KICKING A HORNET'S NEST
- Jack Lessenberry
March 9, 2012
Lansing, Michigan
For the last year, labor unions in Michigan have faced a more unfriendly state government than at any time since the New Deal began. They've watched as a solidly Republican legislature passed bill after bill chipping away at union strength.
This week, lawmakers passed a law forbidding school districts to deduct union dues. They passed another designed to prevent graduate student research assistants from unionizing.
Last year, another tough new bill gave appointed emergency managers the right to dissolve or change collective bargaining contracts as they saw fit.
Increasingly - and despite Gov. Rick Snyder's opposition - GOP legislators are talking about trying to make Michigan a right-to-work state that would ban the union shop.
Now, finally, the unions are striking back in a way that has stunned even some of their supporters. This week, a coalition of the state's largest unions announced a major drive for a sweeping state constitutional amendment to protect collective bargaining.
They are determined to get it on the November ballot. If they do so and it passes, it could be the biggest victory for labor in decades.
"We want to get this state back to what has been our normal way of doing business since the 1930s - collective bargaining," said one of the state labor movement's elder statesmen.
There had been rumors that labor might try to place an amendment on the ballot designed to prevent lawmakers from adopting right-to-work legislation. But instead, they are going for something far beyond that. Todd Cook, the head of a umbrella labor organization called We the People, said the proposed amendment would indeed forbid right-to-work laws - but also do a lot more. "It would provide protection against all attacks on collective bargaining," Cook told a news conference Tuesday.
That, it indeed would do. The proposed amendment says: "The Legislature's exercise of its power to enact laws relative to the hours and conditions of employment shall not abridge, impair, or limit the right to collectively bargain for wages, hours and other terms of employment that exceed minimum levels established by the Legislature."
Nothing, in other words, could prevent collective bargaining or throw out contracts collectively arrived at - no matter what. (Click to read rest of article)
March 9, 2012
Lansing, Michigan
For the last year, labor unions in Michigan have faced a more unfriendly state government than at any time since the New Deal began. They've watched as a solidly Republican legislature passed bill after bill chipping away at union strength.
This week, lawmakers passed a law forbidding school districts to deduct union dues. They passed another designed to prevent graduate student research assistants from unionizing.
Last year, another tough new bill gave appointed emergency managers the right to dissolve or change collective bargaining contracts as they saw fit.
Increasingly - and despite Gov. Rick Snyder's opposition - GOP legislators are talking about trying to make Michigan a right-to-work state that would ban the union shop.
Now, finally, the unions are striking back in a way that has stunned even some of their supporters. This week, a coalition of the state's largest unions announced a major drive for a sweeping state constitutional amendment to protect collective bargaining.
They are determined to get it on the November ballot. If they do so and it passes, it could be the biggest victory for labor in decades.
"We want to get this state back to what has been our normal way of doing business since the 1930s - collective bargaining," said one of the state labor movement's elder statesmen.
There had been rumors that labor might try to place an amendment on the ballot designed to prevent lawmakers from adopting right-to-work legislation. But instead, they are going for something far beyond that. Todd Cook, the head of a umbrella labor organization called We the People, said the proposed amendment would indeed forbid right-to-work laws - but also do a lot more. "It would provide protection against all attacks on collective bargaining," Cook told a news conference Tuesday.
That, it indeed would do. The proposed amendment says: "The Legislature's exercise of its power to enact laws relative to the hours and conditions of employment shall not abridge, impair, or limit the right to collectively bargain for wages, hours and other terms of employment that exceed minimum levels established by the Legislature."
Nothing, in other words, could prevent collective bargaining or throw out contracts collectively arrived at - no matter what. (Click to read rest of article)
Outgunned in Legislature, Michigan Unions Fight Back
