I just heard it on the news this morning. Cokie Roberts said that even though the economy is by far the biggest issue in the campaign where McCain trails Obama badly, places hurting the worst from the economy, like Michigan, are showing strong signs that McCain may take the state. And Michigan's Senate has done well to help this cause.
An article in the Oakland Press reveals that even the anti-working families wonks at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy who are behind a "right to work" petition to put an anti-union referendum on November's ballot think they will fail.
One huge sign of the petition's likely failure was the dismal efforts of anti-worker signature gatherers to even make a showing at Michigan's January 20th primary.
Signature gatherers planned to appear at polling places all over the state and confuse voters with their "right to work" language, hiding the fact that the petition would make it harder for workers to join or organize labor unions in their workplaces.
But they just didn't show up. Instead, several thousand labor union members came out to the polls that day, distributed leaflets and educated voters about what "right to work" means.
Backers of the petition, all pro-big business types, insist that killing unions is the best way to revive the economy. In other words, the best way to make an economy work is to make sure that workers and their families are paid low wages, lack good health benefits, and aren't protected by safety and health regulations.
Does that make any sense? While it might ensure high profits for corporations and fat salaries and bonuses for executives (the folks who fund the Mackinac Center), it is no plan to build an economy. Indeed, look at the 1950s through the 1970s when Michigan's economy was at its most robust. That was when unions had the most strength and influence.
Ever since the 1990s, Republicans in the Michigan government presided over slashing public services and the tax revenue, especially for higher income folks. And they presided over Michigan's drive to an economic slump. And now, in their last remaining footholds in the state legislature, they have blocked any and every plan Governor Granholm has offered to turn things around.
Look at the states with "right to work" laws. They are the poorest in the country. Workers their have low wages, no benefits, and public services are tiny. Is that what we want to become?
"Right to work" for less doesn’t give anyone a right to work. In fact, by weakening unions and collective bargaining, it destroys the best job security protection that exists: the union contract.
It just gives companies the right to destroy unions and cut our pay and benefits. Look at the facts:
Michigan’s workers are paid an average of $7,601 a year more than workers in states that have attacked paychecks with so-called "right to work" laws.
Workers in states with "right to work" for less laws are far less likely to have health insurance, retirement and short-term disability benefits.
They’re also more likely to be killed on the job and receive lower workers’ compensation benefits if they’re hurt at work.
If you don't want to get paid, why not just send me your pay check. I'll take it.
Or make a big donation to charity.
Just don't sign one of those Republican Party petitions that will be shoved in your face on January 15.
(From the diaries. More on this topic here. - promoted by lpackard)
There is a scam afoot in Michigan. “Right to Work,” is a false slogan that does NOT guarantee anyone the “right” to gainful employment and does not protect any worker from being laid off or fired. The Mackinac Center, the Michigan Right-to-Work Committee, and outside special interests are gearing up to put an initiative on the ballot that would make Michigan a so-called “Right-to-Work” state.
These special interests want to destroy the quality of life we all hold sacred. Workers in Right to Work states earn on average $6,590 less than workers in free-bargaining states. That’s the equivalent to a 17% pay cut! On average, Right to Work states have a 16% higher poverty rate and job fatality rates are also 54% higher. The average employee in a free bargaining state is 24.1% more likely to have health insurance than a worker in a Right-to-Work state. These statistics are staggering and we cannot afford to be fooled by a false slogan that is being forced on us by outside special interests. The University of Michigan Institute for Labor and Industrial Relations calls Right to Work “a veiled assault on wage-earners.”
While this initiative threatens our families and our interests, we can do something about it.
Visit www.wrongformichigan.org and learn the truth about this scam for Michigan workers. Tell your neighbors and friends how “Right to Work” will hurt our state and devastate our economy. Below is an interesting video about how women earn 12% less in Right to Work states:
While our friends at the Mackinac Center and other right wing groups scream from the roof tops that our state's lack of right to work for less laws hurt businesses and make Michigan less business friendly, low and behold, one of businesses own trade publications comes along and shoots yet another hole in the Mackinac Myth.
The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council has ranked Michigan #6 in it's Small Business Survival Index for 2007. They say we are the 6th friendliest state to small businesses in the nation. #6. Without Right to Work for Less laws. Apparently Right to Work laws aren't the million dollar dream the Mackinac Center wants us to think it is.
With the recent release of national unemployment data by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the right to work argument (aka Mackinac Myth) gets another bunch of holes poked in it. It's starting to look like a piece of Swiss deli cheese.
Yes, Michigan does have the highest unemployment in the nation. But is that caused by Michigan not being a right to work (rtw) state? No. It has much more to do with our state's reliance on the manufacturing industry and unfair trade policies. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that in September, manufacturing employment nationwide decreased by 18,000 in September. Over the year, manufacturing has lost 223,000 jobs, making it the hardest hit industry. We in Michigan know this, being the epicenter of manufacturing job loss. NAFTA and CAFTA have much more to do with that than our state's labor law.
But after Michigan, the state that sits has the second highest unemployment rate? Mississippi, a rtw state. It seems the magic law really isn't the economic cure all its proponents claim. As a matter of fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, rtw states did indeed suffer some economic hardships, often worse than their non-rtw counterparts. Tennessee was the only state to register a statistically significant over-the-month unemployment rate increase in September. Both Kansas and Nebraska found themselves amongst the top five states for the largest over-the-month percentage decrease in employment. Apparently, rtw's power of economic healing is fickle.
RTW aficionados also have a hard time explaining how two non-rtw states are in the top three for job creation nationwide. No-RTW laws, working family-friendly legislatures and strong unions seem to be working out very well for New York, California and their economies. West Virginia, Hawaii and the District of Columbia all found themselves near the top of the list for the largest over-the-month percentage increase in employment. All non-rtw states.
Much to the displeasure of the right-wingers in DC and the fat wallet corporate hacks, rtw laws don't hold up to their hype of being the economic shot in the arm for any state, let alone Michigan. It makes one wonder what their real motivation is.
Bureau of Labor Statistics release of Regional and State Employment and Unemployment Summary: http://www.bls.gov/n...
Right To Work (For Less)is bad for Michigan Women.
I realize i am posting a video from the Indiana RTW campaign but I felt it did a good job of showcasing just one of the effects if RTW becomes law in Michigan.
Mark Gaffney, President of Michigan's largest labor federation, the Michigan AFL-CIO recently responded to a Mackinac Center piece regarding right-to-work for less on WJR's Daily Dash blog.
The piece debunks a lot of the myths around right-to-work and the special interests that want it. It can be found here:
The Republicans all out assault on unions and the middle class with the deceptive name of so-called "right to work laws" has a new front with the establishment of a Facbook group created by an Oakland County rightwing extremist connected with racist and extreme causes and well-known to liberal bloggers is pushing a petition drive to place it on the ballot.
The site was created by Chet Zarko, who was the communications director for the California group headed by Ward Connerly that came to the state to push the racist Michigan Civil Rights Initiative on the November 2006 ballot that did away with affirmative action. The group illegally lied to people and misrepresented themselves to get signatures, and because this is Zarko's MO, coupled with the other people who are involved with the Facebook group, we can expect the same tactics this time around.
Zarko said the purpose of "this board is to be able tell investors that there are hundreds of motivated folks out there ready to work for the right to work." Investors seems like a good choice of words because the result of this union-busting proposition is to maximize profits for management at the cost of employees. This bill will force unions to give the protections and benefits they won with hard work and determination to those workers who do not contribute to the union via union dues, enjoy the benefits won by collective bargaining by union leaders and receive the same physical protections won by the hard work and sacrifice of union members.
This petition drive seems really premature. Sen. Nancy Cassis, R-Novi, Rep. Jack Hookendyk, R-Kalamazoo, and Rep. Kevin Elsenheimer, R-Bellaire, have introduced so-called "right to work bills, and Senate Majority "Leader" Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, has included passage of the bills among his list of hostage demands before he will release the hostage, state government. No ballot question committee has been formed that will allow them to actually raise the money Zarko apparently is already illegally soliciting. It would seem logical to let the legislation run its course before a petition drive is launched.
This is not the first anti-union endeavor Zarko has been involved in, and here in Howell we felt the first salvo. In May he submitted a massive Freedom of Information (FOIA) request to get emails from the Howell Public Schools teachers union, Howell Education Association. After getting the emails, he alleged the HEA leaders have "conducted a large amount of union business on public time, including trying to "retain MEA (Michigan Education Association) affiliated MESSA health-insurance, and using parent-teacher conferences to recruit parents (to) their side of a collective-bargaining debate." He based his ridiculous claims on union leaders' e-mails that he received through the FOIA.
After school district officials admitted union leaders have a "recognized right" to use the district e-mail server for union business, Zarko clung to the ridiculous claim that they may have used a district copier to copy union material. Zarko also has ties to the anti-gay hate group known as the LOVE" PAC (Livingston Organization for Values in Education) that embarrassed the community and tried to ban books by Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-winning authors from Howell High School classrooms.
Despite describing himself as a "metro-Detroit, Michigan-based, political and marketing research consultant, focusing on conservative and "moderate" candidates and other clients," Zarko has steadfastly refused to say who is paying him and who is financing this witch-hunt against public school teachers and teacher's unions.
Michigan Republican lawmakers are taking a page out of George W. Bush's playbook and naming a piece of onerous and harmful legislation and giving it a nice sounding name that that evokes good feelings, but in reality it does the exact opposite of its name.
For example, Bush has saddled the country with the following legislation that does exactly the opposite of what its name implies: "The Clear Skies act," the "Healthy Forest Initiative" and "No Child Left Behind." Now we have House Republicans doing the same thing with House Bill 4454, introduced by Rep. Jack Hoogendyk, R-Kalamazoo, known as the "right to work law." A better name would be the right to weaken unions, do away with collective bargaining and endanger workers act.
