That’s right: according to former Virginia Lt. Governor Bill Bolling, a Trump-voting conservative Republican, anyone (e.g., every Virginia Democratic Lt. Governor candidate – see their comments last night which prompted Bolling’s tirade) who supports unions and opposes union-busting “right-to-work-for-less”/”right-to-be-poor” (as Leslie Byrne calls them) laws is some sort of “left wing extremist.”
In fact, as the AFL-CIO explains:
- “‘Right to work’ is the name for a policy designed to take away rights from working people. Backers of right to work laws claim that these laws protect workers against being forced to join a union. The reality is that federal law already makes it illegal to force someone to join a union.”
- “The real purpose of right to work laws is to tilt the balance toward big corporations and further rig the system at the expense of working families. These laws make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits and working conditions.”
- “In ‘right to work’ states, 24% of jobs in 2019 were in low-wage occupations, compared to 14.5% of jobs in other states without right to work laws.”
- “36%: Percent higher the average number of discrimination charges the EEOC receives from right to work states.”
- “3.1: The percent a worker’s pay drops on average when right to work laws are passed.”
Want some more facts on so-called “right-to-work” laws? Check out this infographic from the AFL-CIO.
By the way, if you look at the map of states with so-called “right-to-work” laws, you’ll notice that it’s a close match with a map of “red,” Trump-supporting states – and that many of these include many of the states with the highest poverty rates: Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, West Virginia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, Arkansas, etc. In contrast, the wealthiest states in the country mostly don’t have “right-to-work” laws.
To sum it all up, according to Oxfam’s Best and Worst States to Work in the US 2024 report, the states that are the WORST for workers (in reverse order: North Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Wyoming, Kentucky, Kansas, Louisiana, North Dakota, Arkansas, Wisconsin, Iowa, Oklahoma, Idaho, West Virginia, and Indiana) *all* have so-called “Right-to-Work” laws on the books, while the states that are BEST for workers (in descending order: DC, California, Oregon, New York, Washington, New Jersey, Illinois, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Colorado, Minnesota, Maine, Hawaii, Vermont, Maryland and Rhode Island) do NOT have so-called “right-to-work” laws on the books.
As for Virginia? We’ve got so-called “right-to-work” laws on the books, but we also have many pro-worker laws, thanks to the Democratic “trifecta” in 2020-2021, so we rank #26 according to Oxfam’s report. So one of the main questions in the upcoming elections, of course, is whether we want to make Virginia *better* for workers (we’re already #1 or #2 for business in the country) or *worse* for workers. If you want to make things *better* for workers, then by all means make sure you vote Democratic up and down the ballot this fall. If, instead, you want to make things *worse* for workers, then clearly the party of Glenn Youngkin, Winsome Earle-Sears, Jason Miyares, etc. is for you! Yeah, didn’t think so.
Finally, if (like Bill Bolling) you really think that being pro-worker makes you a “left-wing extremist,” then it’s pretty obvious why you’d be a Trump voter (especially, in Bolling’s case, when you’re also rabidly anti-illegal-immigration, strongly pro-corporate/pro-polluter, etc.).
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