Remembering 9/11 and Highlighting State Labor Policy Rankings: Jonathan Williams on The Hugh Hewitt Show

Hugh Hewitt spoke with ALEC President and Chief Economist Jonathan Williams about the new ALEC labor policy rankings, States That Work,  and the importance of civic education regarding the September 11th attacks.

The conversation began with reflection on the 25-year commemoration of the September 11 attacks. Williams discussed the importance of the ALEC model Never Forget: September 11th Awareness Education Act.

“In these 25 years, we’ve had about 100 million Americans born,” Williams explained. “We must continue to educate around what happened and the causes — that is part of our ALEC mission around civics education.”

Hewitt turned the conversation to state labor policy rankings. Williams covered some of the policy decisions made in Arizona and Mississippi that helped then become two of top ranked states for pro-worker, pro-growth labor reforms in the new ALEC report.

“The commonality of those states is they’re states that are serious about competitiveness,” Williams noted. “They’re states that have been a long time right to work states.”

Hewitt followed up asking about the benefits states could gain with right to work laws.

“It is talking about being pro-worker and, at the end of the day, giving individuals their inherent rights to choose whether they’d like to be associated with an organization or not,” Williams highlighted. “It’s getting back to the dignity of the individual, I think is the key piece of right to work.”

The conversation concluded with a discussion about the ALEC model Uniform Worker Classification Act.

“There’s been these attacks on independent contractors all throughout the country, driven by in many cases radical labor unions to try to disallow that classification and to unionize them,” he noted. “It gives those individuals take their freedom away from being independent contractors and being self-employed.”