BobLibDem, do they do recalls in Michigan?
It can’t also be about economic reform of a troubled state?
They have to be in office for 6 months, so for those that were recently re-elected we have to wait till Jan. 1.
The conniving bastards made an appropriation as part of their law and because of this, it can’t be overturned by referendum. Unless of course that appropriate is found in court to be nothing but a sham to preclude a referendum.
Not really. Most of the employers have pretty good relations with their unions and didn’t want to rock the boat with this travesty.
I said WAGES have been stagnant, not income. And I note that the reports you cite all use the same trick: they include health care benefits like Medicare and Medicaid as income for households. That creates an impression of less inequality of course because health care expenses have been going up like a rocket over the last few decades. Here’s a New York Times article debunking the Burkhauser study, it makes pretty clear what has gone on. Note that even if you take the CBO study as your gold standard, the graph indicates that the vast majority of the gold has been going to the one percent.
But if you look at money in people’s hands, the fact remains, wealth for the middle class has been stagnant.Here’s a CNN article addressing the point. with some very indicative graphs.
Certianly some have, for example, the way some unions let organized crime get into their pension funds. It would be terrible if that happened in the rest of the na … wait, it did. Corporations loot their employee pension funds all the time. I guess the moral is, you don’t have to be perfect to be an improvement.
And just like the recall effort in Wisconsin kicked Walker out of office.
Seems like a done deal, according to this article on Yahoo!
I found this part of the article interesting, though not a lot of detail:
Well, I have noticed that while wages are stagnant, corporations are awash in cash. They do not hire people, they do not give raises to their employees, except for top management of course. If unions were strong, ordinary workers would be making … and spending … a lot more money. Increasing demand, and causing more people to be hired … at good union wages.
This is pretty much what needs to happen. Someone, either labor or government needs to hold a gun to corporate management’s heads and make them raise wages for ordinary workers with all that cash they’ve got sitting around. Hell, Random House gave EACH and EVERY one of their company employees a $5000 bonus thanks to the effect of Fifty Shades of Grey this year. What will those employees do with that money? Spend it, most of them! Random House is doing the responsible thing!
“To become or remain”. I am not allowed to only have union members working for me. If a guy gets hired, then quits the union, I am not allowed to get rid of him even though he’s literally doubled by administrative requirements for dealing with worker contracts.
(bolding added for emphasis)
So in other words, you’re citing the vast increases in health care costs 1979-2007 as increasing economic power of the middle class? :dubious:
Not a lot of people look at that and say the middle class is doing fine because the health insurance borne by their employers is more expensive.
Is there any solid evidence that harming unions significantly helps state economies? Evidence that the benefits of right to work legislation balances out the loss of wages and benefits for workers that come with it? (Keeping in mind that 17.5% of workers in Michigan belong to unions, not counting many other workers that don’t belong to unions but still pay fees and reap benefits.)
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Seems like a done deal, according to this article on Yahoo!
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It was a done deal before it hit the public.
Have their been any polls in Michigan to see whether most people in Michigan feel about becoming a right-to-work state?
Most Michiganders support it. But keep in mind that 1) most people don’t belong to a union, 2) millions and millions of dollars have been spent in favor of right to work in this state by conservative groups, and 3) the issue is framed as a boon for individual freedoms (“I shouldn’t have to join a union or pay dues if I don’t want to!”) without mentioning the losses to wages and rights incurred by those same people.
From the site I linked earlier:
Sector Obs Employment Members Covered %Mem %Cov
Total 3,677 3,843,814 670,935 702,621 17.5 18.3
Private 3,160 3,313,229 394,814 410,769 11.9 12.4
Public 517 530,586 276,121 291,852 52.0 55.0
Priv. Construction 146 153,527 30,447 30,447 19.8 19.8
Priv. Manufacturing 634 656,367 131,913 133,748 20.1 20.4
© 2012 by Barry T. Hirsch and David A. Macpherson.
Since we’ve gone on to general comments about unions, I hope this isn’t too off topic.
One thing I’ve always wondered is why unions have to be certified. Why not just allow individual workers to sign up with whatever union they wish to join and require employers to negotiate with whatever union the worker has chosen?
With 58% approval of this law, per Frenchie’s cite, it looks like a winning position at the polls for the GOP.
This is bigger. The Walker recall failed because Wisconsin voters didn’t think the action against public employees didn’t warrant a recall, not that they approved of Walker. Walker will go down in 2014, no question. Snyder’s appeal was in part that he wasn’t a flaming right-wing ideologue, now he has been unmasked. He’s going down, if not by recall, then certainly by 2014.
58% of the populace of MI are “flaming right-wing ideologues”?
Actually, you could get rid of that worker. In the US, employment is “at will”. Of course, this is the will of the employer not the employee. Employers don’t need a cause to fire someone.
So once your employee leaves the union, you just fire him and hire someone else who is a union member.
That said, how long will the American public continue to believe anything that conservatives say about job creation? Cutting taxes on the wealthy doesn’t create jobs and RTW laws don’t create jobs. This is just another fleecing of the public by the Republicans.
Except that the law specifically forbids me compelling a worker to remain part of the union to remain employed. Firing him for quitting the union violates that, as threatening his continued employment is a form of compulsion.