The Republican answer to the 2012 election is that if you can't beat them just get rid of them! Hence, the lightning speed at which Michigan passed a right to work law that the governor has promised to sign (even though he previously opposed right-to-work laws) This is for political reasons, to weaken a sector of the electorate that supports Democrats, but of course it will have a negative impact on workers. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/1 ... ?mobile=wp

freeman2 wrote:The Republican answer to the 2012 election is that if you can't beat them just get rid of them! Hence, the lightning speed at which Michigan passed a right to work law that the governor has promised to sign (even though he previously opposed right-to-work laws) This is for political reasons, to weaken a sector of the electorate that supports Democrats, but of course it will have a negative impact on workers. http://thinkprogress.org/economy/2012/1 ... ?mobile=wp

What's the phrase . . . oh yeah . . . "elections have consequences."

Why are Republicans in charge in MI? Because Granholm, the maniacally enthusiastic DNC speaker, ran the State into the sewer.

Of course, that does give me just a bit of optimism for 2016. With Obama pursuing the "Granholm Strategy," he is all set to poison the well for Hillary.

I Googled "right to work vs employment by state" and this seemed to be the most on target.

http://www.antidoughnutparty.com/every- ... t-to-work/

Feel free to provide other sources that provide some stats that may be the result of different state policies. This one shows that right to work states do much better economically (in both employment growth and per capita income growth) than do those states that force the payment of union dues. The stats are not conclusive because we don't know cause and effect, and we don't know the impact of other practices. However, it is a good place to start.

If we can get past the idological battle on this we may learn something.

Is the Michigan governor trying to allow workers to have more pay in their paychecks if they choose?

Why does all the issues come down to choice, and one side limiting the choice of another. Make it a personal choice to do and pay for the following:
Get birth control
Pay union dues
Own a weapon
Have an abortion
Have life insurance
Have health insurance

There are a myriad of others...

If this is a country of choice (and I am wondering more and more if it is!), why is the government getting into the personal choices of the people in other areas. A serious problem of overreach on both sides of the aisle...

ray

Feel free to provide other sources that provide some stats that may be the result of different state policies

Did you look carefully at the sources Ray? Based on a glance at the sources, I'm guessing we'll find conflicting information...

The problem with non-compulsory Union Dues or membership, is that everyone working in a plant benefits from the results of collective bargaining. If Right to Work, legislation also included the right for companies to pay employees not covered by collective bargaining less .... than it would be treating all employees equally. But what it does, is allow non-unionized workers to benefit from the collective bargaining without contributing.
It doesn't allow for unequal treatment of employees who aren't unionized.... and it should. If it did, I'd bet unions wouldn't complain.

rickyp wrote:The problem with non-compulsory Union Dues or membership, is that everyone working in a plant benefits from the results of collective bargaining.

This is a made up problem.

I was in a union. We had "open shop" for 30 years. The union used our "Dirty Harry" (a legendary cop who either shot, arrested, or slept with every non-cop) to push through "closed shop." All it did was give the union more money to give to liberals.

Can someone simply explain what this actual legal change does? Is it ending closed-shops? Is it changing where union dues are taken from? Does it do anything else?

danivon wrote:Can someone simply explain what this actual legal change does? Is it ending closed-shops? Is it changing where union dues are taken from? Does it do anything else?

It seems to simply give employees the option of not paying dues to the union:

Snyder is expected to sign the measures into law as early as Wednesday that would make Michigan the 24th state with right-to-work laws, which ban requirements that nonunion employees pay unions for negotiating contracts and other services.

Supporters say they give workers more choice and boost economic growth, but critics say the real intent is to weaken organized labor by bleeding unions of money needed to bargain effectively with management.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/ ... _comboEP_p

Ok. I do find it sometimes quite annoying that as a union member we pay full dues and take the action in order to negotiate better terms, and then non-members get the same deals for no cost/effort. Nice 'choice' for them, but if everyone made it, they'd not get the deals they take for granted.

What is the usual change for such services, compared to full union dues?

Good point, Danivon. Perhaps the Union should charge employees if they want the services. I am all for that.

Again, it is a pro-choice position.

Danivon, here is a discussion of agency fees by a pro right to work group (but the info provided at least appears to be accurate) http://www.nrtw.org/a/a_1_p.htm
You mentioned the free-rider effect, but the political effect of unions of having substantially less money for political activities is substantial. It also divides the union, because why not let other workers pay union dues and reap the benefits?

freeman2 wrote:Danivon, here is a discussion of agency fees by a pro right to work group (but the info provided at least appears to be accurate) http://www.nrtw.org/a/a_1_p.htm
You mentioned the free-rider effect, but the political effect of unions of having substantially less money for political activities is substantial. It also divides the union, because why not let other workers pay union dues and reap the benefits?

Again, as someone who was a shop steward and who represented employees at hearings, I see things a bit differently. More money leads to more political contributions--often in complete disregard of the members. Furthermore, more money led (in our case) to corruption.

The "free rider" problem was only a "problem" for the union bosses who wanted to affiliate us with the AFL-CIO, give liberally to liberal politicians, and hobnob in Sacramento. It's not like they ever got us a good contract. Nearly every contract, in fact, was "the best we can do" and then, two months later, voila! Tens of millions of dollars would be discovered in some previously unknown place and the County was flush with cash.

Closed shops have been ended in Britain since Thatcher. I don't think it's a big deal really. I'm not in the union at work either. Mostly this is because i have very little respect for the way our union goes about its business at either a local or national level. Nationally they're one of the most militantly leftist of all the public sector unions and often seem to take positions which are nakedly political to a degree that I don't feel comfortable with (or wouldn't if I were a member). Locally we have all these union reps who in theory are ordinary workers just like the rest of us but in practice never seem to do any work at all except for union work. I'm not joking here btw, I know of at least one guy who's been active in the union for years and he's currently allowed to get away with doing 100% union work without any kind of supervision of his activities from his employer. He takes at least one cigarette break every hour and wanders around the building doing whatever the hell he likes, moaning constantly about 'the man' when he's not off taking long boozy lunches. Needless to say when this kind of situation is tolerated the union reps have to constantrly look for any excuse to keep the easy life going, which results in them being willing to represent literally anybody in disciplinary hearings no matter how much of a lazy, useless waster they are. Ok, so I work in the public sector where this kind of thing is more common, but as I said, this is the situation when we don't have a closed shop. I dread to think how much worse it would be if we did. To hell with closed shop union arrangements.

RJ, I looked at the numbers from the site you linked to. I am going to assume their figures are accurate. A couple of observations. First, these right to work states tend to be in historically poorer states and states that are less unionized (particularly in the South). Before companies shipped their jobs overseas, they shipped down south to non-unionized plants that paid substantially lower wages. So I am not sure how great a thing that was for workers overall. I also could make the observation that non right-to-work states have a higher standard if living than right to work states (these are poorer states getting less poor vis-a-vis richer states, hardly a ringing endorsement of these laws)
If these laws are so great how come workers are not doing better overall in the US and these laws may also help to explain labor's declining share of the economic pie.
Ultimately, if these laws simply transfer wealth from labor to business, as I expect they do, then I am not in favor.

Freedom of speech is good. The right to assemble is important.

This is thuggish union behavior and falls under neither freedom.

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/11/v ... xperience/

Watch the video.