The recently opened Chobani yogurt plant—the world’s largest—in Twin Falls, Idaho, and several major construction projects—including a new steel mill—in the Youngstown, Ohio, area have been a boon for the skilled Electrical Workers (IBEW) members there who have been a blessing for the construction managers tasked with getting the jobs done quickly and efficiently.

Donald Cohen, founder and executive director of In the Public Interest, a national resource center on privatization and responsible contracting, sends us this.

It seems there’s no public service or piece of property that private companies are not eyeing as potential revenue streams.  While funding anti-government think tanks like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), companies like Corrections Corporation of America, Waste Management, Maximus, Intuit, Laidlaw, Northrup Grumman, Koch Companies, Macquarie Capital Advisers, Pinnacle West, and UnitedHealthcare are hoping to use government as their candy store.

A federal judge has invalidated both the anti-union laws pushed through by Idaho GOP lawmakers last session, saying they violate federal law, according to the Spokesman-Review.

The battles against anti-worker laws across the country have turned to the ballot boxes and courtrooms. As voters go to the polls next week in high profile recall elections in Wisconsin, workers in other states and their lawyers will argue before judges that some anti-worker laws should be struck down. 

Earlier this year, the Idaho Attorney General warned Republican legislators that an anti-union bill they were pushing was likely illegal and would be overturned.  But with the same anti-worker fanaticism that has infected state lawmakers around the nation, they passed the bill anyway.