The Hammer: Power, Inequality, and the Struggle for the Soul of Labor Highlight

“We would like to reinstate the prevailing wage. We would like to reverse ‘right to work.’ We would like to prohibit charter schools. We’d like to unravel the new school voucher bill they passed. We would like to reverse the prohibition on payroll deduction for public employee union members. The reality is, we’re in no position to do that. We’re mostly playing defense,” he says. When he speaks about the ideas that emerge from the legislature for revitalizing the state’s economy—like, for example, cutting unemployment benefits in half during a pandemic—his voice takes on an exasperated tone. “Nothing that they’ve done has helped the economic situation in West Virginia whatsoever. One of the things they said when they were trying to pass ‘right to work’ laws was, ‘This is gonna be a huge jumpstart to our economy.’ And the data, the real data, suggests it made absolutely no difference. Except that it’s much more difficult for workers to find jobs with fair wages, good benefits, and a safe workplace, because they lose that leverage at the negotiating table.”