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Unions call right-to-work a threat to Missourians' livelihoods


Organized labor supporters packed a hearing room Tuesday as discussions began on a right-to-work bill. (Garrett Bergquist/KRCG 13)
Organized labor supporters packed a hearing room Tuesday as discussions began on a right-to-work bill. (Garrett Bergquist/KRCG 13)
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Organized labor groups on Tuesday said a proposed labor bill's effects reach beyond the world of manual trades.

Five Republican state representatives spent Tuesday afternoon presenting their versions of a so-called right-to-work bill. Each version would bar unions from requiring non-members to join or pay fees. Unions argue this would lead to less pay for Missourians regardless of whether or not they belonged to a union. John Stiffler, of the St. Louis Building & Construction Trades union, said this would have a ripple effect across Missouri's economy.

"If work goes down, and we lose membership, that will be less spending that we can use for grocery stores, products, goods, et cetera, and our middle-class workers are big, big spenders of that type of money and product," he said.

With the passage this week of similar legislation in Kentucky, 27 states now have right-to-work laws, including all of the states bordering Missouri except Illinois. Federal statistics show residents of right-to-work states bordering Missouri earned an average of $1,000 to $2,000 less than Missourians did last year. But data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics also show that unemployment was lower in four of the six border states that had right-to-work laws in Nov. 2016, the most recent month for which data are available.

These unemployment figures were at the forefront of Tuesday's testimony in support of right-to-work. Reps. Bill White and Bill Lant both represent districts in the Joplin area, near Missouri's borders with Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska. Both men said their districts have steadily lost businesses to right-to-work states.

"We lost not only the companies, but we lost the employees," Lant said. "We lost people that were on our school boards. We lost people that were operating the small, small businesses and shopping at the local industries that we all depended on."

Right-to-work legislation has passed the General Assembly before, but Republicans did not have the votes to override then-Gov. Jay Nixon's veto. But current Gov. Eric Greitens made his support of right-to-work a central part of his gubernatorial campaign, and leaders in both chambers have vowed to send the bill to his desk quickly.


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