Get ready for the South Dakota Week of Work, in which our great state will celebrate the amount of work Governor Kristi Noem and her well-paid kin do in a year in Pierre.
In that spirit, here’s some generic happy music and a video showing Governor Noem pretending to do real work. For additional inspiration, the video also shows us how to fill out a form:
The video comes from the Governor’s latest propaganda webpage, pushing schools to do the things they’ve already been doing for years to hook kids into the labor pipeline: job shadowing, industry tours, yadda yadda. As usual, the Governor doesn’t appear to be encouraging schools to connect our future laborers to the labor unions that would help students get better-paying jobs and protect their rights in the workplace. The new webpage says nothing about labor rights and offers no resources or invitation for unions to get involved.
A Week of Work with an agenda dictated by capital and management seems incomplete. If we want students to grow up to be laborers, we ought to have them talk to laborers, to the AFL-CIO and other groups who will represent their interests, not just the powers that be who seek to exploit them.
I have a great Union job and I was paid close to 25.00 an hour during my two year, apprenticeship, 12 years ago. Republicans have done a good job in getting working Men and Women to vote against their own interests with outright lies, propaganda, and embracing activist stockholders with a lot of money to donate.
Right to work laws are the equivalent of a message to big business stating “come exploit our citizens!”. Everyone needs a Union! Everyone needs a living wage!
Seems reasonable. Probably why Klueless Kristi is ignoring unions.
If we give employers such easy access to our children, why not give equal access to labor organizers?
Were I the cynical sort, I’d wonder if this were part of an effort to pay South Dakotans enough to live here but keep them too poor to leave.
I wouldn’t call that cynicism, Kal. I think it’s wisdom based on experience.