Georgia Law Would Outlaw Picketing Homes of Corporate Executives

By Noel Brinkerhoff and David Wallechinsky

 

Georgia - Coming only days after a protest outside a major telecommunications company, Republican lawmakers in Georgia have introduced a bill that would subject non-violent demonstrators involved in a labor dispute to heavy fines and felony convictions.

 

If SB 469 passes, picketing outside the homes of company executives would be forbidden. The bill’s wording defends the executives’ right to “quiet enjoyment.” Protesters also could face fines and felony charges if they demonstrate outside businesses that have won court rulings ordering the sit-ins to stop.

 

The legislation was introduced on February 21, only eight days after a demonstration inside AT&T’s headquarters in Atlanta, where 12 people were arrested for criminal trespass, which currently is a misdemeanor. Since the arrests, Occupy Atlanta and union groups have camped out in front of the building.

 

SB 469 was introduced by four Republican state senators, Don Balfour, Bill Hamrick, Bill Cowsert and Ross Tolleson, who are members of the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Funded by corporations, ALEC creates model bills for sympathetic state legislators, including proposed laws they fight labor unions. ALEC also drafted Arizona’s controversial anti-immigration bill as a way of helping one of members, Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), the nation’s largest private prison company.