We have the Sequim City Council to thank for their unanimous vote to reject the Freedom Foundation’s Prop. 1 and Prop. 2, measures aimed at stripping our city’s employees of union protection.

Shelton’s commissioners also voted unanimously to kill the two measures. And the same propositions died in Chelan for lack of enough signatures. Neither of these abominations will be on our ballot this November.

A letter to the Sequim Gazette accuses the City Council of infringing on the rights of those seeking ballot status for those propositions (“Abuse of power?” Oct. 1, page A-8). The letter is wrong. The council was clear that these two measures “usurp” the statutory rights of the Sequim City Council. City Attorney Craig Ritchie warned that they lay Sequim open to “unfair labor practices” charges. City Councilman Ted Miller said they are “grossly invalid.”

Why are the billionaire Koch Brothers waging war against public workers? Because public employee unions, negotiating often in closed-door sessions, have won living wages, health care, and defined pensions for millions of teachers, sanitation workers, police officers, and other public servants.

(My grandmother was forced to quit teaching in our state because she got married. It took the teacher’s union to end this outrageous discrimination against women).

Corporate America’s success in stripping workers, both public and private, of union protection is the main reason for the insane concentration of wealth in the hands of the billionaires while the rest of us sink deeper in debt and poverty.

Tim Wheeler

Sequim