Ross Eisenbrey: Right to work is wrong
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The so-called right-to-work law is wrong for West Virginia.
“Right-to-work” laws are about only one thing: starving unions of the funds they need to help employees bargain with their employers for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.
Because federal law and the Supreme Court declare that no one can be forced to join a union as a condition of employment or be forced to pay dues used for political purposes, right-to-work is unnecessary.
But it does something else and goes too far: It entitles employees to the benefit of a union contract—including the right to have the union take up their grievance if their employer abuses them—without paying their fair share of the cost.
Legislature Requests Additional Study on "Right-to-work"
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - State Republican legislative leaders are asking for additional study into the economic impact of a potential right-to-work law in West Virginia.
A news release Wednesday says Senate President Bill Cole and House Speaker Tim Armstead requested the research on March 6. It will be completed by the West Virginia University Bureau of Business and Economic Research later this year.
This year's right-to-work proposal would have made it a misdemeanor, punishable by up to a $5,000 fine, to require workers to pay dues to a union. It wouldn't have applied to federal workers.
West Virginia union rally planned at Capitol on Saturday
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CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) - National union figures are heading to West Virginia to rally against the Republican Legislature.
The rally will be noon Saturday at the Capitol. Labor leaders attending include: American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, United Mine Workers President Cecil Roberts and Teamsters General Secretary-Treasurer Ken Hall.
Thousands speak out for workers’ rights during Charleston rally
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By Carrie Hodousek in News | March 08, 2015 at 4:52PM
CHARLESTON, W.Va. – The statehouse steps were packed with nearly 7,000 union workers from across West Virginia during Saturday’s rally to fight back against legislation such as prevailing wage, right-to-work, public charter schools, and coal mine safety.
Chanting and yelling was heard from union leaders, iron workers, general laborers, school teachers, and coal miners during the “Mountaineer Workers Rising” rally.
At union rally, workers not pleased with GOP legislature
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By Paul J. Nyden
The thousands who gathered at the West Virginia Capitol for a labor rally on Saturday did not have kind words for the new Republican majorities in the Legislature.
“What the Republican-controlled Legislature is trying to do to working families is immoral. It will move our state backwards,” said Lou Ann Johnson, an associate member of the United Mine Workers union and a former aide to Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va. “These legislators ran on a platform of jobs, but what they are doing is sending exactly the wrong signal for the kind of jobs we want to create.”
We are a group of more than 575 affiliated unions joined together for the common cause of fairness for all workers.
The future of the working men and women of America depends on a strong, united labor movement. The strength of that movement is in our numbers: thousands of men and women united, striving for the same common goals
- fairness, justice, and equality in the workplace.
