The Right Has a New Playbook To Crush Unions and Enshrine Corporate Power
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during a news conference on February 05, 2024 in Miami Beach, Florida.,JOE RAEDLE
The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) is pushing a spate of anti-worker bills in states across the country—the latest in the group’s onslaught on collective bargaining rights.
tate lawmakers seeking to dismantle unions and implement anti-worker laws have just been handed a new state-by-state roadmap by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the corporate-funded bill mill popular with Republican legislators.
Although ALEC claims that its proffered labor reforms are designed to protect “worker freedom and flexibility,” its attacks on workers over the past 50 years have made it harder for them to organize, harder for local governments to support decent-paying jobs, and easier on big business.
Those attacks, bankrolled by Koch Industries and right-wing donors such as the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, are motivated as much by the desire to protect corporate bottom lines as by the determination to eviscerate a key supporter of the Democratic Party: labor unions.
ALEC has paid particular attention to public sector unions by peddling model bills that prohibit paycheck deductions for dues, mandate high membership thresholds, and introduce automatic decertification, among other anti-labor measures.
The first edition of ALEC’s labor policy handbook, which was published in 2019, came on the heels of the Supreme Court’s momentous 2018 Janus ruling, which radically upended the lives of American workers by maintaining that public sector employees do not have to pay union dues as a condition of employment.
The second edition, published this year, adds three model bills to expand the scope of ALEC’s key anti-labor policies. In addition to its evergreen model “right-to-work” and union-busting bills, the updated edition includes bills that target independent contractors and occupational licensing. Two of these address interstate occupation licenses, with one setting up a process for reviewing all current and proposed occupational licenses.
One of ALEC’s most recent anti-worker policies, which was introduced at last summer’s annual meeting, blacklists any company that voluntarily recognizes a union to keep it from qualifying for state economic development incentives. However, this policy is not included in the newly released handbook.
Since 2019, ALEC’s anti-labor priorities — including its state-level right-to-work and anti-union bills — have had a significant impact on workers and workplaces. With the imprimatur of Governor Ron DeSantis ®, the Florida legislature passed some of the most regressive labor legislation in recent history last year. The Florida bill — which is highlighted as “noteworthy legislation” in the new handbook — empowered the state to decertify public sector unions, prohibit automatic deductions for union dues, mandate universal language on union membership cards, and impose considerable annual reporting requirements, all key items on ALEC’s anti-worker wishlist. A recent investigation found that since the law passed, more than 42,000 public sector workers in Florida have lost their union representation.
A Louisiana bill outright banning collective bargaining for that state’s public sector workers is currently making its way through the state legislature. It comes amidst a flurry of other anti-union bills which feature some of the most regressive features of ALEC’s model bills: banning the automatic deduction of dues, requiring the regular recertification of existing bargaining units, and all but outlawing political lobbying.
Permanent precarity
The new model bills included in the second edition focus on promulgating precarious employment through independent contracting laws and occupational licensing reforms.