Unions Under Attack Nationwide

“Their examples were inspiring,” said Victor Joecks of the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a conservative think tank whose ideas for limiting labor power have been embraced by Republicans, who have taken over that state’s legislature for the first time since 1929. The message, he said, was, “Hey, this is possible, and it’s better for the state, and the taxpayers appreciate it.” (Photo: YouTube)

The bad news keeps coming for employee unions and associations whose mission is to fight for better pay, benefits, and work rules for their members.

According to the Associated Press, Republican lawmakers in statehouses nationwide are working to weaken organized labor, sometimes with efforts that directly shrink union membership.

For example, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker signed right-to-work legislation this past Monday, and it’s clear his targeting of organized labor will be a focal point of his campaign.

The failure of the unions to exact a price for the first round of legislation targeting them in 2011 is encouraging even more proposals to limit their power.

The Republican wave in the November elections left many unions nationwide looking exceptionally vulnerable. In West Virginia, a union PAC spent $1.4 million trying to keep the statehouse in Democratic hands but couldn’t reverse the cultural trends turning the state red. Exit polls found that even union members were almost evenly split between the Republican and the Democrat in the major statewide race for U.S. Senate.

Now Republicans—in control of the state legislature for the first time since 1931—are taking advantage of their opportunity, pushing measures to expand nonunion charter schools and scale back requirements that public projects pay higher, union-scale wages.

Governor Walker beat back attempts to recall him after he signed a law limiting collective bargaining by public sector workers in 2011. His signature on the right-to-work law now makes Wisconsin the 25th state to ban contracts that force all workers to pay union dues. Both he and Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, who signed a right-to-work law in 2012 that was also opposed by unions, won re-election in November.

With many legislative sessions just beginning, nearly 800 anti-union-related bills have been proposed in statehouses, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.