Protect Collective Bargaining

Unions and allies are on the offensive.

Michigan workers, with support from key allies like the Sierra Club, have launched a bold campaign to enshrine collective bargaining rights in their state’s constitution. The measure would shield them against future legislative attacks on bargaining rights.

“The Sierra Club is a strong supporter of workers’ rights and we are proud to be standing side-by-side with the Communications Workers of America to protect working families,” said Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director. “In Michigan, CWA and the Sierra Club also are working together to pass Proposals 2 and 3 which will help build a clean energy economy that will create hundreds of thousands of jobs and protect Michigan’s working families.” Activists from CWA and Sierra are working together, knocking on doors and talking to voters about both issues.

This fight in Michigan is critical to showing the nation’s voters that collective bargaining is more than just wages and pensions. Collective bargaining gives nurses a voice to speak out on behalf of patient care, public workers a voice on vital community services and university workers a say on budget cuts that hurt students and communities. Collective bargaining makes communities stronger.

“We can’t fight each and every piece of legislation that attacks workers’ rights, we don’t have the resources,” said CWA District 4 staff representative Mike Schulte. “So we tried to fix it in one strike. We know we need to protect collective bargaining.”

Since the 2010 midterm elections, new Republican majorities have pushed legislation to strip the rights of workers. But workers have claimed victory in Ohio, where voters overturned the law eliminating public workers’ collective bargaining, and Wisconsin, where a judge recently struck down nearly all of the state law that effectively ended collective bargaining rights.

In November, the fight moves to Michigan. It’s been a turbulent ride for Michigan’s ballot initiative, known as Proposal 2, which was first drafted about a year ago in preparation for the November election. Protect Working Families, a coalition of labor unions, collected nearly 700,000 signatures — more than double the number of petitioners required — to put the proposal on the ballot. The Republican governor and attorney general waged a court battle to prevent citizens from exercising their right to vote on the measure. Launching an all-out assault, powerful corporate interests have spent millions of dollars to mislead voters on this issue.

But Protect Working Families won and the issue is on the ballot. Now it’s up to the voters.