There are very few unionized workers in Missouri, but nonetheless voters rejected a law passed by the Legislature to cripple labor unions. The legislature passed the law in 2017, the labor movement gathered enough signatures to force a referendum, which was decided yesterday. The vote was overwhelming, 63% opposing the law. In politics, 63% is a landslide.
Robert Kuttner of The American Prospect explains what happened:
Kuttner on TAP
Labor’s Astonishing Missouri Win—and the Opening It Portends. Ohio’s razor-thin vote for an open House seat got most of the headlines, but the bigger story was the defeat of a right-to-work ballot proposition in supposedly right-wing Missouri.
The bill to make Missouri America’s 28th state with a “right to work” law was passed by the legislature in 2017 and signed by then–Republican Governor Eric Greitens. But the labor movement qualified a ballot initiative overturning the measure, and it passed by a margin of 2 to 1, including in very conservative parts of a state carried overwhelmingly by Trump.
The “right to work” option was added to labor law by the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act. Passed by the Republican 80th Congress over President Truman’s veto (he denounced it as a “slave labor act”), Taft-Hartley allows states to pass laws permitting workers to opt out of paying union dues even when a majority of workers sign union cards.
The name “right to work” was always a fraud. Even in states without such laws, anybody can take a job at a unionized facility. Workers merely have to join, or if they don’t want to join, to pay dues after they are hired.
“Right to work” makes it much harder to organize in such states. Until the last few decades, these measures were largely confined to the anti-union South and Mountain West. Lately, they have been enacted in Michigan, Indiana, and Wisconsin. In the past decade, they’ve been beaten with ballot initiatives in California and Ohio.
The Missouri vote not only extends and intensifies that success in a supposedly far more conservative state. It shows the latent appeal of pocketbook issues and trade unionism even in Trump country. It shows that the labor movement may be down, but it is far from out.
In Missouri, just 8.7 percent of workers are members of unions. But most working families know someone with a union job and they know the difference a union can make.
The right to have a union signals concern for the forgotten working class. By trying to crush labor, Missouri Republicans signaled not individual rights—the usual pitch for the misnamed “right to work” law—but their contempt for working people, who got the message.
The Missouri outcome also bodes well for the re-election of Senator Claire McCaskill, one of the supposedly endangered Democrats up this fall. More importantly, it signals the resurgence of the labor movement—and reminds Democrats that progressive economics are the indispensable ingredient for success on the beaten-down American heartland. ~ ROBERT KUTTNER
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Diane Ravitch's blog 
The Ohio race in district 12, which is too close to call, is worse for the Republicans than reported. Gerrymandering of districts in Ohio, by the anti-democracy GOP, results in a 24% overall advantage for Republican candidates, according to FiveThirtyEight. The reason that the GOP is afraid of voting fraud (as long as it’s not by Russians, who are welcome to tamper) is it is the GOP politician’s go-to position.
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Vice News also had good coverage on this story. Union members went door to door to gain support for this issue. They admitted that the union had become too complacent, and that they need to respond to the direct assault by the 1%. They also used “workers’ rights” rather than the term union, which they said had polarizing connotations, in their messaging. Vice said current union membership is at 10.3% nationally, and they project that New York unions will lose at least $112 million in union dues from the Janus decision.
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As I wrote prior to the election: From the vantage point of rural Missouri, the yard signs against “right to work” (vote no) were about 99-1. Just as in the ’16 presidential election the tRump signs outnumbered the Clinton ones by about the same proportion and we know how that came out. And the prior two times that the “right to work” was on the ballot it was soundly defeated about 60% to 40% each time. Yesterday’s vote was 67.5% no, 22.5% for an even greater defeat for the Rethuglican led attack on workers. And the Rethuglican governor who signed the bill? Gone in less than two years due to corruption. (hey he was just trying to outIllannoy Illinois governors).
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actually 32.5% not 22.5%
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One thing I notice in rural Tennessee is that Trump supporters are usually vocal and opponents are usually muted in their opposition. This is the continuation of a trend I noted during the time of Obama, when friends would decry this policy or that viciously in ways that would have offended them if the same tactics were used on them. This may account for the sign difference. Those opposed to trump may be interested in maintaining the good will of their neighbors. Those who favor trump obviously do not care what anyone thinks of them, or whether they maintain good relations with their community. So the sign people are the true believers, but the majority of yards are without signs at all.
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Yes, the vast majority of yards are without signs, mine included. And yes, those who display signs are those who are politically involved to begin with, no matter which side.
I can say though that in my area here in the beautiful Missouri river hill and bottomland country of Southern Warren County many of those with the tRump supporter signs had signs for voting no on this proposition. An interesting mix of what appears to be rather quite different political stances no doubt.
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Signs have become an issue in my central NJ town. It’s a town of 30k that long was a Rep stronghold surrounded by Dem-voting towns, & more recently has a slim Dem majority– but locally always neutral or bipartisan, & generally mild-mannered. Signs on lawns in voting season have always proliferated, but all of a sudden in the last 2 yrs we have regular voting-season incidents of people running around at night snatching signs off lawns on the sly — first one party, then the other retaliates; ltrs to the ed & tsk-tsking editorials follow in the wkly rag. I attribute it to the heightened political rhetoric spiked by Trump & reflected on MSNBC, CNN, & Fox.
We are still mostly “nice,” though. We now have two [I assume old] gents who have taken advantage of loosened political tongues & appointed themselves spokesmen for the über-right. One or both deliver lengthy ultra-conservative rants via ltr to the ed of the wkly local. Which really stand out as other ltrs to ed are invariably on local matters. Most just let them do their thing; maybe once every 6 mos a resident will write in to suggest they can it already.
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One victory for unions. Sort of like the rescue of the allied troops on the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940. The war against unions continues and the Janus decision was a huge victory for the Axis Powers, er, I mean for the GOP/right wingers/libertarians who dominate so much of what goes on in this country. The unionization rate was in the plus 34% range in the 1950s now it’s down to about 10.6%. Essentially, the union movement has to be reborn, rebuilt and restrengthened. For starters, the GOP has to be ground to dust and voted out of office, that’s a heavy lift. Hopefully it can be done. Yes, yes, I know that the Democrats (Emanuel, Cuomo, Malloy, Obama, etc.) have been a big disappointment on unions but nothing like the GOP.
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The union movement has no one to blame but itself for its decline. The leaders pay themselves outrageous salaries and in many cases have totally lost touch with the interests of their own members. Even people who strongly believe in the concept of unions are seeing less and less value for their dues. All too frequently unions have sold out their own members. The unions are also too closely aligned with the Democratic Party even though probably at least 35-40% of their members are Republicans. Personally, I am sick of all the left wing propaganda spouted by my union on matters that have absolutely nothing to do with education.
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Whar are some examples of this? Not being argumentative just curious. The only stuff I read is the occasional statement by Weingarten or Eskelson Garcia which usually seems to be about too much testing, or the need for more to have access to well rounded curriculum. (Not a teachers union member here),
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I don’t belong to a union. But I’m curious. Why would a union member be a Republican? Republicans have done everything possible to destroy unions, healthcare, pensions, fund non-union charters and religious schools and cut school funding.
I can see why rich people would be Republicans. And gun owners. And people who don’t want to pay taxes that benefit the poor.
But why would a union member vote Republican?
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Diane, maybe we will get an answer from the horse’s mouth. But I will conjecture, meanwhile. I have to assume that union members who turn Republican have done so because they observe that for many yrs, Dem candidates have claimed to support unions but have acted in support of offshoring jobs & capital, which has caused the decline of unions. Reps don’t support unions, but union people who know they’re just an imminent lay-off away from lower-paying jobs may vote Rep in the hopes of lowering their taxes so they can afford their soon-to-be-downsized lifestyles. As to why 35% of teacher-union members vote Rep, perhaps it’s for a similar reason: Dem pols despite getting teacher-union endorsement & dollars have supported policies which denigrate & downsize pubsch teachers, who now are in the same position of voting in tax-cutters so as to afford to live on low salaries.
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At my last job, I found that many union members who voted Republican were more conservative on social and/or fiscal issues than the candidates supported by the union. The union local supported any sleazebag who ran as a Democrat. I opted out of the local’s political fund because I didn’t always agree with their choices. I didn’t live in the district where the fund was being used either. Right now it is generally the Republicans who are busily destroying themselves and their credibility. Give it twenty years and it will be the Democrats. There is a reason for two parties and no one has a monopoly on either virtue or perfidy. Usually they balance each other and serve as a check against each others’ more extreme positions. We run into trouble, like now, when we allow one party to gain too much power.
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Diane,
I personally know five union members, three of whom were educators one was a building inspector, and one was a police officer, all of whom worked for NY State and NY City. They always and still continue to vote Republican.
How disgusting it is that they vote for the very party that opposes all of their benefits, pensions, and job protections just because they think that “big government” is a bad thing. They feel as if they “have theirs” so they continue to not think about others and only have blinders on when it comes to analyzing their own personal politics and their orientation towards parties. They believe they are so insulated with all their benefits that they can blindly go and vote according to their very uniformed ideologies. It’s sickening.
I’m not saying the Democrats are great, because the have gotten to be so rotten in too many ways. But for someone on a pension as a result of a union who continues to support the GOP, all I can say is that it is the epitome of narcism, ignorance, and selfishness. Not to mention sheer stupidity and lack of concern for others in a union, or those not retired. They don’t think about their children or future generations in the work force.
I even know one who goes back and forth to Israel (has dual citizenship) to reap the benefits of the single payer healthcare there but will never support one here, and always votes GOP. She had $40,000 worth of dental work done in Israel for less than $9,000. She has exclaimed, “I do what’s best for me!” At least she’s honest about how disgusting and foolish she is.
Shame on people like that. Their collective forces are in many ways worse than Trump.
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NPE will want to look closely at the election for Michigan State Board of Education in November. Rev. Dr. Richard Ziele, who wrote a comment in defense of Republicans- a presumed Trump, DeVos supporter, in a thread to a blog post yesterday, would not be a person I would want elected to allocate my tax dollars.
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Dr. Ziele took issue with my reference to Trump as a racist. He thinks he is a fine upstanding gentleman, the finest sort of Christian that serves as a model for our children.
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Ziele was liked by the Michigan Conservative Union in 2017. At the same MiCPAC blog there was a link to a video by Milo Yiannopoulis, “The Problem with Liberals”. Wikipedia describes Yiannopoulis as (1) banned from twitter for inciting or engaging in targeted abuse or harassment of others…(one was) a racial harassment campaign. (2) Milo is a critic of Islam, social justice and feminism. (3) He was accused of being an apologist or supporting paedophillia, which he denies. At that time, the Mercers/ Steve Bannon’s Brietbart let him go. His work at Beitbart was inspired by Neo-Nazi’s and white nationalists.
How could liberals possibly be less Christian than the self-congratulatory ,”Blessed” evangelicals?
MiCPAC twists and distorts the position of its opponents, perhaps taking a page from the Paul Weyrich training manual posted at Theocracy Watch. In cartoons at the blog site, anti Trump supporters are described as anti-American rioters. I’m clear that Christ would have been protecting the refugee children ripped from their mothers at the border. Another cartoon claims protestors vitiate their concern for feeding the poor, housing the homeless, etc. when they demand their government use their taxes for the common good like for school lunches, to prevent the devastation caused by global warning, to stop American imperialism.
Christ forgives all. It can’t be easy, particularly in cases where the unconscionable is done by those wearing a religious collar and using his name.
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No union should mix politics with religion.
No religion should infused into government unless you want a theocracy, such as Iran.
I know; it’s part of the American mindset and history, but without my judging anyone, where does it really get you?
Too much religion is not a good thing. Religion is an opioid of the masses and it’s a way to control minds and critical thinking, all in the name of “God”. Holy wars and empires were built on declaring God as the justification for murder and theft.
No thanks.
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“No religion should infused into government… I know; it’s part of the American mindset and history”
Well I can only speak for my little window in time [1949-present], but my life experience does not support anything like “religion infused into govt” as a part of US mindset/ history. “In God we trust” on coin & govt bldgs, “under God” in the pledge of allegiance… That’s about it! Was there a time in the 50’s when we said the Our Father at school opening? [I know that was done in some places]. If so I do not remember it, & regardless, an end was put to it. The ‘in God we trust’ & ‘under God’ bits may be anathema for fringe atheist purists, but hardly qualify as ‘religion infused into govt.’
My pubsch ed taught that the nation was founded by people escaping religious oppression, & that was motivation for seeing to it that our govt kept its hands off citizens’ religious expression. No question there is tension between govt institutions’ attempting to sustain a neutral religious posture & religious forces’ backlash against what they perceive as anti-religious or secularizing actions by govt. Govtl policies since ’60’s have leaned hard against religious expression in govtl institutions & alternatively hard pro expression of multiple religions’ symbols in public.
Presently we are experiencing pushback from Protestant Christian elements threatened by that. It’s all part of the democratic process working thro demographic change, & it’s not an easy passage. It took about 70 yrs from the beginning of Catholic immigration to get an Irish Catholic president, & another 20 yrs before we had Italian-Americans in the Senate. Hindus and Muslims are now mayors & members of Congress after just 40 yrs of immigration. The Evangelists can vote as a bloc & try their mightiest to move us toward theocracy; they too will be assimilated.
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I believe the intensity of support among a huge percentage of Trump’s supporters is based on racism. They still resent Obama, without much reason other than he is black. They are willing to discard facts…..they can look at Putin, and any possible connections with Trump’s money with Russia and shrug it off….because Putin is white, and does not have black people in his country. I regard the irrational support of Trump as one of the ugliest episodes of racism in the history of the United States since the civil war. It is deeply, deeply ugly.
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Bethee5-
Attempting to reduce fears? Terror is warranted. The evangelical vote reflects an axis of the (1) legislative- at state, community and national levels -ALEC, American City and County Exchange, and the RNC, respectively. (2) judicial-the Federalist Society, active in law schools and in recommending judges and (3) executive- presidents chosen by oligarchs.
“Religious expression” rights, minimize what is at stake. Paul Weyrich’s well-funded army (Koch’s) are positioned to be able to take away women’s and, racial and religious minorities’ rights to vote/own property, the army shows a desire to force pregnancy, to inflict poverty, by eliminating Social Security, to deny all rights to labor and, to defund schools for students of the 99%.
America is already the most imprisoned population in the world because of right-wing legislation. The share of national income that goes to labor is already at its lowest point in recorded history.
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bethree5,
“The ‘in God we trust’ & ‘under God’ bits may be anathema for fringe atheist purists, but hardly qualify as ‘religion infused into govt.’”
Fringe atheist purists???
Really???
Count me as one then!!!
To hell with religious thinking!!! (if one can call it thinking)
Is that fringe enough???
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Sen McCaskill is still in big trouble in MO. Many citizens had no idea what “Right To Work” meant as they are not union members. The signs were up everywhere and the issue was confusing. November will tell the story. “Rethuglican”—cute— but look into the activities of SEIU!
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What activities would those be?
P.S. McCaskill is in trouble because she is not progressive enough. She votes with the Republicans far too often. If people want a Republican, they’ll vote Republican. McCaskill needs to remember she’s a Democrat.
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Most of the Progressives in the Midwest for whom Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes campaigned were defeated yesterday.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/democratic-partys-liberal-insurgency-hits-a-wall-in-midwest-primaries/2018/08/08/422f0140-9a50-11e8-8d5e-c6c594024954_story.html?utm_term=.c923779d2986
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The social democratic revolution is not over. It is still just getting started. There are a few dozen candidates running across the country who were inspired and recruited by Bernie Sanders. Several are receiving support from Ocasio. Only a couple of them had primaries and lost yesterday. The group doesn’t expect everyone they run to win, but is hoping for a small handful to win spectacularly like Ocasio did and inspire more to run next time. I fully expect every win to be marginalized and every loss to be called the end of the progressive road by the billionaire owned media. The Times, the Post… they are part of the establishment machine. They will angle for more of the same old neoliberal nonsense of the past and present. More primaries to come.
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“Liberal insurgency hits a wall” my foot!
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Yes, the ballot wording was confusing. The issue itself wasn’t confusing and 2 out of 3 Show Me State voters showed they knew exactly what the Rethugs had done to go end around the people’s wishes and voted to end that usurpation of the people’s will.
And to reiterate dienne77’s question: To which activities are you referring?
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Referring to the commenter whose name is the 4th month: Right to Work REALLY means the right to work for less and to become a serf and maybe get a pat on the head if you are a good little boy or girl. The Democrats in these right wing red states are really in a tight spot to even get elected. For pity’s sake, they think that Nancy Pelosi is some kind of screaming socialist. Ha, ha, very funny.
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Very funny indeed.
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Referenda are dangerous creatures, but sometimes they work out well.
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Right. But they seem to be the only way to rein in out of control legislatures who are working for the Koch brothers, not for the voters
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YEP!
Or in the case of Missouri, Rex Sinquefield, a Koch brother wannabe.
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FLERP!
https://www.pacermonitor.com/…/Uradnik_v_Inter_Faculty…
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Let’s try that link over again Then explain the potential to the blog.
https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/25006397/Uradnik_v_Inter_Faculty_Association_et_al
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And as that the filings are behind a paywall. The case challenges exclusive representation. The heart of the NLRA. And Alito’s ruling in Janus is an invitation to bring that case.
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I am 100% in support of the union movement in the USA. I hope that this works out well for the people of Missouri.
With a referendum, the “buck stops” with the people. Politicians cannot be given the credit or the blame, for the results.
Democracy in action.
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Well, Chas, it has worked out well for all the years before the Rethuglicans in charge of the government decided (with a big push from the reactionary regressive right funders) a little over a year ago that “they knew better” than we Show Me State peeons. We rejected that nonsense at the ballot box before. Missourians were not persuaded that the “right to work for less and crappier, many times less safe, working conditions” was not what they wanted. 68% of the voters let the Rethugs know we weren’t buying their sinister snake oil.
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I agree. I wish that NJ was one of those states that allowed referendums. A referendum shouldn’t be needed if elected officials represented their voters’ will. And I am lucky to have a Congressman who – despite being a Republican in a generally blue area – hews close to all his constitutents’ druthers on bread-&-butter issues. But when Christie was govr he implemented a number of policies that ran against constituents’ grain. So he went out as the least popular govr we’ve ever had – but leaving behind policies that would have been challenged by referendum if we could have. It will take longer to turn those policies around even under the new Dem govr.
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All elected officials are (at least in theory) required to represent the “will” of their constituents. That is why there are elections. If the majority (of the 50% who bother to vote), are displeased, they can vote the individuals out of office.
The framers of our federal constitution rightly feared mob rule, that is why there is no provision for referendum in the federal constitution.
Elected legislatures are there to serve as a “saucer” in which to cool the hot passions of the people, and achieve governance after proper deliberation.
Many (not all) states have provision for referendum. Fortunately, they are rarely used.
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Referendums serve as a check/ balance when state legislatures are not representing but acting against the will of constituents, as can happen when anti-public-good policies are bought by deep-pocket campaign contributors, &/or with excessive gerrymandering. Referendums are not mob rule; they require a series of procedural steps (including huge # of petition signatures in short time window), so also operate as a cooling saucer.
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I remember reading about the Taft-Hartley “right to work” law when I was young. I was puzzled, and my family was anti-union, a natural stance for farmers who are an independent lot.
After I studied history in college, I began to get a different take on the union movement in Europe and America. I realized that the union movement had pulled this country away from radical influences that had infected other places. Paying workers a living wage had been a distinct part of the American preservation of civil liberties.
Still, there were problems. Though unions stood with the Democratic Party as it stood for Black rights, they were often segregated places that suffered from clannish behavior that made it hard for those migrating north to find a good job from getting the best jobs. Moreover, they were riddled with corruption.
Even with union problems, the country is better off with collective bargaining than without it. Modern unions are faced with problems besides political opposition. Industries willing to locate in countries where tiny rooms are filled with mistreated workers just touches the surface. Automation threatens to make unions smaller by simple fact of one person being capable of doing the work of several.
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The March on Washington of 1963 where Dr King gave historic speech was funded by the unions
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How fascinating! I did not know that.
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Missouri just showed that the period of collective complacency is coming to a close.
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I wish I could be that optimistic, LCT. But I’m not as the historical background of the issue here in Missouri almost guaranteed that the falsely named “right to work” would not stand up to the popular will.
Now if the voters actually vote out those rethugs who voted for the law, then I might have a little more hope. If nothing else at least they all will be term limited out eventually (12 years max).
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I started teaching in the ’90s, and in just a few years the NCLB was passed. It’s been a long haul since then. Supporting and then being let down by Obama was demoralizing. The Social Democrats just suffered a loss on Tuesday. I need every positive piece of news I can get. Missouri voters overruling the legislature was a positive, dang it. I don’t mean to disagree with you (because you’re right), but let me celebrate a little. I need to celebrate something! I have to listen to reformy adminimals for hours on Monday.
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The judge in the Manafort trial won’t let the prosecution use the word “oligarch”, citing it as too pejorative. In the U.S., media describe oligarchs as “philanthropists”. The activities are the same, but men like Gates and Arnold like putting lipstick on a pig.
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Too late the vote means nothing. I suppose nobody here has been paying attention. Janus was a minor setback. Right to Work a minor setback. The heart of the NLRA is about to be eviscerated. Flerp read Alito’s ruling in Janus and let everyone know.
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It’s not enough for the Koch’s that labor is receiving the lowest share of national income in recorded U.S. history. The goal of the Federalist Society and men like Jonathan Turley and Charles and David Koch is feudalism.
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We need a new phrase to add to the “Billionaire Boys Club” that refers pejoratively to the rich who steal from the middle class.
The “Billionaire Robbers Club?” C’mon, you can do better than me!
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dianeravitch
How about Robber Barons with a seven letter adjective in front(See Maxine).
But I guess Oligarch has been removed from the lexicon since the Red scares of the 20s. It was almost brought back by Sanders. And of course, we now have its use baned in a Federal court Room.
Perhaps the Judge would prefer the prosecutor to take my suggestion instead.
Okay, Your Honor :
“S—bag Robber Barons if you prefer. “
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banned
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The cautionary tale is this: The Missouri legislature has swung outrageously right. How and why? Gerrymandering. So – it’s not surprising that the Legislature yet again passed this law and the public 2 to 1 overrode it. The legislature (just like US) does NOT represent the majority (slim, but a majority). Gerrymandering and voter registration are critical issues.
And – the most eye opening No On Right to Work advertisement was that the CEOs are getting rich in right to work states.
One thing Missourians agree on more than not – even the conservatives agreeing with the democrats is that they don’t like seeing rich folks getting richer off their taxes (or the work on the backs).
“Outstate” (those who say Missour-UH instead of Missour-EE) folks work hard for their money – union or not – and don’t want to see it taken away. They don’t want to be used as pawns in a trade war. They don’t want bail out from WH. They want to work!
They don’t like fat cat CEOs (and the cities and DC) getting money off their backs.
Ask an outstate Missourian who may love president’s screaming and shouting at the moon what they think about Mara-Largo and All the President’s Friends getting indicted on tax fraud and insider trading etc.
Even NRA sponsored Senator Blunt has publicly disagreed with the president on immigration (families) and his attacks on the media.
If I were leading the rallies and protests and Sunday morning messaging it would be over and over: “Show us YOUR taxes Mr. President.” Nothing to hide? Show them. Otherwise you’re in good company with Cohen, Manafort, Collins, Gates…
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Spot on analysis Wait, what?
Are you Show Me Stater?
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