NO, NOT THE WOLVERINES …
You won’t hear us yelling “Go Michigan!” very often in the near future … even though our founding editor’s wife, the lovely Mrs. Sic, is a devout Big Blue fan.
Michigan (a.ka. the U of M) is playing our beloved University of South Carolina in the 2013 Outback Bowl – where we expect the tenth-ranked Gamecocks to spank that Big 10 ass. Just like we spanked that corn-fed Nebraska ass last year. But that’s neither here nor there …
This week, we are all Michiganders … we can all “point to the mitten” and tell ’em where we’re from (it’s a Great Lakes State thing, you wouldn’t understand).
Why the love? Because this week Michigan took a courageous stand against the union thugs and lazy bureaucrats that are dragging our nation down into the ash heap of history.
With what the liberal Washington Post termed “ruthless efficiency” (no perjorative connotation there), Michigan’s GOP-controlled House of Representatives passed a pair of bills ending compulsory union membership for both public and private sector employees – bills which the state’s GOP Gov. Rick Snyder signed a few hours later. The bills effectively make Michigan the nation’s 24th right to work state.
Of course the unions didn’t go down without a fight … literally.
In addition to abandoning their jobs (including teachers leaving students in their classrooms high and dry), some of these jack boots got physically violent. For example writer and Fox News contributor Steven Crowder was beaten at one pro-union rally – an incident captured on video.
Meanwhile Snyder’s office was inundated with death threats.
Gotta love sore losers, right?
This latest free market victory comes on the heels of another big win over unions in Wisconsin – meaning that two “blue states” have recognized these insidious cancers for what they are in back-to-back years.
Good … let’s hope this trend accelerates.
A total of 14.7 million workers – or 11.8 percent of the nation’s workforce – were unionized last year, according to statistics released in February by the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s roughly the same number as 2010 – when unionized workers represented 11.9 percent of the workforce.
Yet while the private sector continues to cut out the union cancer, government continues to keep unions in business – with 37 percent of the taxpayer-funded workforce currently represented by a union compared to just 6.9 percent of the private sector. Back in the 1940s, 33.9 percent of the private sector workforce was unionized compared to just 9.8 percent of the public sector.
Like so many of the government bureaucracies they prop up, unions have outlived their usefulness in this country.
The sooner more states cut out these cancers, the sooner they can go about the business of creating more private sector jobs – assuming their state bureaucracies are willing to get out of their way, that is.
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24 comments
Good for Michigan. Shows the power of state legislatures, but “big blue” is kentucky to dunderhead.
how is it a “free market” victory when you have big government interfering in the workplace limiting the rights of workers to collectively bargain for their pay? Real libertarians recognize that government has no right to stop unions. RINOs and corporate sell-outs oppose unions.
The union shop is a government intrusion into the free market pursuant to acts like the NLRA. So how in the world do you spin the state government opting out of that federal intrusion as anything but a free market victory? That is Orwellian nonsense. The idea that forcing someone to pay union dues is in anyway a victory for freedom is nonsense on stilts.
A better question is how you could ever conceive of yourself as anything like a libertarian (which your name and reference to “real libertarians” implies) when you support having the government coerce union membership?
To spell things out further, union shop contracts could not exist without government intrusion, as they would clearly violate the Sherman Act if unions were not exempt from the application of antitrust laws (which are meant to protect free markets from collusion).
Illegal
Fits is that what yall call her cock? Big Blue Fan
Gee,Fits Lewinsky,while we’re at it,let’s just return to slavery…
I’m afraid we’ve missed that window.
The video in question has already been criticized as heavily edited. No surprise.
There is nothing courageous about this shit. They shoved it through to avoid the backlash they would have received otherwise. But hey, I’m sure Michigan will benefit from the law just as much as SC has, right? Oh yeah, we still had to bribe the union-hating execs of Boeing to get them over here.
I don’t agree with laws like this because they are aimed at defanging unions and empowering shitty employers who don’t give a damn about their bullshit compensation and horrendous treatment of their employees. Hard working Americans will have little recourse but to be hit with pay cuts and benefit slashing while executives treat themselves to huge bonuses and golden parachutes.
The GOP: of the 1%, for the 1%, by the 1%. I have a feeling that within my lifetime wages and benefits will deteriorate so badly and government programs be stripped away so far back that people will once again need unions. It is a necessary evil.
The the video speaks for itself. It is continuous showing union chiefs and members engaging in assault and batter of a high and aggravated nature against a reporter. No surprise that union members can not use reason and logic, they must shout down others not of their convoluted viewpoint and use violence to win an argument.
There is courage abounding when the Michigan government, all three branches, pass legislation to get their state back on its feet in the face of violent protesters with union collusion. The outcome? The opposition will have to retake all three branches to undo this legislation. What they say, elections matter.
You evidently do not see Michigan’s problem as it is. No need to show you the way, it would be time lost and memories forgotten on your part. You must have sustained a serious head injury back in the day, some serious pre-frontal cortex damage. I am sorry, there are programs for folks like you if your family is too poor to take care of you.
I do not agree with state legislatures passing laws that screw people out of a hard days work. I also agree with state legislatures to pass laws the prevent union to screw companies out of hard earned profits. Unions do not allow choices in much of how they spend their union dues etc. They are nothing more than sponges off the people’s paychecks and company’s balance sheets.
90% of Americans will see taxes hiked next January. It gets worse. The serious bloatage in the Federal and State governments coupled with the inability of constituents to allow proper corrections and fixes by their representatives, sets the stage for automatic cuts based on sequestration that must be adopted in the future.
From what I have read the video was heavily edited to remove people from right-wing groups agitating the crowd and getting in peoples faces. It is one thing for someone to just clock somebody out of nowhere and entirely another when said person is actively trying to provoke that someone.
Just as there is violence and selfish behavior perpetrated by union bosses, there is the same perpetrated by employers against their pro-union employees. As I have said, unions are a necessary evil. They come from a time where hard working industrial workers were absolutely shit on. Maybe it is you that has suffered brain damage and can’t remember when people had to work long hours for shit pay and no benefits in extremely hazardous conditions. Unions revolutionized work by affording the common worker with employer-offered retirement options and health insurance, FMLA, the 40 hour work week, etc. All employers began offering this kind of shit as a result, which has slowly made unions no longer absolutely necessary for the most part. But I guess people take that for granted nowadays.
Right-to-work laws won’t turn places like Flint into Colorado Springs or Detroit into Houston. You are outside of your mind if you think those laws do anything to help anyone. Our state is a prime example of that. Also, attacking public sector unions and attacking private sector unions are two completely different things.
Unionization is a protection against abusive employers and a right of the people. Every step to weaken it only weakens a very seldom needed recourse, which will almost surely result in an eventual increased need for that recouse. Shitty employers long for the day when they can fuck their employees without fear of collective bargaining flipping the tables.
Walmart is living, breathing proof unions are still necessary to some degree. Even just the threat of unionization.
Funny…Apple operates slave shops in China–Biggy Dem Donors…
Google hides billions in offshore accounts…Big Dems…
Dem Donor Warren Buffett’s rail line just got over $100,000,000 gumbint grant for improvements…compliments of the US taxpayer…Democrats… the party of the 1% elites…wonder why the poor are getting poorer and the very rich are getting richer under Obama’s policies??
You’re an idiot, I’m from the Midwest, before the unions if a line went down in the dead of winter, the employees had to stand on the loading dock without pay until it came back up, if they left they lost their jobs. That is one of many stories where unions were very beneficial including the 40 hour work week. My Dad told me many stories about how labor was taken advantage of until union organization and he was in management his whole life, believe it or not he saw the unions as a necessary balancing act between labor and corporations. It just the old story about history repeating itself……
I’m from the Midwest too, I’m glad that they gave the unions the boot. The labor unions at one time were beneficial, but now they’re nothing more than thugs who demand that worthless workers keep their jobs no matter what they do wrong. Did you hear that the Chrysler workers who were drinking and smoking dope on their lunch hour were given their jobs back after being fired? Union workers. Look at the union strike at American Crystal Sugar, the company replaced the union workers and things kept running, the union has lost over 50% of their members who have crossed their lines in the past year.
If the unions are so great, why do they rely on coercion and force to survive? There is nothing in right to work legislation in Michigan or any other right to work state that prevents a union from making their case to workers that they should join the union (and thus pay dues). It only prevents the unions from FORCING people to do so. The fact that unions fail so miserably in the marketplace of ideas should show how antiquated they have become.
I never said things wouldn’t keep running without unions, it’s just workers will lose rights, yes they do have those or at least should have those. I would like to see the evidence of Chrysler workers smoking dope and drinking on their lunch hour and being hired back, could it be Fox News? Please provide the link.
Well, I stand corrected, just googled the Chrylser deal and the seems to be the real deal. I definitely don’t condone that behavior and if the UAW really got them reinstated then that’s crazy. I still believe in the right of unions to represent labor but there are excesses on all sides these days. I do believe in some means of labor to organize to demand better working conditions and pay when merited.
I visit this site mainly for the porn and to see if Will Folks will ever publish his book. But, since the topic of discussion is about my home state, let me tell you all how this went down. Last month we had a ballot proposal to amend our state constitution to include collective bargaining as a constitutionally protected right. After many months of debate and argument, the proposal was defeated. Exit polls showed that while the majority of voters approved of unions and collective bargaining, they didn’t feel it was something about which we should amend our constitution…
So a month later we are now a right to work state. This came about when the Republicans introduced two bills into the state legislature. In order to avoid having any sort of ballot or election challenge, they sloppily tacked on an appropriation of $1 million dollars for- wait for it- to cover the cost of implementing the bill if it should pass. (Appropriations are not subject to elective or ballot challeges in Michigan). This rider enabled the majority party to pass both bills in a lame duck session of the legislature. In order to pass, the bill exempted the police and firefighters unions from the particulars. The given reaason was that, because our state police unions are legally protected, to not exempt the other police and fire unions would create an uneven playing field when the state and local police and fire must work together. The fact that the police and fire unions are the only unions that I know of in Michigan which give more money to Republican candidates than Democrats was, I’m certain, not a factor…
Now personally I don’t care one way or the other on whether we are right to work. But I do care about how things become law. This is an issue which affects the entire state. Whether a state is right to work or not should be an issue decided by the voters in an open election, not by whatever party happens to be in power at any given time. The process that was followed here, while legal, was an abomination in the eyes of democracy. Any law, no matter how well intentioned, brought to life in such a way decreases the respect for the democratic process and increases the contempt voters have for their government. The issue of whether a state should be right to work is too important to too many residents of the state to be decided in the span of one month without an election or statewide debate.
Michi, you are a Claasic Leftwing dolt…when you win (Obama-Cheat) you act like it makes you KING of the world…and you Ruin it…
You get your @$$ kicked, like you did in Micc…and your lame STUPID @$$ will whine and make every excuse in the book, until you can get your leftist Corrupt judges to break the law passed for the people…
STFU and Take your medicine…Scott Walker should have taught you facists a thing or two…but most of you are TOO stupid to get it….
Yeah, Michigan GOP passed that law “for the people…” LOL
Fuck you, whoever you are. You call out the exact same kind of abuse of power that disgraces the whole process. It’s OK when one side does it, but it’s not when it is the other. A law pased for the people? Then why didn’t the people get to vote on it? We did when we said we didn’t want to change our state constitution to protect collective bargaining- and I voted against doing so, too, you stupid candy ass, so maybe you should try asking someone what they think before assuming you freakin’ know.
Of course, if you are willing to give up the power to vote to whatever political party that says they represent you, that’s your choice, and in your case, probably a good one. Reading some of your posts convinces me that you’re too damn stupid to make those decisions on your own…
Classic FITS. Trying to play both sides of the Fence..
FITS champions GREAT GOP legislative moves, like Right-to-Work…yet he is one of the biggest De-Facto suck-off-artists for democrat politicians…
Clue to FITS: When you get democrats Elected, they do BAD things (See Obama’s Economy, Energy policy, Foreign policy)…
Elect Republicans, and at least we have a chance to get out of this Incredible MESS Obama has made of America…(see Mich. see Wisc. See SC)….
Misery loves company, so welcome, Michigan.
After a decade or so, take a good look at how well right-to-work has turned out.
No problem with the “Right to Work”. Employers should have the right to hire and fire.
I have a problem with how they handled the process of implentmenting this change. When the “worm turns” (as it will) the R’s have no room to complain.