Spence Joins the Attack on Workers

What you see above is a poll that Republican Home Economist in Chief of Missouri wannabe Dave Spence is running on his website. Please go ahead and take a minute to vote in it to let Spence know your thoughts on the issue.  It essentially asks whether or not we should attack workers and bust their unions.  He couches the question in terms of whether Missouri should be more like Ohio and Wisconsin where last year their republican governors passed legislation that stripped workers, particularly public workers like firefighters and police, teachers and nurses, and other critical public servants, of their rights to organize and bargain collectively for fair wages and just benefits.


I just have one question for Spence: Are ya not paying attention to what the voters in Ohio and Wisconsin have to say about your union busting buddies, Kasich and Walker?  Below is a crash course:

Ohio: workers stopped dead in its tracks Senate Bill 5 and collected over a million signatures to ensure that it appeared on the ballot to face a vote of the people.  When they delivered the petitions to the state, the building engineer stopped them from taking all of the petitions to the secretary's office because they were concerned about the structural stability of the building. Then, when election day rolled around, guess what? Senate Bill 5, the anti-collective bargaining bill, was defeated by a margin of 2-1. Not only that, but it's said that lingering voter anger over the SB 5 fight played a part in yesterday's Ohio primaries.

Wisconsin: Gov. Walker and his cronies passed a budget repair bill that included language that would also strip public workers of their right to bargain collectively, even carving out police and firefighters in an effort to wedge labor against labor, but guess what? The Wisconsin labor movement stuck together and even after the legislature passed and Walker signed his ridiculous, anti-freedom legislation, workers and their allies collected enough signatures to trigger six recall elections last year, removing two from office.  Not only that, but when Walker became eligible for recall this year, Wisconsinites again went out in the snow and the cold to collect signatures to recall the governor himself as well as more of his anti-worker republicans in the legislature.

So, Dave Spence, if you want to ask whether or not Missouri should be like Ohio and Wisconsin, I say to you this: given the incredible solidarity shown by the citizens of those two great states, sure, I wouldn't mind being more like Ohio and Wisconsin - they are defeating politicians like you left and right and rejecting the anti-worker legislation you think would be so wonderful with huge majorities.  As for the actual question you ask, I won't even dignify it with an answer, and why should I? You won't ever make it to the Missouri Governor's Mansion, so you won't ever have a chance to legitimately ask it. Courtesy of Fired up Missouri.