The union movement is properly about a century old. It arose as anatural response to predatory management. It evolved into anenterprise led by predatory union bosses. The first brought about agenerally leveled playing field allowing fair protection for labor. The second began to destroy wealth an d the jobs themselves. Back towork legislation restores the balance of power to a large degree. Yet it is still a long way from satisfactory.
Superior dispensations have been arrived at in other places and worseones as well.
What is lacking is a natural agency able to speak to the worker'sneeds that can respond at multiple levels. Featherbedding is wrongand all understand this, but gets trapped behind more seriouspriorities and a futile chase for more money.
As I have posted here in the past, our culture will evolve toengineered communities in what we know as condo towers but attacheddirectly to a block of farm land that it maintains and uses to supplybaseline economies unique to the implied community. Such a communityacts as a natural agency for perhaps thirty or more employees of alarge manufactury nearby. This provides a natural source of agencyand balance. What is more, labor becomes optional and a premium mustbe paid to access it to the individual and the community itself.
Thus any contemplated factory would negotiate the labor availabilitywith any number of such communities and their mutual relationshipbefore building.
In the meantime we have a destructive cycle of unionization ofgenerally powerless workers ultimately followed by union excess thatmakes the business uncompetitive which leads to either outright unionbusting or out sourcing. Recall the auto industry has been gutted ofmost of its actual parts manufacturing simply because of union abuseduring those times that the industry had an effective monopoly inNorth America.
In the long term globalization will mean that workers will have equalrewards and benefits globally. Detroit's problem has beenpositioning on the wrong end of the bell curve while this sortsitself out.
Union Violence andMob Mayhem in Michigan
December 12,2012 By Arnold Ahlert
http://frontpagemag.com/2012/arnold-ahlert/union-violence-and-mob-mayhem-in-michigan/
Yesterday, in a movemany considered impossible in a state characterized as the “cradle”of America’s organized labor movement, Michigan became the 24thright-to-work state in the nation. Gov. Rick Snyder signed twobills, one dealing with private sector workers and the other withgovernment employees, hours after the state House passed bothmeasures.
Leading up to thehistoric moment, the reaction of the pro-union crowd, numberingaround 10,000 by late afternoon, was predictably thuggish. The mobdestroyed an Americans For Prosperity tent on the lawn of theMichigan State Capitol. An invective-filled diatribe followed by avicious assault on Fox News contributor and conservativecomedian Steven Crowder was captured on camera. 26,000children missed school because their teachers called insick, or took a vacation day, to join the protests. Police in riotgear clashed with angry demonstrators, even as someunion members shouted “traitors” at the officers. Two arrestswere made. Even a legislator, Democrat Douglas Geiss, behaved likea mobster. “There will be blood,” he threatened as he stood onthe floor of the Michigan House of Representatives.
Unions and theirsupporters may be furious, but they have no one but themselves toblame. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder explained. “I asked[the unions] not to go forward,” Snyder said. “And the reason Isaid is, ‘You’re going to start a very divisive discussion. It’llbe about collective bargaining first, but it’ll create a big stirabout right-to-work in addition to collective bargaining.’”Snyder is referring to an effort by unions to enshrinecollective bargaining rights in the state’s constitution during thelast election. Such a move would have completely insulated unionsfrom any attempt by the legislature, barring a constitutionalamendment, to enact a right-to-work law. Proposition 2, as it wasdubbed, failed spectacularly, with 58 percent of the voters rejectingthe measure in the same state Barack Obama won handily onNovember 6.
Before that efforttook place, Snyder had asked the legislature to hold backon a right-to-work measure because “it would be a divisive issue,and it’s not something we should debate,” said RepresentativeJase Bolger, speaker of the Michigan House. Bolger and his fellowlawmakers initially honored the governor’s request. Snyder wasapparently also prepared to deal with thefrustrationilluminated by Detroit Free Press columnist TomWalsh, who contended the Governor was upset by union opposition tostricter emergency manager laws that would enable swifter action torescue cities and school districts that had bungled their way to thebrink of insolvency. Walsh cited Detroit as an example. The city ison the verge of bankruptcy, due in large part to unionintransigence. Yet all of it might have remained status quo–untilBig Labor decided to go for the kill.
Greg McNeilly, whoruns Michigan Freedom Fund, a political action committee in favor ofright-to-work legislation, noted the connection between the defeat ofProposition 2, and a GOP-controlled legislature emboldened by thatdefeat. “[UAW president] Bob King put this on theagenda,” McNeilly contended. “He threatened this state.He tried to bully and intimidate the state with this disastrousproposal that was so bad a majority of his members didn’t even backit. The whole state had a conversation. They lost,” he added.
In an interview, Kingblamed the defeat on the Koch brothers and multimillionaireconservative activist Dick DeVos, describing them as wealthybenefactors who “bullied and bought their way to get thislegislation in Michigan.”
Hardly. Despite beinga state where 17.5 percent of workers are still unionized, comparedto a nationwide average of 11.8 percent, several polls takenin the state over the last few years reveal an electorate decidedlyin favor of a law that guarantees no one can be forced to join aunion, or pay union dues or a fee to cover costs associated withunion bargaining, as a condition of employment.
Furthermore, theelectorate may have noticed what occurred in the neighboring state ofIndiana, when it became a right-to-work state last February: thestate moved up 18 rankings to 5th place on the PollinaCorp.’s Top Pro-Business States List, attracting 90 new companieswilling to do business there. Michigan, by contrast, is ranked35th in overall prosperity as measured by per capita income, has thenation’s sixth highest state jobless rate at 9.1 percent, and hashad one of the lowest rates of personal income growth from1977-2011. An analysis by the Taxpayers Protection Alliancereveals that if Michigan had adopted right-to-work laws in 1977, percapita income for a family of four would have been $13,556 higher by2008.
None of it matters tothe unionists and their supporters, who converged on Lansing in anattempt to intimidate lawmakers. Even Democrats in the MichiganCongressional delegation, who met privately with Snyder on Monday,attempted to intimidate the Governor, promising him yearsof “discord and division” if he signed the bill. And just as theyattempted to do in Wisconsin, labor leaders are talking about stagingrecall elections for Republican legislators and Gov. Snyder. They areinspired by what occurred last year in Ohio, where Democratactivists successfully overturned a measure to curb collectivebargaining. In Michigan however, spending bills cannot be overturnedvia referendum. Since an appropriation measure was added to the bill,a referendum to overturn it becomes impossible.
On Monday, PresidentObama weighed in on the legislation. ”What weshouldn’t be doing is try to take away your rights to bargain forbetter wages and working conditions,” he said. “We don’t want arace to the bottom.” Right-to-work laws “have nothing to dowith economics and they have everything to do with politics,” Obamaadded. “They mean you have the right to work for less money.”
No one is taking awayanyone’s right to collectively bargain. This law simply curbs thepower of union bosses to extract dues from those workers who don’twish to pay them. But the president is correct when he says there ispolitical aspect to this legislation. Mark Mix, president of theNational Right to Work Committee, illuminates the obviousconnection. “President Obama was the recipient of literallyhundreds of millions of dollars from union officials,” he says. “Ifunion officials can’t compel union workers to pay dues as acondition of their employment, the fees that they use for politicalactivity would dry up very quickly.”
As well they should.Nothing illustrates this better than an “education” videoproduced by the California Teachers’ union that depicts “therich” urinating on “the poor.” It is exactly this kind ofover-the-top propaganda that is underwritten by union dues–even asthe individual teachers’ political beliefs arerendered totally irrelevant in the process. And makeno mistake: it is the loss of union leaders’ power to shape apolitical agenda, underwritten by the coercion of mandatory dues,that scares those leaders the most.
When Wisconsin didaway with mandatory dues, 6,000 out of 17,000 members of theAmerican Federation of Teachers–Wisconsin left its ranks. Morethan 30,000 out of 68,218 members also opted out of that Wisconsin’schapter of AFSCME, the union that represents state, county, andmunicipal workers. In other words, when union “solidarity”becomes voluntary, it becomes far less solid.
Michigan joins 23other states that prize individual freedom and genuine economicprosperity for struggling workers. Absolutely nothing is preventingunions from making their case to workers in Michigan. In reality, itnow becomes necessary for them to do so, in order to keep as manydues-paying members as possible. Nonetheless, UAW president BobKing characterized the passages of the right-to-work lawsas a “deep disappointment.” ”Symbolically, it’s ahuge setback,” he said in an interview. “Practically, maybe no.Maybe it will awaken a sleeping giant.” That’s exactly whathappened on election day, when the “sleeping giant” known as thepublic was awakened by union arrogance and overreach. Thatoverreach led directly to the passage of right-to-worklegislation.
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