Bill 6 · Housing

If Your Boss Is Also Your Landlord, How Free Are You?

Personal

In Morenci, if you lose your job, you lose your home. Company-owned housing means your employer is also your landlord. Lose your job, lose your home. That's not employment — that's feudalism.

Workers can't stand up for their rights if standing up means their family is on the street. Every other protection — the right to organize, to report safety violations, to speak up — is undermined when your housing depends on your employer's goodwill.

The Problem

Company towns were standard in early 20th century mining. Workers were paid in company scrip, lived in company housing, shopped at the company store. The union movement fought to end those practices. In Morenci, the unions were broken in 1983–86. Some company town dynamics came back.

Today, Freeport-McMoRan owns significant housing stock in the Morenci area. Employment termination can mean eviction. Workers face a choice: accept any working condition, or lose both income and housing simultaneously.

The Bill

The Worker Housing Freedom Act separates employment from housing by requiring a minimum 90-day transition period after job loss, gives workers the option to rent or purchase employer housing at fair market value regardless of employment status, creates tax incentives for non-employer housing development in communities where more than 30% of housing is employer-owned, and requires employers to disclose the housing-employment linkage at time of hire.

"Lose your job, lose your home. That's not employment — that's feudalism."

"We ended company scrip. We can end company housing coercion."