The Chris Moeller Archives

The family returns

On April 8th, the final nine-episode run of "The Sopranos" begins on HBO, and the April issue of Vanity Fair has a preview. You can enjoy the provocative cover and a photo shoot video at the magazine's website (Sound Warning!), but you'll evidently have to hit your local newstand if you want to read the feature article.

That was April 8th, people.

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Tonight, the Iowa Senate passed "Fair Share," a bill forcing public workers (teachers, city, county, and state employees) who receive union-negotiated benefits to financially contribute to the cost of providing those benefits. Unfortunately, Democrats backed down on a plan that would have also included private sector workers in the legislation, fearing the measure would not get the votes to pass. The bill now goes to the House, where Democrats believe it has the support needed to advance, and Gov. Chet Culver says he would sign such a bill into law.

In a complete non-starter, Republicans-- along with lapdog David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register-- have claimed that the bill would damage the state's economy, but the Center for Policy Alternatives reveals different information about "Fair Share" and the effects of so-called "Right-toWork" legislation:

1) Right-to-Work states have a poverty rate of 13.5%, opposed to 12.2 in free bargaining states.

2) The infant mortality rate is 7.94% higher in Right-to-Work states, and the uninsured population rate is 15 percent higher on average.

3) The rate of workplace deaths is 41% higher in Right-to-Work states, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics.

and
4) Right-to-Work states spend an average of $1,680 less per pupil in elementary and secondary schools, resulting in average teacher salaries $6,943 lower and composite ACT scores 3.55 % lower than their free bargaining counterparts.


The cause, as I see it, was best supported by Donald Clarke, of West Des Moines, IA, in a letter to the Register on Wednesday-- a letter I'm reprinting in its as-published entirety and without permission:

I once spent 10 years working in one of the world's biggest car factories. It was a really good deal: I gave the company 40 hours, and they gave me a nice check so that I could afford to buy one of the cars.

It was a closed shop, but I didn't mind paying dues to the United Auto Workers, and later to the International Associaton of Machinists, because it was their negotiation with the company on my behalf that had led to my relative prosperity. Anyway, the majority of my co-workers wanted the union, and that's democracy.

But now I live in Iowa, where someone who works in a place where the majority has voted for a union is not required to belong to that union, but gets a free ride. That's an interesting view of democracy. I don't have much use for state government these days, and Gov. Chet Culver wasn't my first, or second, choice for governor. So I don't have to pay my taxes. Have I got that right?

3/9/07 am update: The Register's coverage of this issue continues to be wretchedly biased-- about a dozen column inches for the 2,000 member "Professional Educators of Iowa," and virtually nothing for the 32,000 member Iowa State Education Association.

posted by CM @ 10:20 PM