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Politics : American Presidential Politics and foreign affairs -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (59778)	12/9/2012 3:49:21 PM
From: greatplains_guy	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 71588

Michigan's Fight to Be Competitive Again By Conn Carroll December 7, 2012 President Obama is set to campaign for his crippling $1.6 trillion tax hike in Detroit on Monday, but it appears a much more historic development will overshadow his appearance. Yesterday, both the Michigan state House and Senate passed identical versions of the Workplace Fairness and Equity Act, bills that would give workers the freedom not to join unions if they so choose. According to state procedural rules, the legislation must wait five days before it can advance. Tuesday will be the first opportunity Gov. Rick Snyder has to make Michigan a right-to-work state. “For us to succeed, we have to remain competitive. That’s why I believe we should make Michigan a freedom-to-work state,” Snyder said at a press conference yesterday. Unions, who view giving workers a choice about whether or not they want to pay union dues as a threat to their existence, did not take Snyder’s effort lying down. After Snyder announced he would support the legislation, union activists rushed the Senate chamber. Squadrons of Michigan State Police were ready for union violence however, and with the use of pepper spray they were able to prevent the protestors from hijacking the chamber. “A level of appropriate force was used by troopers,” State Police spokeswoman Shannon Banner said. “Medical treatment was offered but they refused.” Eight protestors were arrested in the melee. While Michigan went for Obama by a 10-point 54 percent to 44 percent margin this November, Gov. Snyder still managed to engineer a slew of conservative victories. Republicans not only maintained control of the state House (the State Senate was not up for re-election) and the state Supreme Court, but liberals also lost three major ballot propositions. Michigan’s Proposal 2 would have enshrined collective bargaining powers for unions in the state constitution. It failed, 58 percent to 42 percent. Michigan’s Proposal 3 would have forced state utilities to produce at least 25 percent of their electricity from renewable energy sources (e.g. wind, solar, biomass, etc.). It failed 63 percent to 37 percent. And Michigan’s Proposal 4 would have unionized home health care providers. It failed 57 percent to 43 percent. The tide is turning in Michigan. Michiganders are tired of businesses and factories leaving the state. They are tired of having the highest unemployment rate in the region. Yesterday’s right to work victory was another major step in Michigan’s fight to become competitive again. washingtonexaminer.com

To: Hope Praytochange who wrote (59778)	4/11/2013 1:58:08 AM
From: greatplains_guy	2 Recommendations Respond to of 71588

Wisconsin union membership plunging as workers exercise new rights Sean Higgins April 9, 2013 \| 9:00 pm Two years after the protracted, bitter battle that pitted Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker against the state's public-sector unions and their allies, one thing is clear: Those unions are now shrinking rapidly. The Badger State battle was over a law called Act 10 that reined in most state and local government employee unions, primarily by the ending the automatic deduction of union dues from workers' paychecks. Before Walker's reforms, it didn't matter if, say, a city hall clerk or a public school teacher wanted to support a union or not. They had to pay if they wanted to keep their jobs. The money was taken directly out of their paychecks just as if it were a tax. Big Labor feared -- and conservative groups hoped -- that without this legal requirement a lot of union members would simply drop out. That assumption has turned out to be correct. According to Labor Department data, membership at Wisconsin's American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 40 -- one of AFSCME's four branches in the state -- has gone from the 31,730 it reported in 2011, to 29,777 in 2012, to just 20,488 now. That's a drop of more than 11,000 -- about a third -- in just two years. The council represents city and county employees outside of Milwaukee County and child care workers across Wisconsin. The drop was even starker for Wisconsin's AFSCME Council 48, which represents city and county workers in Milwaukee County. It went from 9,043 members in 2011, to 6,046 in 2012, to just 3,498 now. The numbers came from annual filings the unions must make to the Labor Department. In other words, these membership numbers come from the unions themselves. The numbers have to hurt since the union was founded in Wisconsin. A spokesman for Local 48 declined to discuss the figures, while spokesmen for Local 40 and AFSCME's national headquarters did not respond to requests for an interview. To be fair, this isn't a complete portrait. The union has two other main branches in the state -- Council 11 and Council 24. According to a Labor Department spokesman, the disclosure requirements do not extend to unions that solely represent state and local government employees. Councils 40 and 48 must make the filings because they represent some private-sector employees. The other two do not. Nevertheless, the data confirm a news report last year by the Wall Street Journal, citing confidential AFSCME sources, that Wisconsin union membership was falling by as much as half. At the time, a union official told me the story wasn't true but declined to provide alternative figures. Why are the members dropping out? Patrick Marley, a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reporter and author of "More Than They Bargained For," a history of the Wisconsin fight, points out that Walker's law also limited what the unions can bargain for to just wages. "Employees look at it from an economic standpoint," Marley said. "The value of 'buying' a union membership, so to speak, isn't what it used to be." Of course, it is also likely that a lot of the workers didn't want to belong to a union in the first place. Exit polls show that 38 percent of union households and 29 percent of card-carrying union members voted for Walker in last year's gubernatorial recall. During the fight over the law in 2011, pro-union protesters flooded the state Capitol, chanting "We are Wisconsin" and "This is what democracy looks like." The message being that they represented the voice of the people. But if the unions really did represent the people the way the protesters claimed, they wouldn't have such trouble retaining their members. Sean Higgins ( shiggins@washingtonexaminer.com) is a senior editorial writer for The Washington Examiner. Follow him on Twitter at @seanghiggins. washingtonexaminer.com