You got that right.
Michigan is the capital of unionization. Speaking as a Michigan native, to see Michigan even be **CONSIDERING** this is shocking. I suspect the Democrats will eventually find a way to win on this in Michigan once all the dust is over — it is Michigan, after all — but it's always nice to put the other side on the defensive. If they're having to defend unions on their own home turf, they'll have to spend time and money for self-preservation that otherwise they'd be spending fighting conservatives on other issues.
Full disclosure: I am not anti-union. Never have been. My family had numerous union members and some union officials. I understand the “Reagan Democrats” and believe the switch of blue-collar workers to the Republican Party was critical to our success of the 1980s when a significant number of traditional Democrats decided the Democratic Party had become anti-American and anti-Catholic bigots under the control of extremists influenced by "New Left" ideology of the 1960s radical movement. I was very glad to see lots of American union workers clapping and cheering the rise of the Polish Solidarity movement, recognizing (correctly) that unions do not have to be tools of communist ideology, either in Poland or the United States.
I have zero problem with workers exercising their constitutional rights to free association, and there are some things unions can do well. Apprenticeships in trades are an obvious example, along with insurance and pensions for people in some industries where people don't typically stay with a single employer for long periods of time, but where union membership can provide the continuity necessary for effective insurance and pension plans.
However, I believe mandatory union membership is a terrible condition of employment. If unions are performing a service for their members, workers will want to be members. If not, well... time for unions to figure out what they're doing wrong, go back to the drawing board, and figure out how to provide what potential members want.
That's the way capitalism works. Older traditional union leaders understood that, and while they wanted better pay and working conditions for their members, they didn't dispute the core capitalist foundations of America. As for modern union leaders, I think it's patently obvious that free choice is not always on their list of priorities. New Left ideology is not capitalism at all, and it's merely another name for socialism or worse, combined with radical deviancy in personal morality.
Right-to-work legislation should be common sense. Frankly, I think unions would be a lot more effective if they had to please their members, and fighting against right-to-work legislation is **EXACTLY** the wrong tactic since it will turn lots of people against the unions. Very few people want to be forced to pay anything, and that is just as true for union dues as for anything else.
The union leadership is wrong in its belief that right-to-work legislation will kill unions. On the contrary, if right-to-work becomes standard national policy, unions will be forced to do some serious re-evaluation of their core purpose, and they'll have to start listening to their rank-and-file members again, and the end result will be that unions which actually are doing something useful for their members will survive and expand.
As for union bosses who don't care about their rank-and-file members — good riddance, and the sooner they're gone, the better.
One thing that people are overlooking is that pro RTW union members themselves were involved in bringing this to the floor. There were several union members standing with Rick Snyder during the announcement in the press conference yesterday.
You don’t have to be anti union to be right to work.
Well said.
Free association? Fine.
Except for government employees. Unions + Democrats + Government = Corruption and Bankruptcy. They should be banned.