Many companies will
not consider adding their manufacturing plants to Missouri. Manufacturing will return to rural cities and
counties in Kansas and other popular Right to Work States. The voters obviously
knew this, but the legacy of unionization in Missouri is huge.
Most Missouri voters
have at least one member of their family in a union. St. Louisans tend to stay
in St. Louis and most families settle there for good. St. Louis is a blue
collar town and Boeing is the big employer. There are also US automotive
companies with plants in St. Louis. But St. Louis is a conservative town that
developed the best highway and road and park systems in the US. Taxes are low,
middle class jobs are plentiful and living costs are reasonable.
They do not squander
their money on “economic development” or public transit. They embrace “urban
sprawl” and respect private property rights.
When they needed “eminent domain” to develop the highway system in St.
Louis, they chose to displace small, crumbling post-WWII cracker-boxes and
overpaid the homeowners who were displaced.
Missouri is “Trump Country”.
The NO vote was
937,241 or 67.5% of Missouri voters. The YES vote was 452,475 or 32.5%. Missouri
voters voted against becoming a Right to Work State on august 7, 2018.
Missouri to vote on
Right to Work Referendum, by Grace Segers, 8/7/18, CBS News
Missouri will hold its
primary elections on Tuesday, but an issue of political consequence is also on
the ballot: Proposition A, an amendment to the state constitution that would
make Missouri a "right-to-work" state.
The referendum on
Proposition A is also a test of labor unions' power not only in Missouri, but
across the country, as the first major fight over right to work since the Supreme Court
ruling Janus v. AFSCME in June. That decision prohibited public-sector unions from
mandating union fees as a condition of employment.
A bill to make Missouri a
right-to-work state, which would prohibit unions from requiring union fees as a
condition of employment, passed and was signed into law by former Gov. Eric
Greitens in 2017. However, a petition circulated by opponents
calling for the issue to be decided by referendum received over 300,000
signatures, preventing the right-to-work law from going into effect.
If Proposition A passes,
Missouri would become the twenty-eighth state to adopt right-to-work. Labor
unions argue that these laws weaken workers' collective power, while proponents
believe it attracts more business.
"Right now Missouri
is missing out on opportunities for new jobs and
new investments from companies that will only locate in right to work
states," said Ray McCarty, the president and CEO of Associated Industries
of Missouri. McCarty pointed to statistics that show that Wisconsin, Michigan
and Indiana – states which recently adopted right to work – had greater per
capita income growth than the national average.
McCarty and his
organization were a crucial part of the movement to change the date of the
referendum. The right-to-work issue was initially supposed to be addressed on
the November 6 election, but a bill passed to hold the referendum on August 7
instead. McCarty argued that holding the vote earlier would make Missouri a
right to work state three months earlier. However, opponents contend that
moving the referendum is an attempt to suppress voter turnout, as turnout for
primary elections is generally lower than for general elections.
Moving the date up also
could harm Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill's re-election effort, as union
members who are motivated to turn out in August might not show up at the polls
in November and vote for her. A Democratic senator running for re-election in a
state that President Trump won by 20 percentage points, McCaskill is already facing a difficult campaign. Labor
unions have supported McCaskill in previous elections. However, if a victory in
this election mobilizes union members to vote in November and beyond, it could
ultimately be a boon for McCaskill and other Democrats in the state.
The AFL-CIO and local
unions are undertaking a thorough canvassing campaign to convince Missourians
to vote down the proposition. According to AFL-CIO field numbers, volunteers
have knocked on over 771,000 doors and dialed over 662,000 phone numbers.
AFL-CIO president Richard
Trumka told CBS News that union members would be motivated in November to vote
against politicians who had supported Proposition A.
"We'll come out in
large numbers and vote for people who support the working people's agenda, and
we'll vote against people who don't support that agenda, who support out of
state interests," said Trumka.
If Proposition A passes,
it could discourage the post-Janus labor movement and drive down voter turnout
in November. If it is voted down, it could be a much-needed morale boost for a
labor movement contending with a long-term decline in members. However,
defeating Proposition A is not a clear victory for private sector unions.
"What it does is
return us to the status quo, which hasn't been particularly friendly to
organized labor in Missouri or elsewhere," said Jake Rosenfeld, associate
professor of sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and a labor
expert. "Private sector union membership has been declining from the 1950s
onward, and this would do nothing to increase them."
Both supporters and
opponents of Proposition A are busily trying to persuade voters during the
final days of the campaign.
"These states that
have seen the light and adopted right to work have seen their income go up. And
we think that if people understood that I think that people would have a
different opinion of right to work," said McCarty.
While Missouri has many of
the same characteristics as other states that have recently adopted
right-to-work -- midwestern, with a Republican governor and legislature --
opponents of right-to-work may hope that Missouri follows the path of Ohio. In
2011, voters there turned down
right-to-work in a referendum.
The labor movement remains
confident that the referendum will give union workers the chance to earn a win.
"Working people in
Missouri are proving our capacity to secure the change that we need and we
deserve," said Trumka. "They're going to prove that the Supreme Court
and others are going in the wrong direction when they try to take those rights
away from workers."
Norb Leahy, Dunwoody
GA Tea Party Leader
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