Democrats across the country have championed paid sick leave in an effort to garner favorable public opinion — President Barack Obama made sure to offer his commitment to the issue during his State of the Union Address. Washington State’s Democrat lawmakers were quick to jump on the bandwagon, introducing a paid sick leave bill in the state House of Representatives (HB 1356).
A single bill designed to appeal to public opinion just isn’t good enough for Democrat legislators in Washington State. House Democrats have also introduced bills for paid vacation (HB 1163) and triple pay for employees who work on Thanksgiving Day (HB 1694). Democrats—with the support of big labor—champion these bills as workers’ rights issues. Yet, they don’t take these “rights” seriously enough to extend to all workers, especially workers whose employers give a lot of money to Democrat campaigns.
All three bills contain exemptions for—wait for it—labor unions. Each bill includes an exemption provision for employees who are “covered by a collective bargaining agreement.” In other words, labor unions backing these bills under the guise of workers’ rights don’t seem to believe these particular rights apply to all workers which, of course, doesn’t make them rights at all.
The Washington Policy Center points out that labor unions’ willingness to cut their members out of these workers’ rights reveals the true motivation behind the legislation—that’s to encourage “employers to become union shops in order to take advantage of the exemptions.” The bills would make unionization a “low cost option for employers to avoid paying the otherwise mandated benefits.” Of course, more unionized employers means more union members which means more union dues, which more campaign money for Democrat politicians.
As always, big labor executives are looking out for their self-interests and Democrat lawmakers are only too eager to oblige. After all, as recipients of the vast majority of labor’s campaign cash, liberals benefit when big labor benefits. The three bills are not about workers’ rights—if they were the exemption clauses would not exist—they are about money. The big losers in this scenario are the workers who are forced to pay union dues on top of being left out of the benefits– and small businesses that have to deal with more government mandates.
Deb Cooper says
Workers would be better off with out unions! I work for one of the non union hospitals of a so called not for profit corporation that was once based in Tacoma….the union employees are still working with out a contract and still with out pay raises. My wages are higher in the non union hospital my health care costs are lower the one thing I have lost in the 24 months are some of my retirement benefits…my employer used to contribute approximately 1800 a year now it is down to 600. A huge cut yes but the union would not have prevented this…..Unions are no longer for the worker but for their own political gain and power!
Debbie Street says
Wait a minute. Unions may be exempted because they already HAVE these benefits, and have had them for many years, as part of their contracts. In fact, unions typically have better benefits than these proposed by the President and the Congress. It’s been my experience that included in all the union contracts I know about are paid sick leave (the number of days limited to SIX MONTHS. If your illness or disability lasted longer than that, you’d be retired on pension), paid vacation, and usually double-time-and a half for ALL holidays worked–not just Thanksgiving, as well as time-and-a-half for “regular” overtime; that is, working more than eight hours/day. They also have benefits like a guaranteed number of holidays per year (usually 10), a paid “personal” day, higher wages, a cost-of-living-increase every year, safer working conditions, & etc. And non-union Corporations typically followed suit, giving their employees comparable benefits, for fear that if they didn’t, their employees would unionize. Unions are what created the American middle class. Big business and politicians have propagandized and convinced the American people that unions are a bad thing. Nothing could be further from the truth. MLK, Jr. said “beware of false slogans like ‘right to work’.” And he knew of what he spoke. “Right to work” means “right to work for less”–money and benefits. In the 1890s, and then again in the 1930s, workers, because of a non-living wage and horrendous working conditions among other issues, organized, fought, bled, and sometimes died to get us the benefits that I, for one, so blithely took for granted when I started working at a non-union big business in 1970. Corporations don’t hand out benefits out of the goodness of their hearts. As we’ve seen the unions weakened over the last 30 years or so, so has gone the middle class.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN says
I am surprised that TENSOR did not jump in on this conversation with his rethoric propaganda.