Michigan 1st State in Decades to Repeal ‘right-to-work’ Law

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   GA Andersonposted 13 months ago

   Michigan isn't the topic, the 'right to work' issue is.
   
   For context:
   
   "The state’s “right-to-work” law had allowed those in unionized workplaces to opt out of paying union dues and fees. Its repeal is seen as a major victory for organized labor with union membership reaching an all-time low last year."
   AP News
   
   Unions can't maintain their memberships with union benefits and must resort to mandatory memberships. Regardless of validly arguable 'details' and rationalizations,  the starting point should be that reality shows unions aren't that popular. Their benefits don't justify the 'cost.'
   
   Their solution; gaining control of the jobs, as in who can work and who can't work by closing the door to any non-union employee getting a shot at an available job, and, gaining arbitrary control of labor and production costs their employer must pay.
   
   That 'workers' progress' is a road most Boomers have witnessed before. It's relatively recent history. Its results have been the source of decades of evaluation and study. Those efforts have been to understand the 'why' of the results, not disputing the results themselves.
   
   What's so different this time that repeating history will return different results?
   
   GA

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      wildernessposted 13 months agoin reply to this

      Well, you said it yourself.  The "boomers" have seen it before, but the current generation has not.  In addition, that current generation is smarter than their parents (meaning more liberal in thought) and therefore it will be different this time as workers again run the business built by someone else.  This time they won't fail, for they understand how important it is to give workers what they want.

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         GA Andersonposted 13 months agoin reply to this

         Now you're just depressing me.
         
         But, the current leaders aren't the youth of the times that haven't experienced it. And, the Gen X leaders of these times have a close enough proximity to the Bommers' experience to know the reality of history's example.
         
         GA

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            wildernessposted 13 months agoin reply to this

            Not if they close their eyes and blame it all on evil businesses.  Never forget, every corporation in the country (or world) is evil, out to stamp on every worker they have and steal from them via their mutually agreed upon contract.

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2. 92

   Nathanvilleposted 13 months ago

   In reading your forum’s intro, it stuck me how different the USA is to the UK on this matter.
   
   For clarity, what you call ‘right-to-work laws’ in the USA is very similar to what was called ‘closed shops’ in the UK.   
   
   ‘Closed shops’ were made illegal in the UK in 1990, but it hasn’t made much difference anyway because even prior to 1990 there were ‘few’ closed shops; in most organisations Trade Unions membership was voluntary, as it is now.  And as we established in a discussion I had with wilderness a few months back on a similar subject, the trade union membership subscriptions in the UK are modest, whereas apparently in the USA they’re not!
   
   Another difference between the USA and UK on this matter is that in the UK the Labour Party is the political wing of the Trade Unions; the Labour Party was launched by the Trade Unions in 1900, and to this day Trade Unions have a 33% say in the Labour Party’s political policies, and in electing its leader, and have a significant influence in the candidate selection process for the General Elections and Local Government Elections; whereas in contrast, the Trade Unions in the USA don’t have any substantial politic wing.
   
   The strengths of Trade Unions in the UK is apparent from the summer of discontent (mass strikes) in 2022, where most lasted until Christmas before negotiated settlements were made (especially in the private sector), while a few (all public sector) have carried on with their strike action all through winter – most (including NHS nurses and ambulance staff, and most railway workers etc.) have now been settled, with just the NHS doctors, teachers and civil servants still in dispute with the Government; although the Government is now in talks with the teachers, and are expected to start talks with NHS doctors soon.
   
   In October 2022, the list of the various economic sectors in the UK that were taking industrial action (strikes) at the time included, but not exclusive to:-
   •    The Railways
   •    Postal workers
   •    Internet Services
   •    Port workers
   •    Funeral Directors
   •    Universities
   •    School teachers
   •    Buses
   •    Dock workers
   •    Oil and gas workers
   •    Local Government workers
   •    Libraries
   •    Refuse (Garbage) workers
   •    Nurses in the NHS
   •    Civil Servants
   •    Fire Brigade
   •    National Union of Journalists
   •    British Medical Association e.g. doctors in the NHS
   •    Criminal Barristers
   •    Airlines
   •    Care home workers
   •    Traffic wardens
   •    Unions in various private companies/Industry and manufacturing etc.
   •    Ferry workers
   
   Criminal Barristers were one of the first trade unions to agree a settlement with the Government; the Criminal Barristers went on strike in September; and after just one month the UK Government offered them a 15% pay rise, which they quickly accepted.
   
   On the day of the UK Government Budget a couple of weeks ago (15th March); half a million employees took industrial action, including  Schoolteachers, London Underground station staff and drivers, a wide range of university workers, junior NHS doctors and BBC London journalists.
   
   The latest trade union to take industrial action in the UK is the employees of the British oil and gas Companies who voted last week to start strike action from this week.

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