Crisis in Wisconsin and Texas: Workers’ Rights Board Investigates Growing Pressures on Jobs Affecting the Community and Possible Solutions

article by Kevin Minister
photos by Helen Rieger

With concern about workers’ rights rising up across the country, the Dallas workers’ rights board met to hear about the struggles workers are facing here in Texas and what is being done to protect these workers’ rights. The workers’ rights board hearing, convened by the Rev. Dr. Joerg Rieger, Wendland-Cook Professor of Constructive Theology at SMU Perkins School of Theology, packed the courtroom of the Beckley Courthouse beyond capacity with local clergy, labor leaders, workers, and concerned citizens.

The community leaders on the workers’ rights board arraigned the hearing to find out how proposed budget cuts in Texas affect not only workers and the unemployed but everyone in the community. The testimonies of the hearing were clear: the proposed budget cuts by the state of Texas are not only going to increase unemployment and pressure on workers, the budget cuts are going to have ripple effects that increase the stresses on all persons in Texas. But those that spoke out were also clear that something can be done to make a difference if enough people join together.

The workers’ rights board heard testimony from April Cumberbatch of the Texas State Employees Union, Hobie Hukill from the Executive Board of Alliance AFT (American Federation of Teachers), and Elaine Lantz representing the National Organization of Legal Service Workers (a UAW local) about how the budget cuts would not only cause big problems for workers in their industries but also pose mounting issues for our communities at large. Cumberbatch testified that the proposed budget cuts will result in approximately 9,600 layoffs of social service workers that serve the community through Child Protective Services (CPS), in nursing homes, healthcare, and education.

Cumberbatch was clear though that her concern was not only for jobs but for the well-being of the most vulnerable citizens that these workers serve: “More important than our jobs are [the safety of] our children and babies having enough formula.” Because budgets are already tight, CPS workers such as herself already manage a hundred cases at a time and do not have adequate resources to help provide enough infant formula. This will only get worse with further budget cuts and layoffs that will not only endanger the welfare of our children in the short term but will increase the cost of caring for children in state foster homes and medical programs long term.

Hukill testified that the budget cuts to education will result in the firing of 100,000 public educators in Texas and the drastic increase of already overfull classrooms. When Texas fails on its “most important constitutional obligation” to educate its children, our communities really end up paying big in the long term through the costs both social and financial of increased crime and incarceration.

Lantz shared that the budget of legal services in Texas, which helps provide legal services for those living near or below the poverty line who have for example been wrongly evicted or fired, has so few resources they have to turn away “4 out of 5” people in need of legal advice. The US House of Representatives has already approved a further 17% cut to the budget of legal services and they expect more cuts from the state. It is becoming increasingly clear that when we cut the jobs and services that protect the most vulnerable in our communities, our communities become leaner and meaner for everyone with costly long term effects.

Rieger summed up the testimony heard by the workers’ rights board, saying “This is not a natural crisis; some people are benefiting [by using the crisis to ratchet down wages and benefits where it may not be necessary]. The point is not to blame someone but to organize for change.” From a religious perspective, he noted, it was organizing common people for change that made Jesus and early Christianity dangerous to the Roman Empire, not just the radical preaching. While the concerns over job loss and long term social costs were high, the energy and commitment to solutions stirred through the courtroom.

Cumberbatch and Hukill advocated a balanced approach to resolving the budget shortfall that taps the State of Texas’ rainy day fund to cover short term losses of revenue while fixing Gov. Perry’s new franchise tax to provide the long term funds he said that it would. Lantz emphasized that a government jobs program like the one that helped end the Great Depression could make a difference in unemployment by fixing our national infrastructure today. Furthermore, she advocated protecting what rights still exist for workers here in Texas and around the country and the need to be educated and share with others the widespread benefits organized labor has had in our communities (like creating the 40 hour work week with weekends off).
But, everyone was adamant that solutions such as these are only possible if concerned citizens organize together to make their voices heard. Lantz believes that the politicians really do listen to what people have to say but emphasized that people would have to organize together to make sure that their voices are heard. Rieger encouraged people to continue organizing by making sure everyone they know, in their families, work places, neighborhoods, and especially their churches that are often oblivious to these issues, is informed about what is going on.

Those in attendance shared that opportunities to speak out were going to be happening regularly in Austin over the coming weeks and invited everyone in the community to join in at least one rally and to contact their representatives to make sure their voice was heard.