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The Fight Before Us: Healthcare, Poverty and Infant Mortality
Next year, Minnesota faces a state constitutional ballot measure that proposes making Minnesota a “right to work” state. This move will gut collectively bargained worker protections, making it easy for non-union members to stop paying for union collective bargaining representation. Without dues, advocating for workers rights and fair wages will be severely compromised.
Presently, 22 American states are “right to work” states. Apart from having conservative policy driving down wages, inhibiting worker protections and sidelining unions’ advocacy voices, those 22 states have a lower-standard of living than the 28 states with stronger worker protections. If you live in a “right to work” state, you’ll live a shorter life, experience lower quality healthcare, enjoy less access to healthcare, have a greater risk of living in poverty and, you’ll be more likely to have a baby die, according to AFL-CIO analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics and other public data.
That ought to give every Minnesotan, labor organized workers or not, pause.
Let me revisit this issue again. People who live in the 28 states with greater worker protections—the “non-right to work” states—earn higher wages, live longer, have better healthcare, have greater access to healthcare and are less likely to lose an infant to death. And, if that’s not enough, if you live in a “right to work” state, you’re much more likely to be injured on the job, to receive less workers compensation for that injury, and you’re at considerably higher risk of dying on the job due to a workplace injury. And by “considerably higher,” I mean 51 percent greater risk of death than in a “non-right to work” state.
Minnesota’s conservative state legislative policymakers, by placing a state constitutional amendment on the 2012 ballot, want Minnesota to become a state where many of us earn less, receive a lower healthcare standard, have less access to healthcare, live in or closer to poverty, increase our likelihood of workplace injury or death and are at greater risk of having an infant die. That’s bad deal all the way around. Minnesota prospers because of hard-earned worker protections. We’re better off because of collectively bargaining and union representation. Let’s keep things as they are and not fall backwards.
Posted in Economic Development | Related Topics: Health Insurance 2012 Election Union
4 Comments
January 6, 2012 at 11:34 pm
Let’sd celebrate President Obama’s spine in standing up to the shills of the rich. He has now demonstrated he is for the “man on the street.” It is now time for the “man on the street” to stand up for Obama.
January 6, 2012 at 10:53 am
Almost lost in the media excitement over Mr. Cordray’s recess appointment to head to the consumer protection agency were the three recess appointments made to the National Labor Relations Board by the president.
The rightwing members of Congress have, as they did with Mr. Cordray, refused to vet and vote to approve (or not) these appointments, hoping to destroy by attrition the only body that stands between workers and those who would treat them unfairly and/or unlawfully.
Their presence will assure a quorum and therefore assure the agency’s ability to investigate and rule on practices that harm workers.
January 5, 2012 at 10:43 am
I’m against RTW and believe the general conclusions of the AFL-CIO report. But summary data can be tough to analyze. I’d appreciate someone giving links to the specific tables from which conclusions are drawn.
For starters, from Wiki-
The following 22 states are right-to-work states:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
Florida
Georgia
Idaho
Iowa
Kansas
Louisiana
Mississippi
Nebraska
Nevada
North Carolina
North Dakota
Oklahoma
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Virginia
Wyoming
The Red State character of this movement is undeniable: It began as a union-busting strategy concocted by southern business interests. Generally, these states are poorer and less economically secure, but I’d like to see more proof of the direct cause-and-effect relationships asserted in the research referenced here. It’s a muddle. Start Googling and you’ll find yourself in a quagmire of assertions. Many variables are in play, and we need more specific information if we’re going to refute the other side’s arguments.
Ginny says:
January 7, 2012 at 11:50 am
Here are a couple of sites to check out. I rely first on U.S. Census data, and I found this one: http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
Here’s another one that discusses the data.
http://www.iwu.edu/economics/PPE09/amanda.pdf
You can find all of this if you look. Census data is reliable and I think most of it is now online.
I don’t have time to look at and analyze and correlate all of it, but it would be good if someone did. Or just look at the figures.