President Obama demonstrated his gutsiness in recent months by speaking so many words that craven politicians contend cannot be spoken.

These are hot-button words like same sex-marriage, immigration reform, gun control and climate change. Fighting words. The president even specifically addressed three of these in his second inaugural speech – the civil rights of gay Americans, the threat of climate change and the need for immigration reform.

Taking on any one of these issues, let alone all of them at once, illustrates the audacity of the guy. That’s good because another inflammatory word must be placed on his to-say list: Union. Radical Republicans and the multi-national corporations that fill their moneybags are brazenly attacking labor unions, attempting to deny all workers the right to collectively bargain. President Obama must forcefully condemn this malicious campaign to undermine the American middle class. He must proclaim to the whole country, not just to labor union members, that he will protect the right of workers to use the power of collective action to secure equitable wages.

Obama has assured union members he has their back. Here’s what he said in his first Labor Day speech in 2009:

“So let us never forget: much of what we take for granted – the 40-hour work week, the minimum wage, health insurance, paid leave, pensions, Social Security, Medicare – they all bear the union label. It was the American worker – union men and women – who returned from World War II to make our economy the envy of the world. It was labor that helped build the largest middle class in history. So even if you’re not a union member, every American owes something to America’s labor movement.”

On Labor Day two years later, radicals in the Republican Party were pushing so-called Right to Work (RTW) legislation that denies companies and unions the right to bargain over requiring payments in lieu of dues from workers who decline to join the union. These laws weaken unions because they allow workers to shirk their responsibility to help pay the costs of the union services they benefit from. Here’s what President Obama said then:

“I know it’s not easy when there’s some folks who have their sights trained on you. . .And I want everybody here to know, as long as I’m in the White House I’m going to stand up for collective bargaining. And we’re going to keep at it. Because having a voice on the job and a chance to organize and a chance to negotiate for a fair day’s pay after a hard day’s work, that is the right of every man and woman in America – not just the CEO in the corner office, but also the janitor who cleans that office after the CEO goes home. Everybody has got the same right.”

As he ran for President in 2007, Obama walked a picket line with UNITE HERE Local 1 in Chicago, and he said this in a speech at Converse College in South Carolina:

Click here to view the video on YouTube.

“And understand this: If American workers are being denied their right to organize and collectively bargain when I’m in the White House, I’ll put on a comfortable pair of shoes myself, I’ll walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America. Because workers deserve to know that somebody is standing in their corner.”

When the radical Republican governor of Wisconsin stomped on the bargaining rights of public sector union workers, when the radical Republican governor of Ohio restricted the collective bargaining rights of 360,000 public workers, when the radical Republican governors of Indiana and Michigan signed legislation denying workers bargaining rights, some union members called for President Obama to put on those comfortable shoes. But he did not.

He did not put on those shoes when his Republican opponent Mitt Romney attacked 29,000 Chicago teachers striking in President Obama’s hometown of Chicago, or when Hostess Brands management bankrupted the company – again – and speciously blamed the loss of Twinkies on the company’s15,000 union workers, or when the American Crystal Sugar Co. locked out 1,300 union workers.

Now, the Bureau of Labor Statistics has reported that in 2012 the number of American workers in labor unions fell to a record low of 11.3 percent, down from 20.1 percent two decades earlier. Now, new legislation to limit bargaining rights has been introduced in Pennsylvania and Missouri, and even in the U.S. Congress by radical Kentucky Republican Sen. Rand Paul.

These Republicans intend to wipe out labor unions. In his 2011 Labor Day speech, President Obama described the consequence of killing unions:

“America cannot have a strong, growing economy without a strong, growing middle class and without a strong labor movement.”

The American labor movement knows President Obama supports it philosophically. He has said so repeatedly on Labor Day. But he never mentioned unions in his inaugural or State of the Union addresses, except once in passing. As extremists try to destroy the labor movement in this country, it’s essential for President Obama to formally and forcefully declare to the entire nation the merits of unions.

Last month, in his second inaugural address, the President said:

“preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

His fifth State of the Union speech this week gives President Obama a perfect opportunity to proclaim to all of America that he will preserve the freedom to engage in collective action. It’s an important moment for him to say the word union loudly.

Election night 2012 definitely felt like a victory for progressives. President Obama won re-election convincingly, with more than half the electorate casting ballots for the president, Democrats picked up two Senate seats and eight House seats. The fears of post-Citizens United, that several big donors, notably Sheldon Adelson and the Koch brothers, would buy their candidates their offices seemed to be allayed by these victories. The common narrative is that outside money did not matter much, as it did not statistically change who won in 2012.

While money, by and large, did not change who won on a national scale, that does not mean that money had no impact in election 2012. Money changed politics in 2012, in significant ways that you might not have noticed.

One very simple way that money has changed election victories and legal outcomes is in state supreme courts. At the state level, almost half of the states have a system in which their Supreme Court justices are elected, making them inherently political. That many state Supreme Court justices are elected is not at issue; what is at issue is the people who work to get them elected, and the fear that money can buy a vote on a state Supreme Court case.

To find an example of a group trying to buy a vote on a state Supreme Court, one does not have to look far. Before this election, before Citizens United even, there was a case in West Virginia involving a mining company suing a coal company for breach of contract. The mining company, Caperton, won a $50 million decision against the coal company, AT Massey. AT Massey appealed, and at the same time began bankrolling Brent Benjamin’s candidacy for the West Virginia Supreme Court, spending $3 million. Benjamin won a seat on the court and, when the trial between the companies came before him, was the deciding vote in a 3-2 decision for AT Massey, despite failed requests that he recuse himself.

Caperton eventually took this lack of recusal to the United States Supreme Court, where a 5-4 decision found that Benjamin’s participation in the trial violated Caperton’s Fourteenth Amendment rights. In the majority opinion, Justice Kennedy wrote:

We conclude that there is a serious risk of actual bias—based on objective and reasonable perceptions—when a person with a personal stake in a particular case had a significant and disproportionate influence in placing the judge on the case by raising funds or directing the judge’s election campaign when the case was pending or imminent. The inquiry centers on the contribution’s relative size in comparison to the total amount of money contributed to the campaign, the total amount spent in the election, and the apparent effect such contribution had on the outcome of the election.

The court decided that Benjamin’s involvement in the trial, considering the amount of funds that had been raised and given by AT Massey, created an unconstitutional “probability of bias.”

It is exactly this “probability of bias” that Americans should be fighting against. Both sides of the aisle have the right to be furious about unlimited amounts of money showering judicial campaigns. Conservatives do not want the trial lawyers to purchase judges to protect “jackpot justice” any more than liberals want businesses such as Massey to be able to call in a vote whenever a case against them comes to the court. The “probability of bias” principle cited by the Supreme Court removes Justice’s blind and places a thumb on the scales of truth and fairness.

Make no mistake, money is flowing in judicial elections, and it is going in both directions. Within a month of the November elections, ThinkProgress published an article about four conservative state Supreme Court candidates who had seemingly compromising contributions to their campaigns. This week, the Center for American Progress published a full report on elected justices who had outside contributions that figured prominently in their campaigns and that might create conflicts of interest, or “probabilities of bias.”

Of the eleven justices profiled in the report, five were supported by liberal groups, and six were propped up by conservative groups. In North Carolina and Michigan, enough justices were elected to keep the control of the Supreme Court tilted toward conservatives. Michigan, you may recall, was the former union stronghold that recently enacted right-to-work laws. The winning judges also did so by small margins, and it would be tough to suggest that the money played no role in the amount of exposure that a judicial candidate had.

None of this is to say that a state Supreme Court justice definitely will be biased based on these contributions. Dale Carpenter, a University of Minnesota law professor responded when asked if the justices followed a neutral path when making their decisions: “There’s evidence that the justices do vote against their policy preferences from time to time, enough to disrupt the general narrative that they just vote their ideological preferences.” And it is not outside the realm of possibility that a justice could view a case without looking first at their campaign bank accounts. Though, if they do vote in the best interest of those that contributed to their campaigns, that would seemingly confirm the “probability of bias” that the Supreme Court ruled violated Caperton’s right to due process.

One simple way to remove potential for bias would be to do away with unlimited campaign contributions to judicial candidates. This would eliminate most of the possibility of bias, because major donors cannot give to their heart’s content. This would force the judges to cultivate a diverse donor base to have the funds to run against an opponent, and develop a strategy that uses the funds judiciously, possibly slowing the barrage of negative emails and advertisements you see during election season.

But the best way to eliminate the “probability of bias” is to remove large donor money from judicial elections altogether through “clean elections” funded through public dollars. That gets outside money out of politics by allowing those running for state office to first demonstrate their viability by collecting a qualifying number of signatures and a minimum level of contributions. The state in turn provides campaign funding, usually from a voluntary tax or fees placed upon attorneys.

This solution is far from perfect. In North Carolina, an early adopter of clean elections, all the state judicial candidates accepted public funds, and the strict rules that went with them, but also spawned a state Supreme Court super PAC, which led to the race being the one that attracted more than $2.5 million from outside groups.

The current narrative that corporate money did not get its way in this election is wrong. Big money played a significant role in the election of 11 justices whose rulings could determine the validity of laws across the country. While none of the elections and ties to donors are as egregious as the Caperton case, it would be a farce to suggest that no attention would be paid when a case comes before a judge that has had his or her coffers filled by interests that would benefit from the judge’s ruling. In the Caperton opinion, Justice Kennedy quoted himself:

“Courts, in our system, elaborate principles of law in the course of resolving disputes. The power and the prerogative of a court to perform this function rest, in the end, upon the respect accorded to its judgments. The citizen’s respect for judgments depends in turn upon the issuing court’s absolute probity. Judicial integrity is, in consequence, a state interest of the highest order.”

Our respect for the courts has eroded in part because we believe they are just going to play a role in the political squabbles we see every day in Washington, and this view is seemingly confirmed by the money judicial campaigns receive from parties interested in gaining favor. Some judicial integrity may have been lost in this election due to money. The courts can regain our trust, however, by ending judicial campaign contributions from large outside donors.

Richard Long, an intern at Campaign for America’s Future, is a recent graduate of the University of North Carolina

Michigan Republicans are pushing low wages, claiming that “right-to-work” laws will “attract businesses.” Does it work?

Conservatives argue that strong unions cost jobs and anti-union “right-to-work” laws will bring jobs, because companies will move to places where workers are less able to fight for good pay and benefits. What do the numbers tell us?

Last week the far-right CNSNews carried a post, Right To Work States Have Lower Unemployment, Higher Income and Healthcare Coverage, NRTW President Says, quoting the head of the corporate-funded, anti-union organization, National Right To Work. He claimed that passing right-to-work laws not only increases employment but actually increases wages and benefits.

Mix notes that workers in Right to Work states not only tend to have as much as $4,300 more purchasing power, but also are more likely to have health insurance:

“And if you look at the other 22 Right to Work states, you find when it relates to private sector job growth, when it relates to increase in private sector per-capita purchasing power, or adjusted for cost of living, you find those states are doing much better.

“So, there’s lots of data out there that talks about this, including a study from the George Mason Department of Economics. They did a study when, adjusting wages for cost of living, they found workers in Right to Work states have about $2,300 more to spend than workers in forced-unionism states.

More on this in a minute…

The Detroit Free Press took a deeper look at the numbers, in Right-to-work law’s impact on Michigan debatable based on other states, and found that it was inconclusive. While they fond that some “right-to-work” states do have lower unemployment, the reasons are not clear.

“You can cherry-pick individual states that have done well,” said Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. “What nobody has done is report convincing, statistical evidence that right-to-work by itself makes a statistically discernible difference in economic outcomes, whether for good or ill.”

Hicks studied right-to-work laws and their effects on manufacturing. His findings: Right-to-work can indicate a more accommodating business climate, but the law itself will not attract more manufacturing or result in better wages or employment numbers.

Another factor to consider is the race-to-the-bottom effect as other states (like Alabama) suppress unions even more, forcing wages even lower, and also offer tax incentives to “attract” businesses. From the Detroit Free Press report,

The Economic Policy Institute, a Washington-based liberal think tank, published an article last week about Indiana’s right-to-work experience that highlighted tax credits and state assistance packages as a less-hyped factor in some businesses’ expansion decisions.

The article noted how Busche Enterprise obtained $750,000 in assistance from the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the state’s main economic development agency and recruiter. The article also noted that Indiana’s right-to-work law didn’t keep Busche from recently acquiring another plant site in October for a separate project in Alabama, its first non-Indiana production site.

Indiana offered up the moon, but Alabama offered up the moon and the stars, so they went with Alabama.

Neither the Detroit Free Press nor CNSNews factored in that their statistics were influenced by states like North Dakota that are currently enjoying an “energy boom.” Also, this idea that these low-wage states have a lower cost-of-living is another way of saying that they are poor. And they are poor because their leadership is offering them up as low-wage states “to attract businesses.”

Energy Boom States

Advocates of pushing down wages and suppressing workers rights use numbers that include the gains in energy-boom states to make their point.

The statistics that show job and wage growth in RTW states rely heavily on gains in North Dakota, Wyoming and other states that are currently having an “energy boom.” This would clearly indicate that the gains have nothing to do with suppression of unions. (Unless suppressing unions causes supplies of energy to suddenly appear under the ground.)

Note which states show significant job and wage gains in the Detroit Free press report:

Right-to-work states added a total of nearly 2 million jobs — a 3.4% increase over that period. The big winners were North Dakota (21.8% jump), Wyoming (15.8%), Utah (12%) and Texas (11.5%).

Meanwhile, employment dropped by 2 million jobs in non-right-to-work states, or a 2.5% decrease.

The average annual pay in right-to-work states grew from $30,172 to $41,243 from 2001 to 2011, a 36.7% increase.

Average pay in the other states rose 32.4%, from $35,505 to $47,002.

Obviously the employment and good wages in energy-boom states swings the “averages.” But this has nothing to do with “right-to-work” union-suppression laws.

Other Studies

There have been some good studies of the effect of these union-suppression laws apart from the energy-boom effect occurring in states like North Dakota.

A Feb., 2011, Economic Policy Institute (EPI) study, Does ‘right-to-work’ create jobs? Answers from Oklahoma, found “overwhelming” evidence:

Despite ambitious claims by proponents, the evidence is overwhelming that:

• Right-to-work laws have not succeeded in boosting employment growth in the states that have adopted them.

• The case of Oklahoma – closest in time to the conditions facing those states now considering such legislation – is particularly discouraging regarding the law’s ability to spur job growth. Since the law passed in 2001, manufacturing employment and relocations into the state reversed their climb and began to fall, precisely the opposite of what right-to-work advocates promised.

• For those states looking beyond traditional or low wage manufacturing jobs – whether to higher-tech manufacturing, to “knowledge” sector jobs, or to service industries dependent on consumer spending in the local economy – there is reason to believe that right-to-work laws may actually harm a state’s economic prospects.

A Sept., 2011, study, also by EPI, ‘Right to work,’ The wrong answer for Michigan’s economy, found that,

• Right-to-work laws lower wages—for both union and nonunion workers alike—by an average of $1,500 per year, after accounting for the cost of living in each state.

• Right-to-work laws also decrease the likelihood that employees get either health insurance or pensions through their jobs—again, for both union and nonunion workers.

• By cutting wages, right-to-work laws threaten to undermine job growth by reducing the discretionary income people have to spend in the local retail, real estate, construction, and service industries. Every $1 million in wage cuts translates into an additional six jobs lost in the economy. With 85 percent of Michigan’s economy concentrated in health care, retail, education, and other non-manufacturing industries, widespread wage and benefit cuts could translate into significant negative spillover effects for the state’s economy.

A January, 2012 study by American Rights at Work, New Research Counters Arguments for “Right-To-Work” Laws, examined a number of studies and found that “recent studies rebut claims of economic growth and instead find that laws suppress wages.”

A May, 2011 Bureau of Labor Statistics study found that “right-to-work” states have lower wages (examples: 9.4% lower for all occupations, 11.4% lower for teachers) than states with union rights.

In Nonunion Wage Rates and the Threat of Unionization Henry Farber, Professor of Economics at Princeton University found that after Idaho passed a RTW law in 1985, there was a statistically-significant drop in nonunion wages relative to other states.

The Larger Effect Of Race-To-The-Bottom Policies

While it might sound sensible to say that lowering wages and benefits and suppressing worker rights (along with giving tax incentives) will “attract businesses” to a state, what is the effect on the larger economy? What happens in the states where these businesses – if any – come from? And what happens to the tax base in states that push lower wages?

If these low-wage policies are successful, two things happen. The states that lose the jobs are poorer, and the workers in the low-wage states they came from (if any actually do) are poorer. And these low-wage states put pressure on wages for the jobs that remain, so wages are driven down economy-wide, across the country. This means that overall economic demand decreases so businesses have fewer customers, and tax revenue decreases because of lower wages and lower demand. As tax revenue decreases schools are defunded, infrastructure is not maintained, and economic conditions deteriorate for businesses throughout the economy.

Cutting wages — and offering tax incentives — to “attract businesses” sounds like it makes sense, but really it is penny wise and pound foolish. In the long run everyone is hurt, except the few already-wealthy billionaires pushing these policies.

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Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan — Republicans continue their assault on unions and worker solidarity – and America’s middle class gets mugged.   Corporate profits are at the highest % of GDP on record; worker wages are at the lowest % ever.  And now the CEOs are using their dough and clout in the name of Fix the Debt to demand LOWER taxes for corporations as part of any deficit reduction package.

What kind of an America do they envision?  Take a look at the fastest growing jobs in America.  A server at Mickey Ds would have to work 550 years to make the money earned by its CEO in one year.  Abysmally paid jobs won’t support a family, won’t build a broad middle class.  Taxpayers end up paying for food stamps and health care and tax credits to subsidize the biggest retailers in the world.  The American Dream becomes a big lie.  The middle class  gets crushed.  America gets a Gilded Age politics for an era of Gilded Age inequality.

Take a look at this hall of shame.  Unions gave us the weekend.  Crushing unions is leaving us in misery.  Anyone with a pulse and a wit of sense should be outraged about this — and joining with those fighting what will be the defining civil rights struggle of our time:  the right of workers to join together to negotiate decent wages from rapacious employers.

11. DUNKIN’ BRANDS

CEO Nigel Travis’ total compensation: $2.0 million

Crew member: $7.83 an hour

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 250,000 hours or 120 years

10. PAPA JOHN’S

CEO John Schnatter’s total compensation: $2.7 million.

Average delivery driver salary: $7.19 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 382,000 hours or 184 years.

9. DOLLAR GENERAL

CEO Richard Dreiling’s total compensation: $3,832,000.

Average sales associate salary: $7.62 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 503,000 hours or 242 years.

8. BEST BUY

CEO Brian Dunn’s total compensation: $7.1 million.

Average sales associate salary: $9.73 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 730,000 hours or 350 years.

7. HOME DEPOT

CEO Francis Blake’s total compensation: $10.8 million.

Average sales associate salary: $11.47.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 941,000 hours or 452 years.

6. MCDONALD’S

CEO James Skinner’s total compensation: $8.8 million.

Average crew member salary: $7.65 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 1.1 million hours or 550 years.

5. CVS CAREMARK CORPORATION

CEO Larry Merlo’s: $11.4.

Average cashier salary: $8.86 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 1.3 million hours or 619 years.

4. WALMART

CEO Michael Duke’s total compensation: $18.1 million.

Average sales associate salary: $8.84 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 2.1 million hours or 986 years.

3. WENDY’S

CEO Roland Smith’s total compensation: $16.5 million.

Average crew member salary: $7.66 an hour.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 2.2 million hours or 1038 years.

2. TARGET

CEO Gregg Steinhafel’s total compensation: $19.7 million..

Sales floor team member: $8.29.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 2.4 million hours or 1,143 years.

1. YUM! BRANDS

CEO David Novak’s total compensation: $20.4 million.

Average KFC / Pizza Hut / Taco Bell crew member: $7.50.

How long a crew member would have to work to make CEO annual pay: 2.7 million hours or 1,308 years.

MORNING MESSAGE: How “Right to Work” Laws Kill Jobs

OurFuture.org’s Richard Eskow: “‘Right to work’ is a misnomer for laws which let employees enjoy the benefits of union membership – at least for a little while, until they’re stripped away – without joining or contributing. So we’ll call them ‘right to shirk’ laws instead … let’s stop calling the states that have adopted this legislation ‘right to work.’ They don’t give people any new rights. They take rights away, by making it illegal for employees to organize and negotiate together. They even take away employers‘ rights – to sign a certain kind of contract. So let’s give the other states a name instead: In a nod to the Jim Crow origin of these laws, let’s call the ones which don’t have these laws ‘free states.’”

Checkmate?

Democrats say, “checkmate.” National Journal: “Democrats look at the political landscape and see a win whether a deal gets cut now or after the country goes over the cliff … Democrats don’t believe that Republicans have the time, the megaphone or the leverage to force Democrats into making significant entitlement cuts right now … ‘If we go over the cliff, it doesn’t last long. That’s why these guys are fundamentally checkmated,’ said a senior Democratic leadership aide.”

Senate Dems open to Medicare means testing, resist other benefit cuts. Politico: “…even though Democrats are open to this one cost cutting move, they are saying no to increasing the eligibility age on Medicare; no to touching Social Security; and no to cutting into Medicaid programs that cover the poor and disabled … Durbin said Thursday the White House informed him that raising the Medicare eligibility age is ‘no longer being considered’ by Obama. But Democrats are still plainly nervous that Obama will be overly generous on entitlement cuts in his negotiations with Boehner.”

Dems backing off Medicaid cuts, complains House Majority Leader Eric Cantor reports WSJ.

CEPR report debunks claims from “Chained CPI” advocates: “Proponents of this proposal argue that the Chained CPI is a more accurate formula and any impact on beneficiaries of the government programs affected would be mitigated by increased tax revenue from the wealthy. However, this issue brief effectively refutes those arguments by showing that switching to the Chained CPI would result in cuts to already modest Social Security benefits, that it is likely that the Chained CPI is not an accurate measure of the inflation rate seen by seniors and that the Chained CPI would lead to income tax increases for working Americans.”

Republicans Resist Specifics

Still no specifics from Boehner. NYT: “Even as Mr. Boehner pressed Mr. Obama to specify reductions in spending for Medicare and other entitlement benefit programs, the Republicans continued to be mute on what reductions they favor. Republicans are not proposing the sort of program overhauls … that have been part of their House budgets for the past two years … In any case, the Ryan budgets delayed the changes so they would not save much in the next 10 years.”

Intellectually bankrupt Republicans don’t know how to propose specific spending cuts, argues NYT’s Paul Krugman: “…Republicans have suffered more than an election defeat, they’ve seen the collapse of a decades-long project. And with their grandiose goals now out of reach, they literally have no idea what they want — hence their inability to make specific demands.”

Boehner “can’t be seen as conceding too much too soon” reports Bloomberg: “A slow-walk approach to averting more than $600 billion in tax increases and spending cuts set for January is crucial for Boehner whether the talks succeed or not, according to Republicans in Congress. If they don’t reach agreement, Boehner will have gathered a coalition of lawmakers he’ll need for a more limited deal. If he succeeds, he’ll have convinced anti-tax Republicans that he fought to extract spending cuts.”

Obama tells as much to Minnesota’s WCCO: “… he doesn’t want to look like he’s giving in to me somehow because that might hurt him in his own caucus.”

Republicans “dig in” on debt ceiling power. Roll Call: “…since the president made that offer, Republicans have dug in on the issue, becoming almost preoccupied by their need to preserve that point of leverage during Obama’s second term. ‘It’s all our guys want to talk about,’ one senior Senate Republican aide said.”

Republicans plot strategy if no deal is reached. NYT: “If no deal is reached, Republicans are increasingly talking about a more hostile outcome in which the House passes legislation that extends tax cuts for the middle class, sets relatively low tax rates on dividends, capital gains and inherited estates, and cancels the across-the-board defense cuts, but leaves in place across-the-board domestic cuts. Then House Republicans would engage in what Mr. Boehner, in a private meeting last week, called ‘trench warfare,’ a running battle with the president on spending, first as the government approaches its statutory borrowing limit early next year, then in late March, when a stopgap government spending bill runs out.”

Breakfast Sides

Immigration reform will follow budget resolution. Politico: “Top Obama aides are already laying the groundwork for a campaign-style operation to broaden the base of support for a mega-bill. The White House will not only target Latino voters but also religious leaders, law enforcement and others … Latino leaders say the activity is a clear sign that Obama plans to keep his word and make immigration a signature policy of his second term …”

State campaigns push higher minimum wage. LAT: “The New Jersey state legislature handed Gov. Chris Christie a bill to raise the state’s minimum wage to $8.50 an hour from the federal minimum of $7.25 this month, but he hasn’t signed it and has signaled he might not … Democratic lawmakers in Illinois are also trying to push a bill that would increase the minimum wage — an earlier effort this year failed.”

Michigan’s recent battle makes this a good time to explain the union movement’s important role in our economy’s overall health. We’re about to explain why today’s war on unions is bad for all of us, no matter what we do for a living, and we’ll do it in four steps.

But first a word about language: “Right to work” is a misnomer for laws which let employees enjoy the benefits of union membership – at least for a little while, until they’re stripped away – without joining or contributing.

So we’ll call them “right to shirk” laws instead. And we’ll call the people who back these laws Shirkers.

And while we’re at it, let’s stop calling the states that have adopted this legislation “right to work.” They don’t give people any new rights. They take rights away, by making it illegal for employees to organize and negotiate together. They even take away employers‘ rights – to sign a certain kind of contract.

So let’s give the other states a name instead: In a nod to the Jim Crow origin of these laws, let’s call the ones which don’t have these laws “free states.”

Free Ride

Right to Shirk laws allow freeloaders to profit from the efforts of others – without contributing to the effort, and in a way that harms the common good. The billionaires and corporations behind these laws wouldn’t deliberately do anything like that, would they? Why, that would be like letting people make billions from the works of government – things like roads, the Internet and publicly-educated customers – without paying their fair share of taxes.

Oh, wait.

Right to Shirk laws are job-killers. Here are four steps to understanding why:

1. Think nationally, not just locally.

Advocates say these laws create jobs. They don’t. Their “evidence” is based on studies which show modest job growth in Right to Shirk states when compared to free states.  But all that proves is that places that are politically hostile to organized labor also offer other types of corporate favoritism.

It also suggests that Right to Shirk states can steal jobs from free states — as long as the jobs last, anyway.

The Shirker movement was started in the late 1940s by a handful of Southern politicians who were in the palm of big textile mills. They were able to draw textile jobs away from free Northern cities like my hometown of Utica, NY – until those jobs left this country altogether.  That’s not “creating” jobs — that’s killing good jobs and replacing them with ones that don’t pay enough.

The concept of “solidarity” has been tarred with McCarthyite smears. But “solidarity” is just another way of saying “We’re all in this together.”  The Right to Shirk crowd wants to stop that kind of thinking so it can pit state against state and employee against employee, shredding our social fabric for personal gain.

It’s no accident that the Shirker movement was started by the reactionary white politicians of the Jim Crow South. Back then they were still pining for the days when they could offer some folks the “right to work” … for nothing.

2. We’re fighting over a shrinking pie instead of making the pie bigger.

Things are bad. We need millions of jobs – and the jobs we do have don’t pay enough.

The graphic which Business Insider likes to call “the scariest chart ever” shows how far we are from creating the number of jobs needed to make this country’s economy grow and thrive again.  Job growth like that we’ve seen recently is always welcome, but it’s not nearly enough to get us out of this ditch. How do we get moving again?

To answer that question we need to know what’s worked in the past.

3. The real “job creators” are people with jobs – good jobs.

How did this nation finally escape the after-effects of the Great Depression and begin its greatest decades of economic growth? Government spending  - on roads, bridges, schools, and other vitally needed services – played a key part.

Unions were a crucial part of this process, too. By fighting for higher wages and better benefits, unions ensure that working people have the means to purchase consumer items, housing, and other goods and services.  Companies have to hire more people to keep up with demand – and the good jobs keep coming.

That’s why the Republican Party platform of 1956 boasted that “unions have grown in strength and responsibility, and have increased their membership by 2 millions” during Dwight D. Eisenhower’s first term. Back then Republicans understood that a growing middle class was good for the entire economy.  That party platform also said that “America does not prosper unless all Americans prosper.” Their rule: No shirkers.

But then in those days our economy wasn’t dominated by Wall Street megabanks – institutions that don’t build or sell anything. And politicians weren’t completely in bankers’ pockets back then, because the public wouldn’t have tolerated it.

We shouldn’t tolerate it now.

4. When you kill unions, that reduces consumer income – which kills jobs.

The Shirker assault on unions has taken its toll. Only 25 states remain free to unionize, and union membership has fallen dramatically:

Their logic would suggest that the plunge in union membership we’ve seen since 1960 must have led to a rise in good jobs.  Did it? Let’s take a look at manufacturing:

That’s my freehand drawing (and therefore not exact) of the trend line in union membership, superimposed by the number of manufacturing jobs in the United States.  Manufacturing jobs kept on increasing for more than twenty years, even as union membership increased. These jobs experienced periods of decline and stagnation as union membership fell, even before the devastating impact of NAFTA.

Consumer demand is vital to growth. That demand is tied to consumers’ income, and to their belief that life in the future will be as good or better than it is today.  Those are the two things we need to reinforce, and unions are crucial to that effort.

We need to get our economy growing again. Until then most Americans, unionized or not, will continue to struggle with stagnating wages and an ongoing economic drag that can feel a lot like a recession.  As Paul Krugman likes to say (he said it in our radio interview), This isn’t rocket science. We know how to do this.

Destroying unions is just another way for the Shirkers to make sure that we never do.

In a Sunday op-ed Arthur Laffer provides one of the funniest lines of the week, “Right-to-work laws provide individual workers with greater freedom to negotiate the terms of their employment.” I almost spat out my coffee, thinking about what would happen to the worker who goes alone to management, demanding a raise and more vacation time. It’s like you or me asking the cable company to show up at 10:30 sharp, and to take those added “fees” off my bill right now!

Arther Laffer, in an op-ed today titled in the paper (but not online), State’s fix: Cut tax rate, enact right-to-work law, gives us the old “make us more business-friendly” argument. Apparently if we become more like China — China is very “business-friendly” — and give business owners everything they want, the businesses will move to put-name-of-state-here. (Except, WE won’t benefit because the environment will suffer, we won’t have a say, and a few at the top end up with everything.)

Over a period of decades, legislators have created a tax and regulatory climate hostile to business — and all but guaranteed that the Golden State will not be the sort of place where productive and growing companies set up shop.

… Low taxes aren’t the only way to attract and retain businesses. Implementing a right-to-work law, which prohibits workers from being fired for not paying union dues, is another way to guarantee outsize economic growth.

Right-to-work laws provide individual workers with greater freedom to negotiate the terms of their employment, and they create an environment where companies can avoid obstructive union rules.

My local newspaper, like most, regularly feeds its readers these right-wing “you should work for less so the rich can be even richer” and “if you tax the rich you won’t have jobs” op-eds. They also feed readers a steady diet of “public employees make too much money and shouldn’t get pensions.” Since the alternative viewpoint is almost never presented, people over time come to accept it.

Oh, Laffer also says we need to lower taxes as a way to solve the state’s deficit crisis. Heh.

(*A “right-to-work” law out to be named a “law-that-lowers-your-pay” because it weakens unions, keeps them from collecting dues, and other restrictions. Several southern states have used these laws to break up unions and now Republicans in several other states are passing them. The result of the decline of unions has been a decline of wages and benefits, and the hollowing-out of the middle class.)

Many are wondering if making Wisconsin a “Right to Work” state is next on Governor Scott Walker‘s agenda if he wins the recall election on June 5.

Right to Work laws weaken unions by allowing members to opt out of paying dues. Workers get the benefit of working in a union shop (higher wages, better benefits), but are not required to pay their fair share for union representation. Right to Work laws have been used effectively in the South to bust unions and keep wages low, which is why they are dubbed “Right to Work for Less” laws by opponents. The recent push for this legislation is emanating from the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where corporations and right-wing legislators vote as equals behind closed doors on “model” legislation.

This issue is newly on the radar of Wisconsin voters due to a video released earlier this month by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel showing Governor Walker having a frank conversation with his largest campaign contributor shortly after he was elected. Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks asks Walker how he will make Wisconsin a “red” state and if he will “work on these unions” and “become a Right to Work” state. Walker replies that the “first step” will be “to divide and conquer” Wisconsin unions through a budget bill dealing with public sector workers. One month after the video was filmed, Walker “dropped the bomb” and introduced his bill to strip some 380,000 public workers of 50 years of collective bargaining rights, starting a race to the bottom in wages and benefits. (CMD has embedded a campaign video on left only because the MJS video is not available for embedding.)

In the same video, Walker cites as his role model Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels, who first did away with collective bargaining for public workers by executive order, then successfully went after private sector unions with Right to Work legislation.

Right to Work Debate Heats Up in Wisconsin

Representative Scott Walker: Walker has a history with this issue and with ALEC, which has promoted a “model” Right to Work bill for decades. Before becoming Governor, Walker was a state legislator from 1993-2002. As a freshman legislator in 1993, Walker joined ALEC and cosponsored Right to Work legislation in Wisconsin. If passed into law, 1993 SB 459 would have applied to public sector as well as private sector workers. That bill failed to pass, but Walker kept trying, sponsoring another ALEC favorite, “Paycheck Protection” legislation (1997 AB 624), which would make it tough for unions to spend money on elections. Immediately upon being elected governor in November 2010, Walker started drafting a bill to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights, even before he was sworn in. Previously, Walker had told Congress that he decided to move on the bill only after unions attempted to rush final contracts through a lame duck session of the legislature in December 2010.

Walker’s proposal sparked huge protests, the departure of 14 Democratic state senators, and an 18-day Capitol occupation. While Walker did not tell voters of his plans to balance the budget on the back of working families and did not tell Congress the truth either, he is certainly telling the truth today when he says that if anyone is surprised by his actions “they have not been paying attention.”

Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald: Over the past 18 months, Right to Work has been actively on the radar of top legislators in both houses. In a December 2010 roundtable discussion, Majority Leader Senator Scott Fitzgerald, former ALEC state chairman, was asked by Jeff Mayers of WisPolitics about making Wisconsin a Right to Work state. Fitzgerald enthused: “I just attended an American Legislative Exchange Council meeting and I was surprised about how much momentum there was in and around that discussion, nothing like I have seen before.” ALEC has long promoted a model Right to Work bill and when Republicans took trifecta control of 26 state houses in November of 2010 it was a top agenda item at the December 2010 ALEC meeting. CMD has obtained a November 2010 email from ALEC’s policy shop to ALEC members in Wisconsin highlighting this agenda item. ALEC touts “Right to Work” as a “solution… for your state’s most pressing issues.” Subsequently, “Right to Work” bills were introduced in 21 states. The president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), Harold A. Schaitberger, is one of many who cite this December 2010 ALEC meeting in D.C. as the source of the anti-union legislative onslaught.

Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald: Assembly Speaker Jeff Fitzgerald has been a member of ALEC since 2001. In 2011, he was listed as a member of ALEC’s Commerce, Insurance and Economic Development Task Force (CIED Task Force), the committee responsible for a raft of anti-labor and anti-consumer legislation including Right to Work, Paycheck Protection bills, bills that would roll back living wage ordinances, prevailing wage laws, and even state minimum wages.

In a newly released video taken in March 2012, Fitzgerald is asked by a reporter from the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel whether he was surprised when Walker described his plans to attack public workers. “No, it wasn’t a shock to me…” responds Fitzgerald. “My caucus wanted to go further. I had people in my caucus that was, you know, were wondering if we were going to do Right to Work in this state. So to tell you the truth, the collective bargaining, to me, I thought was more of a middle ground if you can believe that.”

“Divide and Conquer” in the Pipeline

Governor Walker and the Fitzgerald brothers have all said that they have no appetite for Right to Work and continued strife in the state. Walker says he considers private sector workers “partners” in his reform efforts, but Wisconsin unions are not buying it.

“Walker said Police and Fire were exempt from the collective bargaining changes that were forced on all other public sector unions. With the budget cuts forced on municipalities by Walker, and the limits on levy increases, police and fire were forced into bargaining the same concessions as all other public union employees or face layoffs or significant increases in health insurance co-payments (from $1000 to $5000 or in some cases $10,000). Nobody is exempt with Walker, including the private sector. It’s just a matter of time before you too are subject to divide and conquer,” said Joe Conway, head of IAFF Local 311.

Even if these politicians decide not to go for Right to Work, there are still plenty of bills that would crush wages and limit health care coverage for working people in the ALEC playbook. These bills benefit one group only — the corporate CEOs of Wal-Mart, Koch Industries, State Farm, Exxon Mobile, big tobacco and big Pharma, that fund ALEC and whose representatives sit on ALEC’s “Private Enterprise” board of directors.

Each morning, Bill Scher and Terrance Heath serve up what progressives need to effect change on the kitchen-table issues families face: jobs, health care, green energy, financial reform, affordable education and retirement security.

MORNING MESSAGE: The Eight New Positions Romney Took To Win Over Republicans

OurFuture.org’s Terrance Heath: “As Mitt Romney positioned himself to win a primary contest that should have been over by now, he adopted or reiterated eight positions that hold devastating consequences for Americans struggling through this recession … Across-The-Board Tax Cut … Embrace Rep. Paul Ryan’s Medicare Plan … Veto the DREAM Act … Give Student Loan Money Back to Wall Street … Oppose Contraception Coverage … Drug-Test Welfare Recipients … Cut Federal Workers’ Pay …Support National ‘Right-To-Work’ Law”

Romney Gets Upper Hand In Super Tuesday Split Decision

Money and negative ads help Romney eke out Ohio. NYT: “Mr. Santorum complained on Monday that Mr. Romney and his “super PAC” outspent him 12 to 1; the Kantar Media Campaign Media Analysis Group has estimated that at least in television commercials, Mr. Romney’s advantage was more like 3 to 1. One particularly effective commercial that saturated the local airwaves showed Mr. Santorum struggling to explain his position on birth control.”

Protracted primary forcing Romney out of the mainstream, argues TNR’s Jonathan Cohn: “Just consider an episode that … got surprisingly little attention. It happened during a town hall in Youngstown, on Monday, when a college student asked Romney what he would do about rising tuition costs. In response, Romney said … ‘It would be popular for me to stand up and say I’m going to give you government money to pay for your college, but I’m not going to promise that. … don’t expect the government to forgive the debt that you take on.’ … that’s no way to win a general election. Most Americans support government programs that help young people pay for college. The longer this race goes on, the more desperate Romney becomes to protect his right flank, the more he will position himself outside the mainstream.”

Republican voters dissatisfied with their candidates. W. Post: “Barely more than four out of 10 voters in Ohio said they were strongly behind their candidate, according to exit polls.”

Romney may not be able to secure of majority of delegates before the convention. McClatchy: “Looking ahead, Romney is the early favorite in 11 states with a total of 571 delegates up for grabs … He’s a likely underdog in 12 states with a total of 668 delegates … The longer [his opponents] stay in the campaign and divide the anti-Romney vote, the easier it is for him to win the plurality, if not a majority, of delegates.”

Boehner To Pressure Conservatives On Transportation

Speaker Boehner to hold caucus meeting today to pressure conservatives to back transportation bill. Politico: “… top Republicans are going to deliver a tough but simple message: Continue to stand against the bill and you’re opposing conservative policy that will fix the flawed way Congress funds road-building and energy production. Join the team — support leadership’s plan to pass a House bill — and you can be part of the solution … Short of shaking loose a big pile of support — a hefty lift, most concede — House Republican leaders will wave the white flag on a massive plan and are likely to offer the Senate’s legislation — if it passes — or a clean extension of the current highway funding.”

Former Gov. Ed Rendell says divided GOP may lead to stronger transportation bill, in Politico oped: “The original Republican bill, now being revised, was too small to have any real impact on our systems or employment, didn’t adequately address the need for transit investment, weakened Buy America requirements, prohibited using gas tax funds to pay for mass-transit projects and hardly dented the down payment we need to update our crumbling infrastructure systems.”

House GOP to move on small biz bills, with WH support, but some Dem queasiness. NYT: “[Today,] the House is to begin debate on six minor measures to help small businesses raise capital and take their companies public, all packaged together under the title the JOBS Act … the White House released an official statement of administration policy urging House passage of the Republican bill … . Democratic aides say Republicans boxed them out of major legislative efforts, like the continuing struggle to fashion a transportation bill, which really could have an impact on the economy. But now they want Democrats to serve as window dressing for a bill whose significance is being greatly exaggerated.”

House passes China tariff bill. Reuters: “The House voted on Tuesday to ensure that the United States could impose duties on subsidized goods from China and Vietnam, overwhelmingly rejecting a conservative group’s attempt to portray it as a tax increase … The Obama administration helped draw up the bipartisan bill after an appeals court ruled in December that the Commerce Department did not have authority to impose countervailing — or antisubsidy — duties on goods from ‘nonmarket economies.’”

President Pitches New Mortgage Plan

President directs housing regulators to cut refi costs. Politico: “The president announced a new plan to cut refinancing fees for any government-backed mortgage, along with new protections for service members harmed by ‘unscrupulous’ banks and lenders. The refinancing discounts for FHA-backed mortgages potentially can ‘save the typical family an extra $1,000 a year,’ the president said, speaking Tuesday in his first news conference in four months. ‘It’s like another tax cut that will put more money in people’s pockets.’”

Also announces new program to protect military personnel from illegal foreclosures. ThinkProgress: “Obama’s plan seeks to remedy those problems by providing relief to members who sold their homes at a loss due to a permanent change in station, and provides $10 billion from mortgage servicers to bolster the Veterans Housing Benefits Program. It also draws on the recent mortgage fraud settlement between the government and major lenders to force banks to compensate servicemembers who were improperly foreclosed upon by paying lost equity, plus interest, and $116,785.”

Unemployment Projected To Tick Down This Year

“Economists Project Eight Percent Unemployment by Election Day” reports American Prospect’s Jamelle Bouie: “That’s from a recently released survey of economists from the Associated Press … With job growth like that—absent a major scandal, economic shock, or foreign policy disaster—Barack Obama becomes a much more likely candidate for reelection.”

Bernanke seen as willing to accept higher inflation to create jobs reports Bloomberg.

Breakfast Sides

OH Gov. Kasich relents on accepting federal disaster assistance. NYT’s David Firestone: “Late Monday, confronted with growing criticism from his own constituents, Mr. Kasich agreed to let FEMA teams into the state, though he has not said whether he will request federal dollars. Refusing federal aid is a familiar theme among those on the right who equate assistance with morally corrupting dependency … Mitt Romney said last year that disaster aid was part of the ‘immoral’ debt the country was piling up … The rugged blather about self-reliance, however, usually stops when the cameras focus on a weeping homeowner, sitting in front of a pile of rubble, without a federal official anywhere in sight.”

34 companies have dropped ads from the Rush Limbaugh show reports ThinkProgress.