s and 1940′s led to the first great expansion of health care” for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers. In 1942, “the US set up a National War Labor Board. It had the power to set a cap on all wage increases. But it let employers circumvent the cap by offering “fringe benefits” – notably, health insurance.” By 1950, “half of all companies with fewer than 250 workers and two-thirds of all companies with more than 250 workers offered health insurance of one kind or another.”
5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act: Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”

 

And the Republicans ended slavery and gave us the Civil Rights Act. So why aren't you voting for the Republicans?

On the other hand, industry eliminated polio, gave us a practical car, gave us the internet (despite Al Gore's claim), etc. and on and on.

 

As a former union rep for almost 20 years, I can assure you it almost IS a crime to speak out for unions and their members. My employer has standing injunctions with a federal court in Dallas to keep us from striking on strikeable issues and from informing our own members when such issues and company/union agreements are being violated, by threat of federal imprisonment and fines. So, the same people who preach freedom of this and that are the same ones who endorsed such actions against their fellow working Americans, and at no perceivable gain to themselves other than it's conforming to a party ideal.

Industry gave us a lot, but it was all on the backs of you and me, not a corporate ideology to better the people.

 

Obviously, your definition of "strikeable" does not agree with the court's definition. Ask the air controllers what their definition was under Reagan. Or you might try asking my uncle. The unions virtually killed him. BTW, he was a "worker" (in your definition as well as general the English definition).

 

Strikeable as in an agreement between management and labor being violated. They get away with it because the court deems our striking as harmful to national security and commerce. Therefore they skirt the agreements with no consequence. If your employer didn't pay you for work completed as per agreed, paid you less for the same work, and changed work practices without notification, wouldn't you be upset as well, or just chalk it up to business as usual?

 

It sounds to me like you need to quit. If that company is so bad, why are you working for them?

 

Because I'm doing the one job I'm trained to do. And because instead of running from problems I stood up and helped resolve them for myself and my co-workers. That is what is great about unions...we actually work together to improve our situations instead of running away and taking on new problems. Besides, no matter where one works there are similar issues. Maybe they like working for free, but I don't.

 

I feel sorry for you if you can only do one thing.

BTW, your unions worked so well together;
The first company I worked for, they bankrupted.
The second company I worked for they almost bankrupted, but they hung on long enough to break the union hold.
The next company did not have a union at my location.
The next company, the union managed to close my location because we were so much more efficient than the main plant.

 

Union Dues Are A Prohibitively Bad Investment​

07/31/12

If there’s one lesson we’ve learned from the economic crisis, it’s that bad investments have devastating consequences. In the free market, of course, we can fire our financial adviser if they lose our money or spend it in ways we don’t approve. If we have a stock or investment that isn’t performing, we’re able to sell it off. Unfortunately for union members, it doesn’t work the same way when their union is letting them down.​

Unions demand “investments” from their members in the form of dues. These dues often go to partisan politics that benefit officeholders and regulators—not necessarily union members. In 2008, labor unions spent $75 million in political donations, with 92 percent of it going to Democrats. In 2010, over 93 percent of union political support went to Democrats, even though 42 percent of union households voted Republican, according to exit-polling data. You don’t have to be an analyst to guess where their money will go in 2012.​

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Why don’t union members just find new representation like the rest of us? It’s virtually impossible to fire a union. The decertification process is rife with opportunities for intimidation and full of technicalities that unfairly favor the union. The NLRB reports that only 26 percent of decertification attempts are ultimately successful.​

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Fortunately, a solution has been put forth in the form of the Employee Rights Act (ERA), a bill cosponsored by Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Ut.) and Rep. Tim Scott (R-S.C.). The ERA extends guarantees to union members in the private sector like paycheck protection and regular recertification elections.​

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Paycheck protection measures would ensure that members have a say in whether their dues money is spent on political purposes. The provision commands the support of nearly 80 percent of union households, according to a recent poll conducted by ORC International.​

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Voters are getting wise to the role of union leadership in holding back our economy and pulling workers’ purse strings, and employees are in growing agreement that today’s unions are a prohibitively bad investment.​

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Union membership itself is on the decline—down from 33.2 percent in 1956 to 11.8 percent in 2011. Even Facebook’s stock hasn’t gone down that much. If you noticed that one of your investments was floundering, would you get rid of it, or go down with the ship?​

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The ERA would allow current employees to vote once every three years and reaffirm that they do, in fact, want the union to represent them exclusively. Think of it as the opt-in or opt-out period for your 401k. If Democrats and Republicans have to convince the electorate every few years to represent them, why don’t unions give their members the same automatic right to vote for reelection—especially when 93% of those paying for the representation never had a vote on whether to form their union in the first place.​

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In Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker made it easier for employees to opt out of state government unions, the American Federation of Teachers lost over a third of its members last year. Between March 2011 and February of this year, Wisconsin’s second-largest public-sector union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, saw half of its members head for the exit door.​

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Republicans and Democrats disagree on a host of issues, but we’re now seeing broad agreement that our current system of labor laws and regulations is fundamentally broken. Regulatory oversight run by political appointees is damaging the economy and the free market—picking winners and losers based on political agendas instead of good policy.​

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/07/31/union-dues-are-a-prohibitively-bad-investment/

 

I've seen resources like unionfacts.com before. Ironic considering they never lift a finger to contact, nor work with actual unions to determine actual facts. But, it's clear the people who oppose unions are doing so because of politics rather than real reasons, as I've yet to read any here. My investment in them has been the greatest I've ever made in that it has allowed me a good paying job with benefits and a voice where I might not otherwise have one. Chances are your jobs were built on unions. What has happened between then and now is beyond my understanding.

 

And our country (along with many others) was built using slaves, but that idea died a long time ago for cause. Unions had a purpose, but their results have been more negative than positive lately. I question if they have not outlived their purpose.