(The following column by Teamsters General President James P. Hoffa appeared on The Huffington Post website on January 21, 2011.)
The vast, corporate-funded campaign to weaken unions and lower wages of middle-class workers has reached into statehouses all over the country.
Last week in Maine, Rep. Tom Winsor requested that so-called “right-to-work” bills be drafted. So did Sen. Lois Snowe-Mello. In New Hampshire, Rep. Will Smith proposed a “right-to-work” law. Similar bills were also proposed in Michigan, Indiana, Minnesota, Montana, West Virginia, and Missouri. I expect at least half a dozen more.
Working families need to fight like hell against these dangerous attacks on their wages, their benefits and their job security.
Research shows that most people don’t know what these anti-union laws really do. That’s intentional. You can be absolutely sure that a great deal of time and money was spent coming up with the misleading “right to work” name. It sounds like it prevents workers from being denied a job. That isn’t what it does at all.
A so-called “right to work” law prohibits security clauses in union contracts. Security clauses require all workers who receive the benefit of a union contract and union representation to share the administrative costs for those services.
Please see The Huffington Post website for the entire column.