Rights get lost in 'right to work'

http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/112101464.html

The right-to-work debate
Rights get lost in 'right to work'
By Bob Peterson

Dec. 18, 2010 |

Wisconsin desperately needs family-supporting jobs. Yet the Republicans are using their newfound majority to lose jobs, ask working people to do with less and attack organized labor.

Even though he has yet to take office, Governor-elect Scott Walker has managed to lose thousands of jobs by refusing $810 million in federal money for high-speed rail - including the loss of a major manufacturing firm.

And now Republican Rep. Robin Vos of Rochester is promoting misnamed right-to-work legislation. Such anti-democratic laws are nothing more than a cover for pro-corporate interests who know that weak unions and low wages can build ever-higher profits. Rather than build prosperity, they will undermine our state's progressive tradition and quality of life. snip

• So-called right-to-work states have lower wages.

Good wages and benefits are key to quality of life - both to support families and to provide a reliable tax base for education, infrastructure and public services. Yet the annual median income in right-to-work states is $6,185 less than in other states, according to 2009 U.S. Census Bureau data.

you will live to sorely regret it.

...coined by Republicans. It was coined to get people to vote against unions, where the issue was framed as "Shouldn't you have the 'right to work' even if you don't want to join a union? Why should anyone be 'forced' to join a union?".

It worked very well.

Apparently framing only works for the right wing. There must be a lack of interest in framing issues among our Democratic Party "leaders" -- how else to explain the fact that they never do it?

How unfortunate that they left off part of the title. ;-)

I remember the TV campaign in the 1950s in Kansas that paved the way for that RTW law that has now denied workers' rights for over half a century.