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Arizona To Exceed Wisconsin In Union Busting - One would hope that after watching the battle in Wisconsin this past year, after seeing their own Russell Pearce recalled, after witnessing the showdown between their Sheriff Joe Arpaio and the Justice Department, the Republicans in the Arizona legislature might have figured out that an extreme right wing agenda might not be the wisest move right now. Nope. It must be all that desert sun frying their brain cells.
There are four bills being debated in the lege right now. Three would restrict the ways unions collect dues and the way workers get paid for union activities. The fourth bans collective bargaining between state and local governments and their workers, including police and firefighters.
6 Things You Should Know About Arizona’s Worse-Than-Wisconsin’s Attack on Public Workers - Jan Brewer has decided to get in on the union-busting action, introducing a bill that makes Ohio’s and Wisconsin’s attacks on public workers look mild.
Not content to let Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and Ohio’s John Kasich get all the fame (and recall elections, and ballot referenda) for their attempts to curtail union workers’ rights, a new crop of GOP governors and state legislators have jumped into the fray and proposed their own anti-union bills in recent weeks.
Along with South Carolina’s Nikki Haley and Indiana’s Mitch Daniels, Arizona’s Jan Brewer, not content with making her state the least friendly to immigrants and people of color, has decided to get in on the union-busting action as well, introducing a bill that makes Walker’s and Kasich’s attacks on public workers look mild.
Brewer, the Republican left in charge of the state after President Obama tapped Janet Napolitano to be his Secretary of Homeland Security, has been planning anti-union moves since last spring with the backing of the Goldwater Institute. (Named for Barry Goldwater, the think tank pushes for “freedom” and “prosperity”–as long as it’s not the freedom or prosperity of state workers.)
It’s not just Arizona’s right-wingers who are pushing Brewer to beat up on unions–John Nichols at the Nation notes that Walker may have had a hand in helping push an anti-labor agenda, and the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is involved. In a speech to the right-wing policy shop behind many of these anti-union bills last year, Brewer complained about her inability to fire government employees and supervisors’ difficulty “disciplining” workers.
This week, the Republicans in the state legislature introduced moves that would make collective bargaining for public workers completely illegal. Here, we break down what you need to know about Brewer and the GOP’s anti-worker agenda.
