Posted on 12/11/2012 9:45:37 AM PST by SeekAndFind
The economic policy drift in Washington is antigrowth, but here and there in the states are glimmers of hope and change. The best news of late is in Michigan, which is poised this week to pass a landmark right-to-work law.
You can tell this is a big deal based on the fury of Big Labor's reaction. Union activists plan to descend on Lansing Tuesday to protest, including many from out of state. State police will have to be on duty to ensure that legislators can get through what is likely to be a loud and abusive cordon of activists who want to block the vote.
This thuggishness is a deliberate and familiar union political strategy: Cause as big a ruckus as possible in hopes of making right to work seem radical when it's already the law in nearly half the country.
We hope Republicans and Governor Rick Snyder aren't intimidated, because they have the moral and policy high ground. Union activists want voters to believe that right-to-work laws deny union organizing rights, or ban collective bargaining. President Obama peddled this distortion on Monday in Redford, Michigan, claiming that "what we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions."
Right to work does no such thing. It empowers individual workers. As allowed under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, right to work merely lets individual workers choose for themselves if they want to join a union. The laws prevent closed union shops, which coerce individual workers to join unions and to pay union dues. A teacher who opts out under right to work, for example, could save several hundred dollars in annual union dues that go to political causes he may not even believe in.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Its getting close. Twitter reports are starting to say that troopers are starting to change into riot gear.
Unions owe their power to being able to coerce workers into contributing dues even against their wishes. Let workers have a choice whether or not to join a union and many will choose not to join. This has nothing to do with collective bargaining. Unions still have that right in right to work states if a majority of workers vote for union representation.
This just means that now unions will be forced to provide something of value in return for their dues if they wish to retain members.
Some dumbass Dem in the Michigan House is saying there will be blood. These people are nuts, they are fueling violence. There were only “hundreds” of protesters at the House vote and yet the Dems are lighting them up. Wait until the Guard is called out and the heads get cracked. Will be interesting to see if obama calls for civil disobedience - strikes, walkouts and the like.
Michigan has a history of union violence...all the way back to THE BRIDGE. Not quite the same here as WI, or the Southern States. Violence was common place. Too bad as most of the state is “normal.”
A body politic cannot confer rights, it can either acknowledge and endorse or deny inherent personal rights. The right of free association, which logically encompasses the right to decline association, inheres in each person. Certainly no person should be compelled to join and support a political action committee, not even one disguised as a labor union, as a condition of holding gainful employment.
President Obama peddled this distortion on Monday in Redford, Michigan, claiming that "what we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions."Wall Street Journal pionts out:
Right to work does no such thing. It empowers individual workers.The day I got the... "Termination Notice: Your last day is [insert date here]." I called HR and (politely) asked them "WTF?" Sorry, it is in your contract[1]. We have to terminate you unless you give the union x% of your paycheck.
Kind of like government and taxes except taxes are generally a much larger fraction of one's pay.
saw the union thugs on Fox last night, screaming, F@@@ you to anti union protestors, classy guys those knee breakers.
The union was born in Michigan, it was a violent birth.
I have an Americans For Prosperity T-shirt received (freebie) when I attended an Ann Coulter speaking engagement/book signing in Troy, MI last year and I’ll still be wearing it around town regardless of any possible hazardous environment(s).
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