GOP Lawmaker Reveals ALEC-style Group Pushing Model Anti-Worker Bills -

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/09/11/gop-lawmaker-reveals-alec-style-group-pushing-model-anti-worker-bills/#sthash.5rvBFjKR.lGQ241pd.dpbs

By Mariya Strauss, on September 11, 2015

Co-authored by Eli Lee

Even as ALEC, the infamous bill-mill that produces right-wing model legislation for state lawmakers, hemorrhages corporate members and is discredited as a neutral voice in politics, other groups are adopting its tactics. PRA interviewed one conservative California lawmaker who said that SHRM, the Society for Human Resource Management, has begun using ALEC’s playbook to court lawmakers and push anti-worker policies.


Pictured left to right: CalSHRM Director-elect Patti Blosser, California Assemblyman Brian Jones (R-Santee), SHRM A-team Captain Hector Moncada and Mike Letizia, CalSHRM’s state director. - See more at: http://www.politicalresearch.org/2015/09/11/gop-lawmaker-reveals-alec-style-group-pushing-model-anti-worker-bills/#sthash.5rvBFjKR.lGQ241pd.dpuf

SHRM, which PRA has reported on in recent months, has spent several years building a lobbying infrastructure on the state level, and—especially in California—it is seeing those efforts bear fruit in the form of close relationships with lawmakers and legislative victories over organized labor and workers’ rights.

SHRM deploys its full-time lobbyists and nationwide network of member lobbyists to push back against any expansion of the overtime laws that would ensure workers putting in more than 40 hours actually receive their due overtime pay. They’re also fighting against paid sick days laws (which have repeatedly been shown to have a low-cost public health benefit to employers, workers and communities), and against any expansion of the Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA). For example, in 2013, SHRM testified against a proposal in Pennsylvania that would have allowed workers to use unpaid FMLA leave to care for their ailing siblings as well as parents or children.

Now, it appears that SHRM is not only opposing workers’ rights, but it is also taking a page out of the ALEC playbook and beginning to use model bills.

FULL story at link.

[BlueStreak]

1. Think our elected legislators write the laws that affect us? Think again.

Not even their staffs.

And certainly not as the result of input from constituents about what we want.

https://represent.us/action/theproblem-4/