7/27/2019 Stop ALEC's War on Workers

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JamesP.HoffaGeneral President,InternationalBrotherhood ofTeamsters

STOP ALEC'S WARON WORKERS

Corporations are upping the ante intheir attempt to take control of the politicalprocess. Under the guise of the AmericanLegislative Exchange Council (ALEC), thenation's most powerful are drafting legislation that is appearing in statehouses acrossthe country.And the target is not just unionmembers, but the entire middle class.Funded in large part by billionairebrothers Charles and David Koch,ALEC iscasting a wide net as it attempts to empower CEOs while undermining democracy.ALEC wants to make it harder for workers to contribute to political campaigns andcauses. They want to alter telecommunications laws so that large phone companiescan increase consumer costs while reduc

c o r l m ~ r ' " p r o t e c t TIle'ywantto gu'tpublic education by cutting student fundingand implementing a voucher system. Theseare but a small sampling of ALEC's workacross the country.Hundreds of members of TeamstersLocal 886 in Oklahoma City recendy mobilized to protest ALEC's actions during itsannual meeting there. ALEC was in Oklahoma City to plot behind closed doors andcontinue its secretive campaign to win overleg islators at the expense ofworking people.

One of the group's biggest efforts hasbeen to get C'paycheck protection," moreaccurately named "paycheck deception,"legislation implemented across the country. But the only thing this legislation isreally protecting is corporation's bottomline. Ground zero for this battle is currently

in Missouri, where the House and Senateapproved bills that would destroy workers'ability to donate to political candidates andcauses as a group. Employers, meanwhile,would be unaffected.This legis lation is part of ALEC'scontinuing effort to shift policymakingaway from the people and put it in employers' hands. Independent experts whohave analyzed the measure say it doesn'tprovide workers with any "protection" theydon't already have under current law.1his isjust another attempt by ALEC to furtherempower corporations by misleading theAmerican public.ALEC is also busy in Indiana pushing for the passage of an "ag-gag" bill. Thislegislation would bar anyone on privateproperty from taking video or photographsthat could be used to harm a business. Ifpa ssed, the law would stop workers fromdocumenting unsafe working conditions orunhealthy livestock that could make its wayonto Americans' dinner tables.

Not satisfied with anti-worker, anti-union and anti- living wage, extremistpoliticians are now anti-earned sick leave.Recently, in Michigan, ALEC-backed legislation was approved by committees in thestate House and Senate that would ban local governments from requiring employersto allow paid or unpaid sick leave that isn'trequired by federal or state law.

But workers without access to paid sicktime are more likely to go to work sick, putting at risk their co-workers and customersand costing an estimated $160 billion a yearin lost productivity.About 40 million workers, or 40 percent of the work force, cannot take sick dayswithout losing payor their jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Andchildren are more likely to go to school sickwhen their parents can't take of f work tocare for them.Access to paid sick leave is a publichealth issue, particularly in the food industry. An incredible 79 percent of foodindustry workers do not have access topaid sick leave, according to a Food ChainWorkers Alliance Study. A recent studyby the Centers for Disease Control, which

JULY 2013found that more than half of all outbreaksof the stomach flu can be linked to sickfood service workers.

At least 145 countries ensure accessto paid sick days for short- or long-termillnesses, with 127 providing a week ormore annually.

That's why a number of cities andcounties have proposed ordinances requiring employers to allow workers to call insick when they are ill or to care for a sickchild without losing payor their jobs.ALEC's goal is clear. It wa nts less regulation and fewer worker protections in orderto boost corporate profits. To do this,ALECis strategically working to strip workers andmiddle-class families of their fundamentalrights. They are trying to destroy safeguardsthat protect us from harm and ensure thatwe have a voice in our state capitals. That'swhy it is cr itical that our legislators hear adiversity of voices. If they don't, ALEC andits friends in big business will push throughtheir agenda at our expense.

Corporate-owned politicians screamfor local control and states' rights when itsu its them. Now they are quickly castingaside their political "principles" to targetworking families once again. ALEC boaststhat it has more than 1,000 bills introducedby legislative members every year, with onein every five of them enacted into law. Let'smake that number zero.

ALEC Protest, Cincinnati, Ohio. Flickr.com photoused under Creative Commons from Mentatmark.