The Right To Work For Less...Michigan now joins these ranks

Actually (and bear with me as I know this is difficult to comprehend)....if unions don't want to prove their worth to workers rather than force it upon them...then they no longer have the right to do so.

As others have asked, (please answer as I am curious).... If unions are so great why are they afraid of giving workers a choice?

 

Companies and unions are both to blame for the huge cluster **** we have going on...problem is we won't let either side fail as we continue blaming one side or the other. Union powers and benefits should be cut back as well as all the loopholes and tax breaks afforded to companies. It will equal out and the market can actually take over for a change. If a company doesn't succeed, let it go bankrupt. The demand for cars is there...someone else will step in and hopefully have a better business plan this time around.

Whatever we do, let's stop using MY tax money to pay both corporate big wigs and union leaders alike for THEIR shortcomings and inadequacies.

Union workers should earn their better pay and benefits by hard work and merit, not by holding a gun to the companies head.

 

Its Bushs fault!

 

WOW, I sense a lot of misguided anger, in your blatantly ignorant and arrogant statement. I assume you must be a "Union Man," who follows the party line and votes as you're told, etc..... I think you need to re-educate yourself a bit on what the (R)'s in general stand for, and become a more politically literate member of society, rather than a "Blue Dog Democrat."

Ignorance is only Bliss while you're safe and sound, but when it compromises your personal and financial safety, then it's no longer blissful.....

 

It was so cold out yesterday, I actually saw a Democrat with his hands in his OWN pockets!!! This world is a crazy one I tell you.

:p

 

You are the expert in that department

 

Good points, but if not enough consumers have enough wealth to buy cars, then we're screwed also.

Right to work really does not bother me, I doubt you will see a huge change in Michigan with the status quo. New business coming in may see a change in new members, but if a union proves they bring value to the worker, why would they not vote yes for them.

 

It is my observance that many do not understand the "right to work". Everyone in Michigan has the right to employment, however, the "right to work" affords all employees of a company the same benifits, wages, etc. that dues paying union members have, and have negotiated for.

Here is a scenario which may help: You have leased a 100 acre property for 20 years. You have made food plots,walking paths, etc. Made it a second home, invested a lot of time and money into to it to have sole rights to hunt. Now, next hunting season comes and there is someone hunting the tree right next to yours, on your lease, that you are paying for. The nerve you say, I have paid for this lease for 20 years! But, now it is a "right to hunt" property and they have just as much right to be there as you do, only they don't have to pay anything. This person is not the land owner, a relative, or anything.Just some guy who went to the landowner and said " I want to hunt your land, just like that other guy only I don't want to pay you for it"

Yes, I am a union memeber and have been for 20 years. I don't make an absorbanant salary, nor do I get free healthcare, or sit on my #$$ all day and stick it to the man. Granted, some union "members" are bad, but do not comdemn all unions as a whole, just as some "hunters" are bad, would you then condemn ALL hunters?

 

Again with the inaccurate analogies.

It is more Aiken to ten guys hunting a lease, all paying the same. Then one guy says you all pay me 20% extra and ill give you first choice on Stand sites. A few guys don't and are screwed into accepting the lesser stand sites even though they are the same lease as the union hunters.. Now they are saying, pay your guy extra or not, you aren't getting any more than other guys who are also on the lease.


I think union workers as a whole are very good workers...they just shouldn't have the right to force companies hand in how companies operate. As an employee, it is not their right if their safety and well being is covered (whole point of unions way back when).

Anymore, unions are no different than corporations in their greed and the big wigs of both are all about themselves.

Saying unions are terrible is NOT equivalent to saying union workers are terrible.

 

Gary,
While personally, I liked you when we met, I'm not sure we have comparable beliefs on many things other than hunting and archery..... :D Much of my "misguided' anger is very well guided because I see the path ahead, that we're being lead down..... Maybe it's the difference between being in the "front seat," and being in the "backseat," and had we not put people in the "backseat" some 50yrs. ago, we may have been better off as a country.

Unions have more than overstayed their welcome and use, and when an assembler doing unskilled labor is making more than a teacher or police officer, then at some point one of their unions have failed the economy.... While I agree that all workers should be paid a fair sum for their work, and maybe an inflated sum to make their wages enough to "earn a living," I have a hard time understanding how an assembler making $50/hr in the U.S. is worth that when the same work is being done somewhere oversees for less than $1/hr. Granted, I don't want to go to those levels either, but that is where if our government would TARIFF oversees products, it could bolster the American economy, and make us once again a "stand alone" economy. Probably 75% of the cost of a product coming in from China is shipping....

 

I agree, welcome the state of Michigan to lower wages and an influx of cheap labor.

 

Or if you don't like the economy or job potential in your state, either A)move or B) improve your job skills and get another job

But

c) don't act like a bunch of unions can blackmail businesses and get away with it

Like Tembry said, I cannot believe judges have allowed unions to put a stranglehold on what is supposed to be a free market system for so long. Embarassing.

 

VS, unions don't blackmail businesses. It is nothing more than legalized extortion.

 

Well I still like you

For your answer about 50 dollars and hour vs 1, look at the standard of living How many excutives make the same in China as they do here? Do lawyers make the same? Do Doctors?

When the majority of Americans are making less and the top 1% are making more, it will have a negative impact on our economy.
The top 1% levels of wealth have not been this high since.................1929

So will right to work bring more jobs and wealth to majority of Michigan folks? Time will tell, will the standard of living go up or down? I don't know.

 

That's what makes America great. Wish you had a doctor's salary? Easy. Go make a 4.0 through college, then pay $200k for 4 years of med school before you specialize. Then you too can be a doctor. Same applies for any degree or field of work. It's nothing but jealousy to say they make more than they deserve comparing them to some bs bachelors degree or job not even requiring higher education.

Uneducated jobs will always be at the bottom tier of pay, no matter how much we fight to close the gap (by bringing down the top more than building up the bottom it seems).

 

Gary,
I've seen both good and bad from unions, but I think we have enough laws in place for workplace safety, etc that in many ways they are past their use... I've seen unions protect people who should have been fired, and I've seen unions protect people who were in need of protection when management overstepped some bounds. If honesty were the "RULE," everything would be euphoria, unfortunately, we both know that is not the rule, and greed is abound.

I don't believe any worker in this country should be paid $1/hr, yet I also think we need to look realistically at the value of a worker, and if a UAW worker were paid more accordingly to their value, then American made cars would be cheaper, and sell better, and edge out much of the foreign market.... Make pay more appropriate to what the true value of the work is, tax the foreign stuff to make it likewise price competitive, and see what happens.... If we tax the Chinese product to a level of what it would cost for American workers to be making them, and utilize that money to bolster our economy, we could fix much of our economical problems because then companies would be more likely to build factories here and produce products here, rather than importing them.

 

I seem to think like a very small minority of Americans (not saying I am right). I care more about the means to the end than the end itself. For example, if the right to work status reduces the amount of jobs in the state and the economy plummets, then so be it if the right to work law is constitutional and the right thing to do. From all accounts, it is, so if I lived in Michigan I would accept the consequences of the law because it is the right thing to do. If more people (in my humble opinion) would support the right thing to do in terms of the means (solid/Constituational laws) instead of being so greedy and willing to violate the Constitution to get where they think this country needs to be in terms of equity (the ends), we would be much better off and all the chips would fall in their proper place.

 

Really? So now the sky is falling....I dont think so. Again, if Unions are so special for their members, they have no worries. If they are competitive on skills and wages, they have no worries. If they lost their ability to hold their employers hostage over this, then they are definitely in trouble. I think they are in trouble and they know it.

 

How do we know what value is for a worker? Is their going to be a chart? Employers of this type of labor are going to get it as cheap as they can. Nothing wrong with that, but non skilled labor does not have to many chips to barter with. It is what it is.

Average line worker makes about $26.00 an hour, those starting out make much less since the Great Recession.

$54,080 with no over time
-$13,520 they pay in taxes(25%)
$40,560 is a good wage, and someone can have a decent life here in America. Put that is not a lot of money, at all. The majorty of UAW workers make this amount. Skill Trades makes more, but the % of skill trade labor is small in the UAW.

Benefits package is costly, but why? Why does healthcare cost so much? Is that not the real issue? What if we took the burden of companies to provide health insurance and we treated it like car insurance?

The real issues have little to do with union workers, but some will try and keep the focus on these high society big wage earners.

 

I don't think they are in trouble with the status quo, I bet hardly anyone opps out. In the future, if they do not show any value, they are in serious trouble. There will be a effect on the rest of us in Michigan, postive or negative I don't know.