Bill is bad for Missourians

On Thursday, April 7, the Missouri Senate passed a bill that attacks the middle class by seeking to eliminate public employee unions in our state. Every middle class Missourian should be aware of the threat this legislation poses.

SB 202 is a bill designed by politicians to hurt their political opponents. It is the same old politics as usual: politicians trying to pay back their CEO friends by giving them more power over working people like us. These politicians know that unions are one of the last roadblocks in their path to unfettered political power for Wall Street and corporations, and they want to take down that barricade forever.

This is the wrong priority. People are hurting in Missouri. Unemployment is more than 9 percent. Yet instead of creating jobs or reining in the big banks and CEOs who wrecked our economy, politicians are going after the rights of struggling workers and their organizations.

Whether in a union or not, middle-class Missourians will suffer if SB 202 passes and public employee unions are eliminated. Anyone who hopes to see the middle class preserved here should join the fight to stop this bill.

BRIAN COOK, Poplar Bluff, Mo.