News Briefs
Date Posted: September 15 2017
New construction jobs still lag vs. others
The U.S. economy has added 8.2 million jobs in the private sector since the Great Recession began in December 2007, but creation of construction and manufacturing jobs continues to lag, the Economic Policy Institute reports.“These industries are important to workers because they provide good jobs and high wages (that are even better if the workers are unionized),” the EPI reported Aug. 16. “They are also some of the highest paying jobs for people without a bachelor’s degree. In July 2017, there were still 1.9 million fewer workers in construction and manufacturing than at the start of the Great Recession.”
RTW repeal effort won't pay off in Michigan
ST. LOUIS, MO (PAI)– Workers and their allies capped a successful petition drive by collecting more than 300,000 notarized signatures of voters to put repeal of Missouri’s controversial so-called “right to work” law on the referendum ballot in November 2018.The petitions, turned in to Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft weeks ahead of the mandatory late August deadline, also automatically stopped implementation of the anti-worker, anti-union law, which the GOP-dominated state legislature approved this year – despite worker, business and union lobbying – and right wing GOP Gov. Eric Greitens eagerly signed.
Missouri AFL-CIO President Mike Louis and other union leaders announced the results of the signature gathering campaign in a rally on August 8 at IBEW Local 1 hall in St. Louis.
The Missouri law is part of a national campaign by anti-worker, anti-union corporate interests, allied with the radical right, to destroy workers and crush unions, by taking away money unions need to defend workers and their families.
Missouri’s “right-to-work” law, which lawmakers passed and Greitens signed in February, was set to take effect August 28, allowing freeloaders to enjoy all the benefits of union representation without paying one red cent to support running the union. The law has one goal: To cripple and destroy unions. The apparent success of the petition drive stops that – for now.
Ashcroft said the law can’t be enforced if working Missourians with the We Are Missouri coalition turned in at least 100,000 certified signatures. Louis told supporters at the rally the signatures were submitted on August 18 following a rally in the Capitol Rotunda in Jefferson City. And they were triple the number the coalition needed.
“What you’ve accomplished will go down in the history books!’’ Louis told the enthusiastic crowd,
Michigan’s right-to-work law, adopted in December 2012, cannot be overturned by a similar petition drive. State law prevents the use of a petition drive to overturn a state law if lawmakers attach the spending of money to the original legislation, which Republican lawmakers did: allotting $1 million for “enforcement” of the law.
(From the St. Louis Labor Tribune and Press Associates)