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In an election season reversal, a powerful Democrat in the House of Delegates now says repealing Virginia’s right-to-work law is a priority to him. This comes just months after he voted to kill the legislation that would have repealed the law earlier this year.
House Appropriations Chairman Luke Torian D-Prince William said in a newsletter sent to supporters on Labor Day that repealing Virginia’s right-to-work law is a priority for him. But that opportunity was before Torian earlier this year when Del. Lee Carter D-Manassas was able to get the bill on the House floor for a vote. The legislation was eventually killed on a vote of 83-13, with Torian being one of the 83 who voted against it.
The news of Torian’s reversal was first tweeted by Ben Paviour of VPM News.
“It’s an incredible turn-around from chastising me for introducing the bill in 2019 to campaigning on it in 2021,” Carter said in an interview Tuesday.
Carter is a self-described socialist and was defeated in his House primary earlier this summer by a more moderate candidate. He pushed for repealing the right-to-work for most of his two terms in the House. “I’m glad so many people are coming around,” he said Tuesday.
But even after leading the charge for repealing right-to-work and losing his seat, Carter says the law still needs to be thrown out. “The law was designed to exploit racial tensions to stop working people from cooperating to fight for a better life,” Carter said. “It was terrible 70 years ago, it’s terrible now, and it’s got to go.”
Right-to-work is not a concept that is necessarily easy to grasp due to the misleading name. The law keeps unions from requiring membership at a place of employment which prevents the employees from effectively unionizing. Employees can still form a union, but they are not compelled to and employers are always free to hire non-union workers.
28 states have right-to-work laws on the books.
The House Republican Caucus sent out a statement Tuesday afternoon denouncing the statement from Torian. “When the Chairman of Appropriations speaks, members of the majority listen. This is a clear signal that if they hold the majority, House Democrats will push through Right to Work repeal, creating compulsory union membership for Virginians,” said Garren Shipley, a spokesman for the House Republican Caucus. “Workers who want to make their own choice on union membership should vote accordingly.”
Torian is a powerful Democrat in the House, chairing the committee that decides which legislation receives funding in the General Assembly. His campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
The office of Speaker of the House Eileen Filler-Corn also did not respond to questions.
“Luke Torian made clear that Virginia House Democrats are poised to repeal right-to-work if they win in November,” said Cally Perkins, a spokesperson for the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC). “The Democrats who voted against right-to-work repeal in February should stop pandering to their fringe base and denounce Torian’s new position.”
AFL-CIO, the largest federation of unions in the United States, says that this law makes life harder for working families. “The real purpose of ‘Right to Work’ laws is to tilt the balance toward big corporations and further rig the system at the expense of working families,” they say on their website.
Torian also stated in the email to his supporters that he will prioritize paid leave for all, collective bargaining for employees, paid sick days, and increasing the minimum wage to $15/hr. He is facing a second challenge from Republican Maria Martin this November after defeating her by 47 points in 2019.
All 100 House seats are up for election this November as well as governor, lieutenant governor, and attorney general. Early voting begins in less than two weeks on Sept. 17.
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Brandon, congrats on your efforts to bring more news to the Commonwealth.
Your representation of the Torian vote is a little misleading. If I read LIS correctly, the vote you describe appears to be a procedural vote designed to move a bill out of committee to the House vote without committee action. The procedure is called “discharage”. It is a very unusual procedure designed to circumvent the normal process by which a committee considers and acts on a bill, and it is not a direct vote on the bill. Democrats have used the tactic in the past in attempts to have the Equal Rights Amendment considered and Republicans threatened its use in 2020 to force a vote on the independent redistricting commission. To get further into the weeds, the vote you describe was to “pass by” the measure, i.e. not even to have a vote to discharge. Only if the effort to discharge succeeded would the bill would have been before the Body for a vote on the merits. That did not occur, so there was no direct vote on repeal of right to work.
There are many reasons why members vote against “discharge”. They may object to one member trying to circumvent the usual approach to bills, which is to have them heard, discussed, and voted on in committee, and then considered by the full Body only if approved by the committee. Or they may oppose discharge motions in principle. Or, finally(as you imply), they may oppose the policy embodied in the bill. Perhaps you should have asked the delegate why he voted the way he did before characterizing a procedural vote as one on the merits. The significant part of the story is not the discharge vote, but his recent statement of what he thinks of the matter.
Best to you and your efforts
Hmmnn!! It has now been reported that local government employees in PWC will petition the Board
of Supervisors for the right to bargain collectively. There cannot be a connection; could there?