Beck files longshot bill to repeal RTW

By TIM ROWDEN

Editor

Even as Missouri workers gear up for the campaign and vote ‘NO’ on Proposition A to repeal last year’s deceptive and destructive, anti-worker “right-to-work” legislation, Rep. Doug Beck (D-Affton), a member of Plumbers and Pipefitters Local 562, has filed a bill to repeal RTW.

The odds of the bill being heard, much less passed in the Republican-majority House, are somewhat akin to a snowball in hell. But it gets its point across, nonetheless.

“I don’t think it will go anywhere. I would be shocked if they moved it. But I felt like I had a duty to the working men and women of Missouri to file it anyway,” Beck said.

“Every opportunity I get, I’m going to bring up that we got 310,567 signatures to put repeal of RTW on the ballot,” he said. “I’m going to bring that up every chance I get on the floor of the House to rub their faces in it.”

Beck also filed a bill to repeal the ban on local governments entering into Project Labor Agreements approved by the legislature last year.

Beck, his fellow Democrats and a handful of worker-friendly Republicans in the Missouri Legislature will have their work cut out for them this year.

At least 12 bills have been filed to repeal or drastically curtail Prevailing Wage, as well as bills to enact Paycheck Deception, modify scheduling requirements to supermarkets and retailers can say their employees are on-call and a slew of other anti-worker bills.

“I’ll fight all of them,” Beck said. “I’ll use facts. Unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to matter with these folks.”