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Gov. Rick Snyder switched course and announced his support for "right to work" legislation last week
The right to work legislation would ban closed-shop unions, and allow workers to refuse to pay union dues while being covered under a collective bargaining agreement. Historically this has decimated unions and caused wage reductions in every state where it’s been tried, which is why labor leaders properly call it “right to work for less.” Governor Snyder said right to work was not on his agenda as recently as a year ago, before switching course and announcing his support last week. Subsequently, preliminary legislation passed the state legislature within a matter of hours, despite opposition from some Republicans. Because of Democratic legislative pickups, it would not have passed in the next session, so Republicans pushed it through the lame duck.
According to the readout of the meeting, the lawmakers said that “The labor-management environment has dramatically improved in recent years in Michigan.” and that “Fracturing that growing unity and creating a contentious labor-management environment will not help attract companies to come to Michigan, the legislators said.” Indeed, many businesses in heavily unionized industries have either remained neutral on right to work or come out against it.
Senator Carl Levin and most of the Democratic delegation in the House, including John Dingell, John Conyers, Sandy Levin, Gary Peters, Hansen Clark, Dave Curson and Congressman-elect Dan Kildee attended the meeting. Snyder said he would “take seriously” their concerns.
Apparently the President, appearing in Michigan today with an appearance about the fiscal slope, will also mention right to work today and his opposition to it. He has already expressed his opposition to it in a statement.
The largest newspaper in the state, the Detroit Free Press, also released a scathing editorial about Snyder’s reversal on the issue, calling it a “betrayal of voters”:
His insistence that the legislation was designed to promote the interests of unionized workers and “bring Michiganders together” was grotesquely disingenuous; even as he spoke, securitypersonnel were locking down the capital in anticipation of protests by angry unionists.
Snyder’s ostensible rationale for embracing right-to-work legislation — it was, he insisted, a matter of preserving workers’ freedom of association — was equally dishonest.
The real motive of Michigan’s right-to-work champions, as former GOP legislator Bill Ballenger ruefully observed, is “pure greed” — the determination to emasculate, once and for all, the Democratic Party’s most reliable source of financial and organizational support.
Marcy Wheeler has a roundup of other opinion pages.
I think it’s unlikely that Snyder will respond to this outcry by switching field again on a matter he clearly orchestrated. But because the final bills won’t reach his desk until later this week, there’s still time to apply pressure.
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Early on in his tenure, Snyder took money from retirees, schools/teachers/kids to give a tax break to his corporate cronies. When he said right-to-work-for-less was “not on his agenda”, the labor unions (including my own) and my liberal friends believed him.
0ur so-called allies are either naive, delusional, indifferent or corrupt.
The unions don’t have to cover workers who refuse to pay union dues. They can negotiate ‘members only’ contracts. Unions can negotiate contracts that apply only to dues-paying members and exclude non-dues-paying members.
Just what can Obama really do about this assuming he wanted to what are his options? What options do the state Dems and Unions have to stop this?
How is this issue polling in the state?
I’m sure he’ll get right on that.
Seriously, what is this supposed to accomplish, even from a P.R. standpoint? They look weak, Snyder looks firm and manly, and right-to-work-for-peanuts sails on through anyway. Where were the Democrats on EFCA? Where was Mr. Comfortable Shoes? Where was jolly old the late Arlen Specter for whom everybody has a warm feeling in their heart because he was so pleasingly quirky?
Good question!
More kabuki. Republicans mug working class, Democrats hold Republicans’ coat during the mugging.
Obama and Romney, DLC and Club for Growth, all answer to the same masters.
The legislation will stand, D’s will have the chutzpah to ask for working votes in MI next election, and LOTE will give it to them.
Ferchrisake, has not the voting public watched Lucy school Charlie Brown enough?
Mr o too little too late.
Tell you what, let’s pass a law that says salespeople are free to set whatever prices they want for the goods they sell. The company cannot tell them what to charge for the item.
We can call it a “Right to Sell” law.
Let’s see how that goes over.
Tony Trupiano on Ed Shultz’s show says 17% of Michiganians polled are for right-to-work-for-less.
The Right to Work “for less” movement is well funded and running television ads in Michigan on the wonders of right to work. Why, why, it will usher in a new golden age!
I’m not sure if here has been any meaningful polling in Michigan on this legislation, but I can tell you the state is in an uproar. Think Wisconsin…and thanks to our neighbors across the water for their support and example. The Michigan legislature is in a frenzy to pass everything it can, in its’ lame duck session. Not only the Right to Work for Less, but bills negatively affecting Education, Reproductive Health, Conscience clauses to limit health access, and on and on. Citizens are using social media extensively to educate and communicate with each other. The governor and legislators are being contacted via email and phone today. People from across the state will be making the trip to the Michigan capitol tomorrow (Tuesday). The turnout is expected to be large. Although non violence is the order of the day, state police are being pulled in from across the state to be in Lansing tomorrow. We will not forget that police are a part of the 99.9%, we won’t let them forget it either! Nurses will be on hand to raise their voices and give first aid if needed.
Here’s what I wrote to Governor Snyder today:
Governor Snyder,
I am asking you to reconsider your new found support of the Right to Work for Less. If this legislation is brought to your desk, I am asking you to veto it!
“If what we want to do is do a little bit better at attracting certain kinds of low-wage jobs, I think this may help” …Charles Ballard, Professor of Economics, MSU, speaking of proposed legislation known as Right to Work For Less.
The citizens of MIchigan do not need to attract low wage jobs. We need “living wage” jobs, jobs that pay enough to live on! We need health care, education and a dignified retirement. Unions have helped bring this about for many Michiganders. The legislature is not proposing any alternative that will assure these things for the people of Michigan. Rather it undercuts the unions who have helped us earn the value of our labor.
The Right to Work for Less legislation merely hastens us along on the Race to the Bottom. Great. Thanks. No Thanks!
Please reconsider and veto this legislation!
Ok,
Just set the sales commission accordingly. Some sales people will set prices too high in hopes of getting big profits for little work and end up not selling anything, others will set prices too low because it’s easier to move product, but there will be no after cost income from which to pay them.
Smart sales people will sell items at the right price and get handsomely compensated because the employee / employer arrangement benefited both.
Diary post on this subject here. Will try to add more later.
Snyder is likely to see some sort of primary opposition from the right but it won’t get anywhere, unless he doesn’t sign this. Then the long knives of the uber moneyed conservatives will make it their job to destroy him. That still might not work. He strives to be a non politician and as much as any major state or national elected official I’ve seen he really seems to be that. The political calculation on this is the above mentioned primary opposition if he doesn’t sign vs a much higher risk of loss in the general election if he does. Well that’s my off the top of my head analysis.
My sad alt view is most of us are going to keep getting poorer or poorer anyway, or less and less rich if you want the glass half full side. This issue just like all the budget issues is just the visible part of a secular trend that is unstoppable.
Indeed. The unions are protesting after they have already lost. Makes you wonder how they could possibly have abided the two years of gut-wrenching attack by Snyder.. and ALLOWED IT. Snyder is a venture capitalist.
What I’ve been hearing from reports and interviews with state labor leaders in Michigan on MSNBC is that, in a unionized company, the union is required by state law to support non-paying workers. I see no link corroborating ala1Tx’s assertion that the union can negotiate pay-only coverage.
http://www.mlive.com/politics/index.ssf/2012/12/michigan_right_to_work_daily_d_1.html
The truth that alan1Tx avoids is that workers are not now required to pay union dues. They were, however, required in a union shop, to pay their share for collective bargaining negotiation, and the union was required to represent all workers in that shop. These requirement have been struck down. So a worker no longer has to pay for collective bargaining. But if the union doesn’t represent all workers in the shop in return, the meaning and force of collective bargaining is lost. This is the lie behind alan1Tx’s half-truth. You will this such mendacious omissions in all of his/her assertions. Please be advised.