Portside

On ALEC's agenda for 2014 are the following priorities and bills (which will become official ALEC "models" once passed by the task forces -- with corporate lobbyists voting as equals alongside state legislators -- and approved by the board of directors):

• Rightwing lobby group appealing to major donors to return • Internal documents reveal so-called 'Prodigal Son Project' • Network lost almost 400 state legislators over past two years

Scary because ... over 100 bills introduced in 2013, backed by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and heavily funded by the Kochs, seek to drive down wages, benefits, and worker rights.

A coalition of labor, community and environmental groups is making it clear that ALEC isn’t welcome in the union town.

117 ALEC bills in 2013 fuel race to the bottom in wages and worker rights.

If we don’t want our state and national laws drafted by corporations in partnership with right-wing ideologues impervious to empirical evidence of the toll their ideas take, we citizens of all backgrounds who believe in “government of the people, by the people, and for the people” must come together to find our voices and vote our values.

President Obama called for a modest raise in the federal minimum wage to $9, and several Democratic legislators have upped his bid with a proposed increase to $10.10. But an insidious effort to lower the wage floor is already underway much closer to the ground - in the state legislatures. Among the proposals are measures to undercut minimum wages for teenage workers, restrict overtime pay and repeal or ban local laws to improve working conditions.

In Ontario, 465 union workers used to make locomotive engines. Then Indiana passed ALEC's anti-union legislation, and Caterpillar moved the works to Muncie. And that's bad for everybody.