Day 11 – Bill Gillespie’s Road Trip Diary

Today’s entry is the last entry in our Road Trip Diary.

It’s been 11 days since Anna Jover Royo, Jason Alward, Aura Aberback and I jumped into our rented Dodge Caravan in Toronto and headed for the U.S.A.

If you have been clicking on our daily written and video blogs, you will already know our assignment was to investigate how the anti-union Right to Work laws, that a growing number of conservative politicians are now promoting for Canada, actually work in practice.

Right to Work is an insidiously misleading slogan. It suggests it’s about the right to a job but it’s not. It’s a law that allows a union member to stop paying dues but still get the benefits of the collective agreement negotiated by the union and its dues-paying members. I hesitate to use the phrase but that idea sounds a little un-Canadian to me.

We headed first for Michigan where we met high school science teacher Dan Dennis. In 1999 Dennis left his teaching job in non-Right to Work Michigan and moved to Right to Work North Carolina. Immediately his salary dropped 25%, his workload increased, his prep time disappeared, his pension plan was dumbed-down and so was his medical coverage.

In Columbus Ohio I interviewed mathematician Darrell Minor. Minor crunched the numbers and found that far from ushering in prosperity, workers in Right to Work states suffer higher unemployment rates, pay more for health insurance and have shorter life expectancies than in non-Right to Work states.

South Carolina was even more disturbing. It adopted its Right to Work law in 1954. The prosperity? With the 4th highest unemployment rate and the 45th lowest person income in the U.S., folks are still waiting for that.

You can see some of the inspiring people we interviewed in South Carolina on the video blog. People such as Democratic state congresswoman Gilda Cobb-Hunter or the head of the International Longshoremen’s Association Ken Riley.

But the daily blog wasn’t our main assignment. Our primary task is to create a documentary putting the rhetoric of the Right to Work boosters to the test. We gathered firsthand interviews, facts and video. When we get back to Toronto we will start writing and editing.

I want to say however, what a pleasure it has been to work and travel with the three fine OPSEU professionals assigned to this project.

Jason Alward who, in his normal working life, is a graphic artist. Jason was our driver. He got us where we had to go on time and safely. He has an odd habit of backing into every parking space but never backs into a conversation. The Maritimer that he is, he is able to chat up anyone and immediately put them at ease – a real asset when you are strangers in a strange land.

Aura Aberback was our logistics wagon master - meaning she was in charge of just about every aspect of our lives for the 11 days from finding the lowest-cost union hotels, to meals, to editing my writing. She also kept disappearing (Where’s Aura?) to take about 10,000 photographs (some of which you can see by clicking on the photo tab).

Videographer Anna Jover Royo worked harder than any of us. During the day she shot interviews, road signs, fireworks, crowd scenes, the Charleston docks, the Michigan state legislature – the list seems endless. At night she stayed up late editing the video blog. Our workdays ranged from 10 to 15 hours and Anna was always up the latest.

The final member of the team wasn’t with us in the van. Cynthia Clayton was back in Toronto. Cynthia is OPSEU’s web specialist. She stayed up late at night and got up early in the morning and on weekends to take our written and video dispatches from the field and put them up on the website. No matter how many demands we put on her, she was always positive and helpful from start to finish. The blog would not have happened without her.

Ok. Now for the big questions.

Did you get on each other’s nerves? Did you have any big fights? Any small fights? After all, you were packed into that van together for almost two weeks.

The answer is we got along famously.

Ok, we did have to listen to Jason’s boring CBC Radio Three music. But he had to listen to mine and Anna’s annoying country music (go Zac Brown Band). Sadly, Aura could not find a radio station that played her two favourite artists – Burt Bacharach and Supertramp.

So thanks for clicking on the blog.

If we learned anything from our American friends it is we should take the threat of Right to Work legislation very seriously. They told us it is just a first step. Once RTW passed in their state, more anti-labour legislation followed.

Their message was “don’t think it can’t happen to you”. As Democratic congresswoman Gilda Cobb-Hunter put it “you DO NOT want to become South Carolina!”

You’ve read and seen the blog. Get ready for the movie to be released this fall.

Bill Gillespie's Road Diary: Day 8

"Take this seriously. Otherwise, you're going to be just like us. And that ain't what you want."

Gilda Cobb-Hunter has a warning for Ontario Unions.

Don’t think it can’t happen to you.

Cobb-Hunter is the deputy leader of the Democratic Party in the South Carolina legislature. She is a former social worker, the director of a domestic abuse centre and an opponent of anti-labour Right to Work laws.

South Carolina is a conservative southern state. Its young men enlisted in the Confederate army and fought and died in the American civil war against the Yankee north. Today the Confederate flag still flies at the State Legislature in the capitol, Columbia.

Like many southern states, South Carolina didn’t take well to liberal innovations from the north - such as union-friendly labour laws.

So in 1954 the state became one of the first to pass a so-called Right to Work law.

Right to Work Law boosters insist weaker unions are a key to creating a business-friendly Ontario that will usher in a new era of prosperity.

But Gilda Cobb-Hunter says South Carolina has had a Right to Work Law for 59  years and folks are still waiting for the prosperity.

There is no shortage of negative markers in South Carolina. The fourth highest unemployment rate of the 50 United States. The highest percentage of mobile home ownership. The highest violent crime rate. The 47th lowest percentage of children that graduate from high school.

Cobb-Hunter blames much of it on anti-union laws adopted by conservative Republican and Democratic Government over the years. The laws have been very effective in reducing the numbers and influence of unions. Today less than five percent of workers in South Carolina are union members.

As union jobs with decent pay began to decline, the middle class began to shrink.

Amongst the worst off are public employees.

Over the past 20 years Cobb-Hunter says the state of South Carolina has cut the number of state employees from 80,000 to 56,000. During the same period the population of South Carolina increased by about a million to 4.7 million citizens.

She says state employees are woefully underpaid and overworked. In addition, it is against state law for state employees to form a union and bargain collectively. Cobb-Hunter says since it was first passed 59 years ago, the scope of the Right to Work law has been expanded to give employers the right to fire a worker almost without cause. Many state employees have come to her she says, telling her they want to form a union but are afraid if they are heard even discussing the possibility they will be fired. Their fears are well-founded she says.

Cobb-Hunter says what she has seen in South Carolina is that a Right to Work law is just the thin edge of the wedge. Other anti-union laws follow.

And she has a warning for Ontarians. Don’t think this can’t happen to you. It can. The ideologues that are pushing Right to Work laws are lavishly financed and relentless. If those backing this agenda succeed, Cobb-Hunter says Ontario will be on its way to becoming South Carolina.

And she says you DO NOT want to be South Carolina.

If you want to see the force of nature that is Gilda Cobb-Hunter (and her amazing black and yellow robe and headdress) click on the video link and catch a few of her comments.

Today is the fourth of July here in the U.S. A longshoreman has invited us over for a BBQ. After we’ll go down to the waterfront to catch the fireworks and ask the folks we meet how they feel about unions.