Third Poll Again Shows Overwhelming Support for Bargaining Rights

Union-Busting Governors Ignoring Public Opinion, Appeals from Clergy

A third major poll on workers' rights confirms the results of two others in the past week: By a two-to-one margin, Americans support collective bargaining for public employees and oppose the kind of union-busting legislation that has sparked nationwide protests.

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll released Wednesday night found that 62 percent of respondents say it is unacceptable to eliminate state employees’ bargaining rights. Only a third of those polled said that doing so is acceptable.

The numbers are virtually identical to the results of polls by USA Today/Gallup and New York Times/CBS. The union-busting governors have so far ignored the surveys.

They’re also ignoring the Catholic Church. Bishop Stephen Blair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote an open letter to the Archbishop of Milwaukee, praising him for standing with the embattled workers in Wisconsin.

"You and our brother bishops are offering a timely reminder of what the Church teaches on the rights and duties of workers, including the right to form and belong to unions...these are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous human dimensions. The debates over worker representation and collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice, participation and how workers can have a voice in the workplace and economy," Blair wrote.

Catholic bishops in Ohio, where the Senate passed its anti-worker bill Wednesday, issued a statement before the vote, saying they "encourage leaders in government, labor, and business to pursue changes that promote the common good without the elimination of collective bargaining. We urge continued good faith in ongoing negotiations."