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New laws will make Michigan 24th 'right-to-work' state

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Yes,$$$ talks and the ruling class in Michigan will just crap all over the hard working men and women of that state, for SHAME!

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Time to check which cars in the USA are Union made and NON Union made and let the buy decide with their $$$$!

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This is a good thing. Workers should not be forced to join any union as a prerequisite to employment. Freedom of association is based on freedom of choice. No worker should be required to pay a tribute to an organization as a precondition to employment. Joining a union or not should be the individual's free choice.

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Joining a union or not should be the individual's free choice.

The companies' concern for workers' rights in the case of unions is always heart-warming.

Of course, a cynic might think it's in the interests of the bosses to have a disorganised, fragmented workforce with no power to demand improvements in inadequate pay or hazardous working conditions or unfair dismissal cases.

But no, I'm sure it's all entirely with the workers' best interests at heart.

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Elbuda MexicanoDec. 12, 2012 - 09:19AM JST :Yes,$$$ talks and the ruling class in Michigan will just crap all over the hard working men and women of that state, for SHAME!

For example, if 60,000 union members pay $40 a month which total about $28,800,000 a year. That's a lot of money. Where does all that money goes toward?

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Yes,$$$ talks and the ruling class in Michigan will just crap all over the hard working men and women of that state, for SHAME!

Rich people in Michigan, that's funny. I remember when I worked as a janitor and was required to be a member of AFSCME, I worked 40 hours a week and the union took 4 hours out of every pay check. I was paying more in union dues than I was in taxes and I still only made minimum wage, and the kicker was that I didn't even qualify for benefits, I was literally paying for nothing more than the privileged of working in a union job. I did, however, get introduced to the wonderful world of grievances when I was written up for climbing a ladder without an OSHA certification, that was a joy.

Of course, a cynic might think it's in the interests of the bosses to have a disorganised, fragmented workforce with no power to demand improvements in inadequate pay or hazardous working conditions or unfair dismissal cases.

At this point most people in Michigan count themselves lucky to have even the cruddiest of jobs after the smoking ruin Granholm left. Years of mismanagement allowed Detroit to go from a joke to a 3rd world war-zone and supposedly safe communities around 9 and 10 mile to become the front lines. Port Huron was turned into a ghost town and Flint became a place where you sent someone that you never wanted to see again.

As much as I dislike Republicans on the national stage the ones in the state congress made a great move in ending the Michigan business tax and Snyder's work with the Canadians to push forward a new international bridge gives me some small modicum of hope that my city and state might be something to be proud of again. The republicans didn't pick this fight, the Unions dropped some big cash to get collective bargaining proposals on the ballot to circumvent Lansing and it backfired spectacularly.

The unions may be pitching a fit but for the rest of the people in Michigan that had to deal with 14% unemployment in 2009 and early 2010. The auto companies got their bailouts but most of the job creation has been in smaller finance centers like Troy and on the west side of the state in business services.

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Yes,$$$ talks and the ruling class in Michigan will just crap all over the hard working men and women of that state, for SHAME!

No, it will not. I work for an agency that enforces the OSHA laws. If workers feel that they are being exploited, there are numerous laws on the books that they can use to bring up charges and correct the wrongs. Also with workplace safety inspections, it is in a company's best interest to comply or face stiff penalties.

For example, if 60,000 union members pay $40 a month which total about $28,800,000 a year. That's a lot of money. Where does all that money goes toward?

Excellent, since in most states like CA, those union dues that unions receive do not count as income against the union. So they pay no taxes on it. Also, those benefits that they are supposedly fighting for the workers for, the unions don't pay for them. They force the company to pay. So when unions go out and fight for more health care benefits for the workers, they are saying that the company has to pay it. They used to offer plans, but it got too expensive for them and they don't do so anymore.

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Yes,$$$ talks and the ruling class in Michigan will just crap all over the hard working men and women of that state, for SHAME!

The law does not make unions illegal, it just means that people don't have to join one if they don't want to. And if you are in a place that has a union, you don't have to pay dues as part of a condition to work. Some may say that those people will benefit from the work of the union by not paying dues, that may be the case. Then wouldn't it be fair then for those who may not side with the union politically to not be able to donate their dues to go for causes that they don't support?

Since when is it that a person has to tow a certain "party line" just to work. I would think that the liberals would approve of this action. Say for instance that a union decided it was against an issue like gay marriage. In order to work at this company, all employees must be in the union. Would you think that those who support gay marriage would be up in arms against this? Many of the members in unions don't agree in total lock step with the union, yet they are forced to contribute to causes that they don't agree with via union dues.

If a company decides to vote in a union, that is their right. No one should be forced to participate if they don't want to.

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lucabrasi, what problem is there with freedom of choice? Is that anathema? There's nothing preventing a worker from joining a union by choice. My first job was unionized, and like TheQ's experience, it was a fiasco and major waste of MY hard-earned wages. The company was in fact very generous, but the union eventually drove them out of business much like Hostess. The mafiosos ran the union.

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Yes,$$ talks and the ruling class in Michigan will just crap all over the hard working men and women of that state, for SHAME!

BIll O'Reilly had the Gov. of MI on his show today. The Gov. stated that Indiana did a similar thing, and they saw an increase in jobs. To be fair, O'Reilly did ask the Gov about lowe wages, since some of the jobs that were brought to Indiana were at lower wages than before. The Gov stated that currently, wages without the right to work laws, wages in MI have continued to go down, even with the unions there, which is a valid point. So it's not about trying to rip people off by exploiting the workers, but by making it a more friendly place for people to want to bring their business.

Why is it that American manufacturing jobs are exported to places like China and Mexico? Because they have cheaper labor and they don't have to worry about unions.

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Herve

Freedom of association is based on freedom of choice.

You seem to have short-term memory loss regarding the multifront assault on collective bargaining rights in general.

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...or was that collective memory rights on selective bargaining?

or maybe selective memory on multifront bargaining?

this is all so confusing!

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I had the "privilege" to work as a salaried employee for GE up in New York that had the IBEW ruling over the factory floor. Here's what the union did for plant efficiency:

The test bed we were working on uses 512 transmitter modules installed into four transmitter cabinets (128 transmitters per cabinet) - each module was about two feet deep by three inches square. Each module weighed about 8 pounds. Each module was secured in the transmitter cabinet with a simple pin held in place with a light spring. Total time to remove a module: 5 seconds. Total time to remove all 512 modules: 42 minutes, 40 seconds (assuming one person was doing the work). Each module was placed into a pre-assembled cardboard box custom fit for the modules, the flap was closed (not taped shut) and the box placed into a large tri-wall box mounted on a pallete. Total time to box each module and place it in the tri-wall: approx 30 seconds. Total time to box all 512 modules and put them in the tri-wall: roughly 4 1/2 hours (assuming one person was doing the work). Let's throw in bathroom breaks and cigarette breaks and call the job a 5 1/2 hour job, total, for one person. We finished up testing late on Friday and the navy needed the modules for one of its destroyers ASAP. So management arranged for a couple of union guys to come in on Saturday and box-up the modules. On Monday, the Union submitted time sheets attesting that these TWO guys took an entire 8-hour shift (at time and a half pay because it was a Saturday, natch) to complete the work.

Another instance: As a "Field Service Engineer", I was issued a handheld Fluke Digital Multimeter that could not be used for work on navy equipment unless it was periodically calibrated. The Calibration Lab was on the factory floor. One day I got the notice that the meter was due for calibration so I walked down to the Cal Lab and left the meter with them. The next day I get called to our department's offices on the other campus to talk with my boss. When I get there, he tells me a grievance has been filed against me by the shop floor's foreman for not having a union material handler come get the HANDHELD digital multimeter. I was dumb founded. The material handlers are used to move the large items aroud the shop. They either are pushing a large push cart, or operating the forklifts. Nobody (except maybe a foreman trying to justify some guy's position) would think a material handler was needed for a handheld device. (Nothing ever came of the grievance, BTW)

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“There will be fights on the shop floor if many workers announce they will not pay union dues,” Geiss said.

See, this guy let slip the truth of the matter. There are many forced-to-join-the-union workers who would prefer to not be extorted by the union in addition to the wonderful gum-mint. It's about the mob-bosses wanting to preserve their income stream, not about the workers or jobs.

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ubikwit,

What's confusing about the individual having the freedom of choice? Surely that's a simple concept.

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