It’s no secret that the American Legislative Education Committee (ALEC), the corporatist front group owned in large part by the billionaire Koch brothers and used to enact their political preferences into law, is really big on right-to-work (RTW) legislation. ALEC is not alone in promoting RTW – the Chamber of Commerce; ALEC’s sister organization, Americans for Prosperity (AFP); along with numerous rightwing groups have also made RTW their cause du jour, but ALEC has had a particularly important role. In fact, several past efforts to enact RTW bills in Missouri adhered closely to he pattern of ALEC model legislation. Those bills – so far – have failed to gain sufficient traction to pass.

But never fear – RTW is still a priority. House speaker, Tim Jones recently, proclaimed that “we’re going to make Missouri the 25th right-to-work state.” The only thing that has changed is the strategy, as Peter Kinder explained to the ALEC overlords last month:

Earlier this month, Republican Lt. Governor Peter Kinder told an audience at the national American Legislative Exchange Council convention in Chicago that “Right to Work” (RTW) didn’t have the legs to pass through Missouri’s Republican-controlled legislature, and that the matter would likely be placed on the ballot for the next general election.

Sounds grim. RTW is not just one more effort to chip away at the ability of unions to function effectively, it’s a chain saw that can be used to slice away huge chunks of union membership.The word is that Missouri unions are already building up their war chests in anticipation of a nasty fight:

The 1978 fight pales in comparison to what the fight would cost both sides now,” Missouri AFL-CIO President, Hugh McVey, told The Missouri Times. “We won big last time and the numbers kind of speak to that, but I don’t know that we’d win like that this time. Although I do still think we would win.”

At a meeting of the Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG) last Saturday, however, Democratic Rep. Bill Otto had a different perspective, all but daring the Republicans to put RTW on the ballot. His argument touched on the issue of turnout during midterm elections. Many of us believe that the reason Missouri sent such a large population of Tea Party fence posts (as in “dumb as a fence post”) to Washington in 2010, and voted for things like the anti-Obamacare Prop. C had more to do with small overall turnout and over-excited Tea Partiers than the real druthers of less extreme Missourians. One thing a RTW ballot initiative could do, if state Democrats are able to act quickly and smartly – a big if, I know – would be to energize the Democratic base. I don’t know about you, but I’ll wait and see. I’ll also keep my fingers crossed.  

Herding cats and Democrats, oh yeah, tough. But last Tuesday the leaders of about 25 progressive groups in the St. Louis metro area attended a conference called by Missouri Progressive Action Group, a conference aimed at forming a metro wide alliance. Okay, we’re still cats and we haven’t formed an official alliance with a name and all that stuff. But as we talked, some themes emerged.

• Lots of suggestions for coordinating and communicating with each other emerged.
• We’re all fed up with the lack of dynamic messaging. And we want message discipline–that’s if and when we have figured out the messages that will move people.
• We need to use social media more effectively. Mohammar Ghaddafi could tell you that Facebook is not just about what somebody had for breakfast. Same with Twitter.

Deb Lavender moderated for the day. She made introductions by asking one person to take hold of a ball of yarn, introduce himself and throw the ball to someone he knows. And so on. By the end, the web of interconnectedness was obvious–and we had all been introduced.

We spent the morning voicing concerns and trading ideas. The conference ended with Lavender promising to propose some ways we could start getting coordinated. And that, of course, is how cat herding works–not with lariats and spurs, but with promises of better ways to catch a mouse.

The next monthly meeting of Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG) is Sat., Oct. 1, at the St. Louis County Library Headquarters from 12:30 to 2:30. Our guest speaker will be Rep. Stacey Newman, the head of the progressive caucus in the House. November’s speaker will be Jeanette Mott Oxford. Come and join a group that is going to make good things happen.

Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG)  really is about ACTION in the St. Louis metro area. Here are the biggest ideas we have in the hopper:

• We will poll voters and use the results to craft a powerful message about the values we share with many voters. Then we’ll do lit drops  in districts where races are tight.
• We have called a conference to form an alliance of many progressive groups in the metro area, including unions, so that we can have each other’s backs and so that we’ll have a unified plan of attack for the elections next year.
• We have a corps–small but growing–of people committed to writing effective Letters to the Editor. They especially aim for publication in small newspapers in the collar counties (around STL and KC), because there are many persuadable voters there and people actually read those small town papers.

We’ve got lots of irons in the fire, and the action is about to start popping. Show up to our monthly meeting this Saturday for details on those items and several others. Halfway through the meeting, Matt Teter, the new Executive Director for the state party will speak. He says he’ll reveal the big plan for getting out the vote for Democrats next year and describe the way the party plans to improve its messaging. Then he’ll take questions.

Up till now, most of what’s gone on at MOPAG has been planning, but now it’s time for us to call on our members to start getting it done. If you live in the area and want to take action against Republicans instead of sitting in front of your computer, kvetching and cussing, be there. It’s on the sixth of August at the County Library Headquarters on Lindbergh from 12:30-2:30.

What does the photo have to do with the posting? Absolutely nothing. I just thought it might snag a few more readers. And I wanted Michael Bersin to know that moments of Zen are possible even in the heat. I took this shot from our patio.

Last spring, Claire McCaskill attended a meeting of Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG) in St. Louis. One of the many items we discussed was letters to the editor, and Claire pretty much begged us to get letters in the papers in the collar counties, the counties that ring K.C. and St. Louis. She wanted that because those counties have such large numbers of swing voters and because people actually read those small local papers. But I know from experience how far any such pleas to write LTEs go. A super convincing plea might produce a flurry of letters. But the sort of efficient, dependable flow of LTEs Claire would like to see? Uh-uh. One plea or twenty of them ain’t gonna make it happen.

So at the next month’s meeting, I suggested that our group form a committee to see that the efficient, dependable flow of LTEs in the small papers in collar counties–and elsewhere around the state–become a reality. I wanted a committee chairman with a cadre of volunteers who would regularly pick a given topic for LTEs, decide on talking points, and always explain the morality that underlies our arguments. (Facts and figures alone do not convince voters. To do that, you have to touch their emotions and appeal to their morality.  So, for example, a letter about businesses getting tax breaks and then shipping American jobs overseas might conclude that when someone (in this case, the taxpayer) helps you out generously, it is shameful to take his money, stab him in the gut, and walk away laughing while you count the money.) Once persuasive letters were written, the committee would see that they were distributed to appropriate papers.

Willy Kessler offered to head the letter writing committee. She and her–at that point–three volunteers agreed on some guidelines and decided they would not only keep track of who was sending letters to which papers but also record which letters got published and in which papers. They set about getting a complete list of papers with contact info and editorial policies and were about ready to start. … Then life intervened.  Kessler was out of commission for a couple of months. But she’s back and ready to roll. She is calling a meeting on Tuesday to settle a few last questions and then get started writing.

The committee now has eight writers. They need at least ten, but think what they could do with twenty. If you have a knack for letter writing, consider joining them. You’ll get the talking points to make the process easier. And you’ll know that you’re helping convince persuadable voters that our side has the values they agree with.

Union workers at Missouri American Water Company are holding out against the contract the company is trying to force on them. Actually, “contract” is too generous a description of it. It’s more like a caricature of a contract. A burlesque. A sick parody that offers a two percent raise, coupled with a 50 percent rise in health care premiums and deep cuts in services. Oh and by the way, there’s a clause in there that destroys the union, granting the company the right to outsource whichever jobs it jolly well decides to.

The workers have demonstrated in front of the company headquarters and most Saturdays they show up in front of the home of one or another of the company executives for informational pickets. A week ago Saturday, I visited with a dozen or so brave, persistent souls who were standing on the sidewalk in front of the Webster Groves home of the company’s Human Resources Manager, Ann Simmons. One of the workers, Jim Wheaton, told me that a man had passed them a few minutes before I arrived and had said that he sympathized with their need to fight back but that they were out of line to picket particular execs at home. Blink. How dare they embarrass a woman who has sat in contract negotiations and supported taking their union away from them? How loutish, how uncivil, how unrefined of the workers to publicly scold Ms. Simmons. After Wheaton remembered to close his mouth, he asked the passerby if the man had a better solution. “Well no.”

Jim and Cheryl Wheaton

I do. I have a better solution. These twelve brave souls need to show up at Ms. Simmons’ home next Saturday with an additional 200 people. Or better yet, 500. They need to make sure that the media know they’ll have hundreds of workers  blocking the sidewalk all up and down both sides of that quiet little neighborhood. Every week. They need media attention. Now, while Americans are pissed off at the attacks on worker rights, NOW is the time to make a very public spectacle of what Missouri American Water is trying to pull.

“Oh really,” those twelve dogged picketers say. And how do you propose we conjure up those other 500 bodies? We’ve misplaced our wands.

No wands required. It’s as simple–and as daunting–as forming a metro wide alliance of progressive groups–not just Missouri American Water workers, but NEA and AFT teachers, UAW guys and Teamsters, plus all those people who belong to liberal entities like Jobs with Justice, Pro-Vote, Alliance for Retired Americans, Coalition for the Environment, Sierra Club, Women’s Voices Raised for Social Justice, Young Democrats and Show Me No Hate. It’s the “You get my back and I’ll get yours” philosophy. And I can even tell you who is proposing to act on that idea. Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG) is touching bases with all the stakeholders I just named and many more and inviting them to a conference where such an alliance might be formed.

Let me offer an example of what such an alliance could achieve. Last month, when I was in Cheyenne for a couple of weeks, I needed a haircut. I was explaining to the hairdresser, a gay man named Joe Corrigan, what MOPAG is about and he told me that Wyoming, a very red state, has a statewide progressive alliance. He said it was so effective that it managed to stop every one of the anti-gay bills introduced in the legislature. When one of the bills was being discussed in committee, Corrigan told me, a burly construction worker got up and told the committee members that the bill under consideration was immoral. “It’s wrong and unamerican to target people just because they’re gay,” he said. Joe said that testimony was so much more effective than if a gay hairdresser had spoken. I asked why the guy had done it. “Why? he said in disbelief. “Because. He’s union. He’s in the alliance!”

Missouri progressives already do a lot of good coordinating, of course. Unions working with progressive groups managed to stop dead every one of the anti-worker bills in the last legislative session. Pro-Vote has had an alliance for years, and now they have a new executive director, Matt Patterson, who is working to breathe more life into it. But a more encompassing vision might accomplish even more. It might, for example turn a couple of hundred people out in front of Ann Simmons’ home in Websters Groves on a regular basis. It might instill the fear in badly behaved St. Louis corporations of facing a unified front from working people.

An alliance like that could target one or several Republican held seats and put a lot of boots on the ground to shove out of power a few those legislators who hate public schools, poor people, puppies and pensions for working people. A professional researcher and pollster, a lifelong Democrat, has offered MOPAG her services free to help us design and do a poll in whichever area we choose to target.

MOPAG’s next meeting is this Saturday at the St.Louis County Headquarters On Lindbergh at 12:30 p.m. If you’re a St. Louisan who wants to take action instead of kvetching about the sorry state of affairs, be there. Or call Rea (314-727-7374) and ask to be added to the MOPAG listserv. But if you join, do it knowing that sometime soon you’ll be asked to do something.  

There’s a new kid on the block, the St. Louis Democratic block, that is. Last fall, Rea Kleeman, a local activist started a group that she hoped would help local Democrats strengthen ties with the state Democratic party and help that entity put out a more effective message. That goal may yet materialize, but in the meantime we are not sitting on our duffs. We’re on the move. We have decided to target vulnerable Republican incumbents in the metro area–and perhaps even a traitorous Democrat or two.

The group has a brand spanking new name that gives us a lot to live up to: Missouri Progressive Action Group (MOPAG). We began taking action by contacting local unions. At a meeting this week of representatives from the thirteen Metro area Teamsters Unions, MOPAG member, Bob Burns, laid out the case for working together. He told them what they already know, of course, that education is key, that we have to let voters know what Republicans are doing to pummel the working guy while giving every multimillionaire the cash he needs to buy a vacation home at Martha’s Vineyard and an extra Lamborghini. Burns said that Democrats have got to start figuring out how to come up with a plan of action, and he promised them that our members would be there to help them in any way we could.

We’re only 85 members strong right now, but we expect that number to grow. And some of our members will be out there when the unions distribute flyers about labor issues at Busch Stadium June 3rd. They’ll also stand by union people at similar events later in the summer. The flyer that union people will hand out will lay out in clear terms some of the double dealing dirty work Republicans have been up to. It explains, for starters, that Republicans tried to revoke what we voters passed on minimum wage (DID YOU ACTUALLY THINK THAT YOUR VOTE COUNTED?) and describes Jane Cunningham’s ham handed attempt to revoke child labor laws (CHINA, TAIWAN, INDIA, BANGLADESH, “MISSOURI“?)

By the same token, if and when we pick vulnerable Republicans to target and start doing lit drops in their districts, those union members may want to come out and help us do that. Suppose we were to target, for example, a state senator who filibustered against extending unemployment from 79 to 99 weeks and accused people in that fix of not being willing “to get off their backsides and get a job”. Union workers might take offense at such a senator’s aspersions on working people and think that going after him was a dandy idea. Since neither Lembke nor Nieves has lifted a pinkie to create jobs for the three hundred thou unemployed in this state, could someone tell us and the Teamsters why those senators deserve to keep their own jobs?

Bob Burns is a union guy through and through, and he was warmly received. I’m glad I tagged along to the meeting, because I learned a lot. For one thing, a lawyer for the union educated us about the upcoming legal battle in this state over forcing municipalities to allow  workers to form a union.

Any St. Louis area progressive wanting in on the action can do two things. The first would be to call Rea Kleeman (314-727-7374) and ask to be put on the mailing list. The second is to attend the next monthly meeting of the group on Saturday, June 4th, at 1:30 p.m. at the Mid-County (Clayton) branch of the St. Louis County Library at 7821 Maryland Ave. We’ll be discussing how to boot out of office some of these haters of public schools, puppies, and poor people.

Oh, and there’s one more thing you could do: offer to help pass out those union flyers on June 3rd. Call Teamsters Local 682 at 314-647-4768.