New laws in Michigan ban mandatory union membership

[Gail]

This is a good thing, isn't it- to have choice whether one wants to belong to the labour union or not?

You don't have to join the union to have the job

[phkrause]

I agree we should always have a choice. So when someone wants a job and that place requires your joining the union, than there is a choice to make! Take the job or not. When my wife went to work for Clinton Hospital a number of years ago, she was given the choice of paying union dues or putting the money to another cause, some charity or something like that. Its really not any different than going for a job, as I did, and you tell them that you don't work Sabbaths. And they say that that is the day they need you the most. You now have a choice to make! To work on Sabbaths or not!

[bonnie]

I agree we should always have a choice. So when someone wants a job and that place requires your joining the union, than there is a choice to make! Take the job or not. When my wife went to work for Clinton Hospital a number of years ago, she was given the choice of paying union dues or putting the money to another cause, some charity or something like that. Its really not any different than going for a job, as I did, and you tell them that you don't work Sabbaths. And they say that that is the day they need you the most. You now have a choice to make! To work on Sabbaths or not!

New tone? Mich. Democrat threatens violence over right-to-work vote; ‘There will be blood’; Update: Mich. Dems proudly tweet violence threat; Update: Thugs follow-through; AFP tent stormed, Steven Crowder punched; Update: More thug violence caught on video

[bonnie]

HEY ALL

YES we as the employee should have a choice in the job offer

dgrimm60

Rick Snyder: Unions sparked right-to-work

By KEVIN ROBILLARD | 12/11/12 1:59 PM EST

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has a message for the thousands of union members protesting on Tuesday outside the state Capitol: You started it.

Appearing on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” the GOP governor said Michigan’s unions started the fight that ended with the legislature passing a right-to-work bill by trying to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the state’s constitution.

“I asked them not to go forward,” Snyder said. “And the reason I said is, ‘You’re going to start a very divisive discussion. It’ll be about collective bargaining first, but it’ll create a big stir about right-to-work in addition to collective bargaining’.”

Snyder, a Republican elected in 2010, noted that voters overwhelmingly defeated Proposal 2, the referendum that would have placed collective bargaining rights in the state constitution.

Right-to-work laws protect workers who decline to join a union from having to pay union dues as a condition of employment, even if the union also represents them in negotiations. Snyder is expected to sign the right-to-work bill later this week.

Appearing on former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s radio show Snyder said signing the legislation would be “pro-worker,” and claimed the legislation would help unions in the long run by making them more accountable and responsive.

“I actually don’t view this as anti-union,” Snyder said on “The Mike Huckabee Show.” “I view it as if the unions did it appropriately, this should make them more responsive, because it really means they have to be listening to workers more attentively and really presenting the value proposition to them. Because if they were doing all the things that workers were looking for, there shouldn’t be any difference with this legislation at all. Workers would simply choose to join the union, versus not choosing.”

UAW President Bob King, appearing after Snyder on MSNBC, dismissed that as “a bunch of malarkey, really.” But he insisted he wasn’t worried about his union’s fate.

“You know, I’m not worried about the immediate effect on the UAW,” King said. “I’m worried about the impact on society. This has to be seen as part of a right-wing agenda. In this lame-duck they’re not only attacking labor, they’re attacking women’s reproductive rights. They’re attacking teachers and schools. They’re attacking everything that is good for working families.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2012/12/michigan-right-to-work-rick-snyder-84918.html#ixzz2EmjBLkCb

[bonnie]

The party of tolerance.Union Thug Assault

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_F3oev06i0&feature=share&list=SP85933DBA7E52B5B6

[Guest]

This is a good thing, isn't it- to have choice whether one wants to belong to the labour union or not?

I think so.

[bonnie]

Originally Posted By: Gail

This is a good thing, isn't it- to have choice whether one wants to belong to the labour union or not?

I think so.

This is excatly what they are concerned about......

You know, I’m not worried about the immediate effect on the UAW,” King said. “I’m worried about the impact on society. This has to be seen as part of a right-wing agenda. In this lame-duck they’re not only attacking labor, they’re attacking women’s reproductive rights. They’re attacking teachers and schools. They’re attacking everything that is good for working families.”

The lie about womens reproductive rights is hilarious. Just because the "pill" might not be free somehow these poor empty headed women can't do anything but reproduce.

Unions are trying to hang on to every last dollar of dues they can. That feeds the democratic party appetite and then back to favors for the unions.

The unions have less power the last decade or so and they will do anything to get it back.

[Robert]

Originally Posted By: Gail

This is a good thing, isn't it- to have choice whether one wants to belong to the labour union or not?

I think so.

If it weren't for the unions you would have some labor rights you enjoy now:

1. Unions Gave Us The Weekend: Even the ultra-conservative Mises Institute notes that the relatively labor-free 1870, the average workweek for most Americans was 61 hours — almost double what most Americans work now. Yet in the late nineteenth century and the twentieth century, labor unions engaged in massive strikes in order to demand shorter workweeks so that Americans could be home with their loved ones instead of constantly toiling for their employers with no leisure time. By 1937, these labor actions created enough political momentum to pass the Fair Labor Standards Act, which helped create a federal framework for a shorter workweek that included room for leisure time.

2. Unions Gave Us Fair Wages And Relative Income Equality: As ThinkProgress reported earlier in the week, the relative decline of unions over the past 35 years has mirrored a decline in the middle class’s share of national income. It is also true that at the time when most Americans belonged to a union — a period of time between the 1940′s and 1950′s — income inequality in the U.S. was at its lowest point in the history of the country.

3. Unions Helped End Child Labor: “Union organizing and child labor reform were often intertwined” in U.S. history, with organization’s like the “National Consumers’ League” and the National Child Labor Committee” working together in the early 20th century to ban child labor. The very first American Federation of Labor (AFL) national convention passed “a resolution calling on states to ban children under 14 from all gainful employment” in 1881, and soon after states across the country adopted similar recommendations, leading up to the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act which regulated child labor on the federal level for the first time.

4. Unions Won Widespread Employer-Based Health Coverage: “The rise of unions in the 1930′s and 1940′s led to the first great expansion of health care” for all Americans, as labor unions banded workers together to negotiate for health coverage plans from employers. In 1942, “the US set up a National War Labor Board. It had the power to set a cap on all wage increases. But it let employers circumvent the cap by offering “fringe benefits” – notably, health insurance.” By 1950, “half of all companies with fewer than 250 workers and two-thirds of all companies with more than 250 workers offered health insurance of one kind or another.”

5. Unions Spearheaded The Fight For The Family And Medical Leave Act: Labor unions like the AFL-CIO federation led the fight for this 1993 law, which “requires state agencies and private employers with more than 50 employees to provide up to 12 weeks of job-protected unpaid leave annually for workers to care for a newborn, newly adopted child, seriously ill family member or for the worker’s own illness.”

[Robert]

Aug. 29, 2012

Unions have a substantial impact on the compensation and work lives of both unionized and non-unionized workers. This report presents current data on unions’ effect on wages, fringe benefits, total compensation, pay inequality, and workplace protections.

Some of the conclusions are:

Unions raise wages of unionized workers by roughly 20% and raise compensation, including both wages and benefits, by about 28%.

Unions reduce wage inequality because they raise wages more for low- and middle-wage workers than for higher-wage workers, more for blue-collar than for white-collar workers, and more for workers who do not have a college degree.

Strong unions set a pay standard that nonunion employers follow. For example, a high school graduate whose workplace is not unionized but whose industry is 25% unionized is paid 5% more than similar workers in less unionized industries.

The impact of unions on total nonunion wages is almost as large as the impact on total union wages.

The most sweeping advantage for unionized workers is in fringe benefits. Unionized workers are more likely than their nonunionized counterparts to receive paid leave, are approximately 18% to 28% more likely to have employer-provided health insurance, and are 23% to 54% more likely to be in employer-provided pension plans.

Unionized workers receive more generous health benefits than nonunionized workers. They also pay 18% lower health care deductibles and a smaller share of the costs for family coverage. In retirement, unionized workers are 24% more likely to be covered by health insurance paid for by their employer.

Unionized workers receive better pension plans. Not only are they more likely to have a guaranteed benefit in retirement, their employers contribute 28% more toward pensions.

Unionized workers receive 26% more vacation time and 14% more total paid leave (vacations and holidays).

Unions play a pivotal role both in securing legislated labor protections and rights such as safety and health, overtime, and family/medical leave and in enforcing those rights on the job. Because unionized workers are more informed, they are more likely to benefit from social insurance programs such as unemployment insurance and workers compensation. Unions are thus an intermediary institution that provides a necessary complement to legislated benefits and protections.

[phkrause]

I do agree with both of your posts Robert, but those are just a few of the good things about Unions. There are many cons to Unions also. But you know what? Non Union shops are not any better!