Michigan set to become Right To Work State

[Awsi Dooger]

Unions are a natural by product of a capitalist system. If you're going to engender a society where everything is commoditized, then the worker will eventually see their own skills and labor as a commodity and look for the best leverage points to maximize their wages, or personal profit if you will.

It seems contradictory to me for laizze faire types to bemoan the influence of unions when all unions are doing is using the same strategies as those who employ them... strategies those laizze fair types endorse with a shrug and a "what can you do? It's capitalism."

Like Voter ID laws, which sound great in theory but in practice have a very different goal, the Right to Work movement is really only a tool to break the influence of unions and thus make wages and working conditions worse. I completely understand why businesses want it, but the workers who endorse it strike me mainly as a very scared and weak group of people, mostly without useful skills, who thanks to the direct efforts of their employers have come to see themselves in direct competition with workers in Mexico and China rather than having rights and power of their own. The dynamic is really not unlike a woman who sees herself as so unattractive she'll grovel at the feet of a man who beats her.

Unions have been a great boon to the people of this country and all workers, whether unionized or not, have benefited from their efforts. It's not an accident that the decrease of their influence has coincided exactly with the drop in wages adjusted for inflation.

That's a great post, and particularly the sentence I quoted. I had to laugh at the suggestion in this thread that this move demonstrates strength from the conservative movement, only a month after the election debacle. It's more of the same, scared white guys (SAMs) who have given up on persuading anyone so they desperately try to shift the math. Always in favor of corporations, always targeting demographics who vote Democratic. It's like the GOP sat down and brainstormed more of the same, like the Republican consultant Scott Tranter who conceded on Monday that campaign officials on the Republican side do what it takes to improve their chances, whether it means Voter ID laws or long voting lines. He didn't say it privately to donors or at a think tank, he said it in a PEW forum.


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[jared81]

So now why would anyone join a union when they can reap the benefits of their work without having to be a member? Or are employers going to pay union employees a different rate and offer a different benefits package than non-union employees? Employers are sure as hell not going to differentiate between employees, so what this pretty much does is weaken unions. That was the sole purpose of this bill.

Your chart is misleading because it doesn't matter how many new businesses come in if they are paying their workers crap wages and offering a benefits package that does nothing for them. Those businesses move to right-to-work states BECAUSE they don't have to worry about unions giving them push back for their wages and employee treatment. There is no way around it, this bill is crap and it was yet another instance of big business screwing over their employees. It's depressing how far this country has fallen...

if employees feel that the union is helping them they would be more than will to pay the dues. people arent as stupid as you may think. if i am working at a steel mill and notice my wages getting more and treatment going down, i would want to unionize. however if i notice the union not doing anything to help me and dues contining to rise. i want to choice to tell them to piss off.

liberals love affair with unions is just like the conservative love affair with the "good ole days". it always seems better than it really was.

[Locke]

if employees feel that the union is helping them they would be more than will to pay the dues. people arent as stupid as you may think. if i am working at a steel mill and notice my wages getting more and treatment going down, i would want to unionize. however if i notice the union not doing anything to help me and dues contining to rise. i want to choice to tell them to piss off.

liberals love affair with unions is just like the conservative love affair with the "good ole days". it always seems better than it really was.

That's great in theory, but nothing in the existing right-to-work states supports that notion. Those states have weak unions and some of the lowest working wages in the country. In Arizona, for example, people who begin organizing tend to get the Wal-Mart treatment: they all just get fired and new workers get brought in. If that wasn't the case, I'd have zero issues with this right-to-work stuff. But, it's just a round-about way to union-bust. Maybe even not that round-about, since most everyone knows the real goal...

[TheWalrus]

if employees feel that the union is helping them they would be more than will to pay the dues. people arent as stupid as you may think. if i am working at a steel mill and notice my wages getting more and treatment going down, i would want to unionize. however if i notice the union not doing anything to help me and dues contining to rise. i want to choice to tell them to piss off.

liberals love affair with unions is just like the conservative love affair with the "good ole days". it always seems better than it really was.

Why would you join the union if you're reaping the benefits of their negotiations without having to pay for it, though?

Real wages and treatment have gone down, unquestionably. And, as I said before, not coincidentally with the decrease in the influence of unions.


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Right to Work has nothing to do with choice and everything to do with helping businesses increase the margin reflected in that chart.

[jared81]

Why would you join the union if you're reaping the benefits of their negotiations without having to pay for it, though?

Real wages and treatment have gone down, unquestionably. And, as I said before, not coincidentally with the decrease in the influence of unions.


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Right to Work has nothing to do with choice and everything to do with helping businesses increase the margin reflected in that chart.

i saw a gentleman on tv the other day that supported the right to work legislation, when the announcer asked him if he was going to leave the union he said no. he cited that he wouldnt leave the union he worked for because they negotiated his wages and he didnt have a problem with them. there is corruption in unions and people should have the right to chose.

[jared81]

That's great in theory, but nothing in the existing right-to-work states supports that notion. Those states have weak unions and some of the lowest working wages in the country. In Arizona, for example, people who begin organizing tend to get the Wal-Mart treatment: they all just get fired and new workers get brought in. If that wasn't the case, I'd have zero issues with this right-to-work stuff. But, it's just a round-about way to union-bust. Maybe even not that round-about, since most everyone knows the real goal...

for every situation you give me that you feel right to worked i can show you places it has. indiana has had growth in the past year because of the bill.

[MoFinz]

So many people seem to have forgotten about this....

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So, now the unions get to run the companies? Is that how it works? Notice they werent closing a plant and cutting jobs, they were opening one in a very attractive coastal state and adding workers to the economy. But the NLRB gets that whine in their ear from the union, and all of a sudden, the government is not only telling a private company how to run its business, but where.

Yeah, them unions....looking out for the workers, by denying other people jobs.

And as far as non union workers benefitting from the unions sacrifices, they also suffer from government sacrifices to the union coffers. Unions were beneficial before there was a OSHA, before there was a NLRB, before the minimum wage and before the courts were opened to all kinds of litigation. Unions only purpose now is to serve the union, not the worker

[Eshlemon]

So many people seem to have forgotten about this....

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So, now the unions get to run the companies? Is that how it works? Notice they werent closing a plant and cutting jobs, they were opening one in a very attractive coastal state and adding workers to the economy. But the NLRB gets that whine in their ear from the union, and all of a sudden, the government is not only telling a private company how to run its business, but where.

Yeah, them unions....looking out for the workers, by denying other people jobs.

And as far as non union workers benefitting from the unions sacrifices, they also suffer from government sacrifices to the union coffers. Unions were beneficial before there was a OSHA, before there was a NLRB, before the minimum wage and before the courts were opened to all kinds of litigation. Unions only purpose now is to serve the union, not the worker

Yes, if unions fought more to keep jobs from going overseas than the fight for interstate protectionism less manufacturing jobs would have become lower paying service jobs over the last 20 years. And Detroit wouldn't be a step behind Japanese, Germans, and now S. Korean competitors again.