Wal-Mart is pouring money into a drive to enact a so-called "right-to-work" law in Oklahoma. If successful, right-to-work proponents hope to use Oklahoma as a model for a renewed campaign to reduce wages and benefits for workers across the country.

Developed in the 1940s by segregationist Southern senators and their right-wing Northern allies to prevent the Congress of Industrial Organizations from uniting African-American, Latino and white workers in the South and Southwest, right-to-work laws are among the most vile legacies of an era when conservatives worked at the state and national level to erect legal barriers to racial progress.

Right-to-work laws, cloaked in the rhetoric of "self-determination" by their corporate proponents, are designed to prevent unions from gaining the strength to demand fair wages and benefits for workers of all races. By undermining the ability of labor organizations to collect union dues and represent all workers on a job site, these laws make it difficult for unions to negotiate solid contracts and flex their muscles on behalf of working families in the political debate.

And right-to-work laws work. In the 21 states that have such legislation on their books, the median household income is $4,882 less than in the states where workers are free to organize effective unions. The majority of states with the highest poverty levels in the United States are right-to-work states. The majority of states with the highest rate of uninsured families are right-to-work states. The majority of states with the lowest per-pupil expenditures for education are right-to-work states. In fact, no piece of legislation is more likely to define a state as "backward" than a right-to-work law.

No wonder, then, that only two states have put them on the books since the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed in the 1960s.

Still, a self-serving coalition of big-business interests and right-wing extremists continue to advance the scheme, and the coalition's latest target is Oklahoma. A Sept. 25 referendum in that state asks voters whether they want to put a right-to-work law on the books. In a fair fight, the law wouldn't stand a chance - Oklahoma rejected a right-to-work referendum in 1964 when, famously, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. came to campaign against the proposal.

But this will not be a fair fight.

Right-wing Gov. Frank Keating, powerful U.S. Sen. Don Nickles and the state's most powerful newspaper publisher, Daily Oklahoman boss Edward Gaylord, are throwing everything they've got into passing the measure. And they've got a lot, thanks to Wal-Mart.

The firm has already moved $100,000 into the accounts of the campaign to pass the right-to-work law, making it the third largest contributor to the effort. And there are expectations that, after Labor Day, more money will flow from Wal-Mart's Bentonville, Ark., headquarters into the Oklahoma campaign. In some senses, it is a good investment for Wal-Mart, which often has a hard time finding workers willing to accept the low wages paid at its stores. If the Oklahoma campaign is a success, right-to-work advocates hope to use it as a model for passing similar initiatives in Colorado, Indiana, Kentucky, Montana, New Hampshire and New Mexico.

But Oklahoma trade unionists are hoping Wal-Mart will get the word that consumers don't approve of corporations that use their resources to drive down wages.

"Union members across the country should take note of Wal-Mart's support of measures like 'right-to-work' before they spend any of their union wages at Wal-Mart stores," says Edwin Hill, president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers.

Hill is right. But the anger at Wal-Mart need not be limited to union members. All Americans who believe in economic and social justice - especially those who take seriously the promise of the civil rights revolution for which King and so many others struggled - ought to be furious at any firm that promotes the right-to-work lie.

Copyright 2001 The Capital Times

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