40 YEARS OF STOPPING "RIGHT-TO-WORK"
“For the fortieth consecutive time, so-called ‘Right-to-Work’ is dead.”
Click the thumbnails below to read about Brother Brackett’s record of leading the fight against union busting corporations and special interest groups:
For over 25 years I have been on the front lines of our collective battle against out-of-state corporate special interest groups. First as a member of Local 2320, then as its Business Manager, and since 2015, as the President of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO representing over 35,000 members and fifty labor unions.
While out-of-state billionaires and D.C. lobbyists continue to enlist legislators to introduce identical bills, year in and year out, our coalition of workers and lawmakers join together to protect New Hampshire workers against “Right-to-Work.” So-called “Right-to-Work” diminishes the American spirit of free enterprise and contracts by allowing the state to interfere in fee-for-service exchanges. Through this government intervention, the state would be creating free riders by providing benefits to those who don’t pay for them. It diminishes the freedom of workers to join together in the workplace to help provide for their families.
Working people in “Right to Work” states have a consistently lower quality of life. When you compare “Right to Work” states to free bargaining states the differences are stark: the average worker makes about $6,000 less per year, they have less access to health care and poorer education systems for children, the poverty rate is higher, and the risk of workplace death is 49% higher. When working people can’t freely speak up together, they can’t negotiate for higher safety standards, better training, and fair wages and health benefits.
That is why I have spent the last 10 years as President of the New Hampshire AFL-CIO fighting to ensure that New Hampshire does not become the first state in New England to succumb to “Right-to-Work.”
Under my leadership, a bipartisan coalition of legislators was formed, to act as a legislative firewall against “Right-to-Work.” New Hampshire has 424 legislators, and I speak to all of them, even if we don’t agree on everything, most legislators believe in the dignity of work and the ability for a worker to provide for their families. With this approach, we have flipped the New Hampshire State Senate from 1 anti-”Right-to-Work” Republican Senator, to 11 anti-“Right-to-Work” Republican Senators.