Senate passes extreme attack on public sector unions

In what has been described as the "financial death penalty" for public sector labor unions in Texas, this week the state senate passed Senate Bill 1968, which among many things, would end the automatic collection of union dues from public employees' paychecks.

This means that all public employees at every level, including office clerks, custodians, administrators, public school teachers and college professors, but excluding emergency services personnel, will no longer be dues-paying members of their respective unions, making their unions exist as a donation-only service. The plan is clear: stop collecting union dues and make employees pay on their own with a no-penalty option of not paying, then see the union financially dissolve, and then continue with a non-united workforce so that all future employees can be hired on a bare minimum wage with no guarantees of any kind of benefits or rights of any kind.

This comes amidst a non-stop war on workers in Texas, in which the far-right Republican Party has waged a relentless crusade against both public and private sector workers by breaking up unions and crushing all resistance to the big business regime. The Koch brothers, who primarily finance the Republicans' election campaigns, have been giving the same orders to their lawmaking employees throughout the United States: destroy all unions.

Senate Bill 1968 could very well lead to the destruction of all public sector unions in Texas. You can find contact info for your representative in the House here to demand they vote against it.