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Economic justice is central to healthy society

December 14, 2017

Corporate and business rights are so much stronger than labor rights at this point, working people need to be organized to protect themselves against the predations of profit seeking.

The boards of directors and shareholders of business are always looking to maximize profit, and one of the first ways to do this is to put the squeeze on labor.

Labor unions give workers a seat at the bargaining table. The power is still tilted against them, but their union gives them some leverage to make things fairer.

The so-called "Right-to-Work" laws reward the people who want the good pay and strong benefits that come from having a union without paying the dues that make the union possible. Many of us tend to want to save money now rather than invest in the future, and choose to opt out of paying the dues.

Corporate executives count on people making the wrong choice and thus hollowing out unions and leaving no one to represent them at the table.
The weaker unions are, the lower wages are for everyone. A study by the Economic Policy Institute in February 2011 found that wages for all workers were 16 percent lower in so-called "right- to-work" states.

"Right-to-work" laws represent a corporate race to the bottom that pits states against each other to lower wages and weaken worker's rights.
The pressure to make Delaware a "right-to-work" state should be firmly resisted.

Also, at the federal level, a new bill has been introduced by Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Brad Sherman to institute a federal ban on these so-called "right-to-work" laws. It's called the Protecting Workers and Improving Labor Standards Act.

Urge your Congress persons to support this bill. Economic justice is central to a healthy society.

Michael Lawton
Ocean View

 

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