Missouri's Greitens Guts Public-Sector Unions on His Way out the Door [View all]

[turbinetree]

MANUEL MADRID JUNE 7, 2018

The scandal-plagued governor scrambled to sign anti-union legislation and a stack of other bills before he resigned.


In the waning hours of his tenure as governor of Missouri, Eric Greitens delivered on his campaign pledge to kneecap the state’s labor unions.

A former up-and-comer in the Republican Party, Greitens’s star quickly dimmed after allegations of sexual misconduct surfaced and a felony charge of invasion of privacy and a charge of potential campaign-finance violations followed. Under the threat of impeachment proceedings in the state legislature, Greitens announced his resignation right after Memorial Day, giving himself until the end of that week to tie up loose ends on his way out the door.

And tie them up, he did.

Greitens signed a staggering 77 bills into law before handing the reins over to Mike Parson, his lieutenant governor. One of those bills was H.B. 1413, which would require unionized government employees to vote every three years on whether they want their union to continue to represent them. Any union that fails to get a majority of its members to vote in the affirmative would no longer be permitted to represent those workers. This onerous requirement essentially erodes union membership and undermines collective-bargaining power.

H.B. 1413 also requires public-sector workers to make an annual decision on whether union dues can be deducted from their earnings. The provision, called “paycheck protection” by its supporters but labeled “paycheck deception” by its opponents, also would allow public-sector employees to opt out of paying dues even if those workers benefit from collective bargaining.

http://prospect.org/article/missouris-greitens-guts-public-sector-unions-on-his-way-out-door

The Missouri House of Representatives passed a bill that would have put a pro-right-to-work constitutional amendment on the November ballot, but the legislative session ended last month before the measure could be passed in the state Senate.

The fight in Missouri is far from over: Depending on the outcome of the August vote, right-to-work groups could pursue an amendment to the Missouri Constitution or the union-backed coalition could continue its fight to have labor protections enshrined in the document. Whatever the result, Greitens leaves a political legacy colored by hostility to labor and tarnished by scandal.


How do you spell a**hole.................Greiten's