FLORIDA’S GOVERNOR USING PRETENSE TO FIGHT STATE EMPLOYEES

Florida’s governor, Rick Scott, has decided to use a pretense to generate hostility toward state employees.  Under the guise of  “the public’s right to know”, Scott has established a website which includes all state employees’ salaries as well as listing pensions of $100,000 or more.

The pensions are listed by office and do not disclose the recipient’s name; however, the information on state employees includes the employee’s name, salary, and date of hire.  Under the misnomer of “holding government accountable”, Scott is using a thinly veiled tactic to generate animosity toward state employees.

Scott’s tactic is, in main part, due to the protection of collective bargaining provisions in the Florida State Constitution.  In 1968, the applicable section of the Constitution was rewritten and now states:

The right of employees, by and through a labor organization, to bargain collectively shall not be denied or abridged. Public employees shall not have the right to strike.

In 1969, the Florida Supreme Court upheld the new constitutional provision, giving Florida state employees the right to bargain collectively.  However, they do not have the right to strike.   Originally in favor of collective bargaining and critical of Wisconsin’s governor, Scott now says he wants the Constitutional protection removed.

However, the constitutional protection makes it much more difficult to abolish collective bargaining.  Unlike Mitch Daniels, who, with the stroke of a pen, ended Indiana’s collective bargaining provisions a few hours after he took office in 2005, or Scott Walker, who pushed legislation through the Wisconsin State legislature, Rick Scott is hemmed in by the Florida constitution.  This surely has created a great deal of angst for the flip-flopping governor.

With Florida’s Constitution containing protection for worker collective bargaining, Scott must try another tactic to garner support to abolish the Constitutional provision.  And, what better way to build support for abolishing collective bargaining than to pit worker against worker, private sector employee against public sector employee than to show wages for comparison?

Governor Scott’s plan is nothing short of a devious way of triggering warfare between state employees and private workforce employees.

LEVELING THE TRADE PLAYING FIELD

Outsourcing corporate entities would have us believe that changing or modifying free trade agreements to effect a more level playing field for American workers is – gasp – unAmerican.  What those corporate powers don’t want you to know is the depth to which our workers are truly affected.

Last year, Japan and Honda sold 3 million cars in America while Ford and GM sold only 10,000 in Japan.  Why?  Japan imposes mark-ups, restrictions, and obstacles on American imports.   A $25,000 American car carries a prohibitive $50,000 price tag once it is put on display in Japan.  No one in Japan calls it protectionism, but that is what it is.   A rose is a rose is a rose.

Yet, when this type of disparity is highlighted by American workers and supporters of retooling free trade agreements, corporate powers immediately use scare tactics to browbeat the American worker and consumer by screaming protectionism.

Since 2000, 3 million manufacturing jobs have left our country.   A refreshing change would be a law requiring Japanese car makers to sell the same number of cars in the U.S. that they import into their country.  It would limit Japan to 5.5 percent of the U.S market.  The void left by cutting Japanese car imports could be filled by American manufactured cars.

What a concept – treating the American worker fairly by insisting that the rules of the game be the same for all.  Fair trade – not free trade – is the only way to protect our workers and ensure that they can compete in a world dominated by cheap labor and nonexistent environmental protections of foreign lands.

Put American workers to work - buy American made products