Michigan enacts right-to-work law

[SirNitram]

Right to Work, for all the legitimate arguments about unions, are bad, economically, for the states. A study I found.

Link

Lower wages, Employee-sponored healthcare, pensions.

[aerius]

No one in this forum wants unions destroyed; there are politically powerful fractions in America that would very much like them to be destroyed, or at least totally neutralized as a political and economic force.

I do. Not all unions, but certain ones such as the UAW who routinely support shit like this. They can die in a fire. Same goes for the public sector union which I was forced to be a part of in my previous job. The one where employees were running a drug smuggling ring out of the postal facility, got busted, then got their jobs back thanks to the union which spent a few million bucks on lawyer fees.

Having worked in open shop, closed shop, and no union jobs, I'd have to say the most toxic and least productive place to work is a closed shop union, and that goes double if it's a public sector union, which by the way came complete with union goons (sidenote: in the last city strike, union goons smashed up cars and windows to intimidate workers who were either a)not part of the strike or b)thinking about crossing the picket lines).

Best was an open shop in the private sector. The thing with an open shop is that they actually have to show the workers that there are tangible benefits to belonging in the union, and for the most part they have to police themselves or else employers and members will give them the finger. This keeps them from doing stupid shit like getting drunken workers hired back. They're also enough of an influence to keep the employer from getting too greedy. Mind you, this is Canada where things aren't quite as fucked as they are down south, but I think we have enough things in common to make a comparison.

[Darth Wong]

Are your rights now safer?

Absolutely yes; the most important and relevant right of being able to perform to the best of one's ability and negotiate a reasonable return on the results, without petty-minded slackers being able to drag everyone down into the mud with them through mazes of ridiculous rules.

That's an ideal situation. In realistic terms, employers (particularly large ones) have a negotiating advantage over individual employees unless those employees are very difficult to replace. This is why highly educated workers do not benefit from union membership, while poorly educated workers do.

One could say "so what, that's what the labour market decides", but it's a matter of proportion: if too many people are so devalued by employers that they can be forced to work for subsistence wage alone, you will start having all kinds of social problems. We see that already in economically depressed areas, with skyrocketing rates of single motherhood, drug use, crime, etc.

We do need to look at this honestly, however: unions primarily benefit low-skill workers, not high-skill workers.

[K. A. Pital]

We do need to look at this honestly, however: unions primarily benefit low-skill workers, not high-skill workers.

Primarily an important word here, however. Since unions also benefit high-skill workers and without a union, even a high skill worker might suddenly find himself in a very surprising and exploitative "relationship" with his employer. A simple example - in German companies a union is one of the key organizations that observes if the company adheres to the working time law or not, which is a problem in many small IT companies.

[Darth Wong]

We do need to look at this honestly, however: unions primarily benefit low-skill workers, not high-skill workers.

Primarily an important word here, however. Since unions also benefit high-skill workers and without a union, even a high skill worker might suddenly find himself in a very surprising and exploitative "relationship" with his employer. A simple example - in German companies a union is one of the key organizations that observes if the company adheres to the working time law or not, which is a problem in many small IT companies.

True, but in North America, unions are a bit different than they are in Germany. While German trade unions negotiate nation-wide standards for a particular trade, unions in North America are entities which basically exist to negotiate against a particular big employer, or in the case of the UAW, a handful of big employers. Their negotiations and job actions have zero effect on other workers in their trade.

The closest thing to a German-style union is a professional association here, such as the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario) or the AMA (American Medical Association). In these cases, people have to pay professional dues to be registered, and you need to be a registered engineer or doctor to ply your trade. In effect, we have something akin to industry-wide trade unions in engineering and medicine, but they are not considered unions because they are professional classes and the associations do not rely on direct job action, but rather, legislated rent-seeking in the name of public safety in conjunction with scarcity of labour supply due to high entrance requirements.

[K. A. Pital]

That's an interesting bit of trivia. What if say a small software development company forces its programmers to work massive amounts of overtime? Wouldn't a small, but sturdy internal union - even if it cannot negotiate industry-wide standards - be useful to put a break on those practices?

[Grumman]

What if say a small software development company forces its programmers to work massive amounts of overtime? Wouldn't a small, but sturdy internal union - even if it cannot negotiate industry-wide standards - be useful to put a break on those practices?

If it is, surely it would be able to attract members on its own merits, without threatening that they will not be permitted to work if they don't join?

[Beowulf]

That's an interesting bit of trivia. What if say a small software development company forces its programmers to work massive amounts of overtime? Wouldn't a small, but sturdy internal union - even if it cannot negotiate industry-wide standards - be useful to put a break on those practices?

"You're not working."

"We're on strike because of the massive amounts of overtime."

"You're programmers. Suck it up until we ship."

"NO!"

"You all are fired."

--

Yeah, firing all your programmers will make your project late, but that might be a smaller cost than hiring enough extra programmers to skip the over time... and might not be any actually later, as if your programmers are already working overtime, adding programmers can just end up making it later (because now you need to spend man hours on bringing them up to speed on what's going on).

And programmers working massive overtime already happens. Most notable is the games industry.

[Thanas]

There is another reason why German unions are non-comparable to US unions - by law, German unions or worker representatives usually constitute half the membership of the board of directors (in case of some companies, one third). This gives them insight into the inner workings of the company and power over the managers which is unprecendented in the USA and also means that they work together for the benefit of the company.

Granted, if the employers were Bond villain caricatures they could hide stuff from the board of directors but this would cause them to go to prison, which no manager wants.

This IMO is the reason why discussing German unions in this context is pretty useless, as no US company will be forced by law to turn over half the seats of the board of directors to the employer representatives. Because that would be socialism.

[K. A. Pital]

Beowulf, if the US labour law would require an executive to go to jail if the union and the Trade Union Inspection Board find out that his employees have been working too much (and by too much I mean over 10 hrs a day), I doubt he'd be so bold.

And yes, Thanas, I concur- the German labour time law is good enough and should be counted as socialism, just as many other laws. Even if in the future we have full socialism, we have to keep those laws and even improve them.

[Civil War Man]

The closest thing to a German-style union is a professional association here, such as the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario) or the AMA (American Medical Association). In these cases, people have to pay professional dues to be registered, and you need to be a registered engineer or doctor to ply your trade.

A closer analog would probably be organizations like the AFL-CIO, since it's basically an alliance of a bunch of different unions (including the UAW).

Or maybe the Teamsters, since shipping goods is such an integral part of the market that anything they negotiate would pretty much affect every industry that does any business in North America. Judging from the couple minutes of googling teamsters research I just did, it looks like they represent workers involved with airlines, railroads, ports, warehouses, waste disposal, and, interestingly enough, brewing, baking, and movie/tv/commercial production.

[Darth Wong]

The closest thing to a German-style union is a professional association here, such as the PEO (Professional Engineers of Ontario) or the AMA (American Medical Association). In these cases, people have to pay professional dues to be registered, and you need to be a registered engineer or doctor to ply your trade.

A closer analog would probably be organizations like the AFL-CIO, since it's basically an alliance of a bunch of different unions (including the UAW).

Actually no, that would not be a closer analogue. Consider:

1) The AFL-CIO does not regulate a particular trade. Instead, it is a conglomeration of unions, each of which does exactly what I described earlier: deal with a particular employer. Being a large group of per-employer unions does not change this fact.

2) The AFL-CIO does not even regulate a particular industry; there are plenty of automotive industry workers, for example, who are not unionized. It depends on which supplier they work for, because the whole thing is still based on individual unions dealing with employers.

3) It is possible to work in the same trades and/or industries as AFL-CIO members without being part of the organization or benefiting in any way from its activities (in fact, one might even be hurt by them).

4) The AFL-CIO, like any American union, touts the large gap between compensation of members and non-members as a big selling point.

Or maybe the Teamsters, since shipping goods is such an integral part of the market that anything they negotiate would pretty much affect every industry that does any business in North America. Judging from the couple minutes of googling teamsters research I just did, it looks like they represent workers involved with airlines, railroads, ports, warehouses, waste disposal, and, interestingly enough, brewing, baking, and movie/tv/commercial production.

And yet, again, it is quite possible to become a delivery driver without being a Teamster member. They have no interest in improving the lot of an entire trade; just the people who happen to be members.

[Ziggy Stardust]

In addition to what Darth Wong is saying, with teamster unions particularly each individual chapter may be pushing issues that are completely independent of the rest of the union. That is, things are extremely localized. For example, Teamster Local 355 is involved in all the politicking regarding the Army Corps of Engineers dredging the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal; important, to be sure, but extremely local in effect. Success or failure will only really affect the membership of that chapter, as opposed to initiating any sweeping national changes.

[SirNitram]

To bring the conversation briefly back, to Michigan, remember the Emergency Manager law? The one that was repealed after it became clear they were basically tyrants robbing the poor to feed themselves?

It lurches back, like a zombie.

LANSING (WWJ/AP) - The Republican-controlled Michigan House on Wednesday approved a replacement for an emergency manager law struck down by voters in the November election, despite Democratic complaints that it doesn’t differ significantly from what voters rejected and would still subvert local control.

The House passed the bill on a 63-46 vote after rejecting numerous Democratic amendments. The Senate on Thursday is expected to review the legislation.

Gov. Rick Snyder has endorsed the proposal, which includes a $770,000 appropriation to cover managers’ salaries. That provision would prevent a second defeat at the polls because spending bills are legally shielded from referendums.

A new version proposed by Snyder and GOP legislative leaders gives four options to communities in dire financial straits: accepting an emergency manager; undergoing bankruptcy; going through mediation; and entering a consent agreement similar to an existing one between the state and Detroit. The governor believes the bill is “good, sound public policy,” spokeswoman Sara Wurfel said.

Rochester Hills Republican Rep. Tom McMillin said the legislation is needed for local governments “that refuse to deal with their spending problems.” He said Pontiac has become a safer place because of an emergency manager who “came in and started to make adult decisions.”

“This bill respects the will of the voters and protects our communities from financial disaster,” said Rep. Al Pscholka, a Republican from Stevensville. “The goal is … to get things back on track, restore fiscal integrity and restore local control. It’s about local choice and fiscal accountability.”

Rep. Maureen Stapleton, a Detroit Democrat, said the new bill is essentially the same as the rejected law and merely offers local governments an opportunity to “pick their poison.” Places targeted by the legislation are being blamed for problems not entirely of their making, she said, with state aid being slashed and the national economy lagging.

“This is yet another slap in the face of democracy perpetrated by this body,” said Tim Greimel, the incoming House Democratic leader. He said emergency managers don’t improve the economy or quality of life in ailing cities.

Opponents contended the measure was being rushed to enactment like right-to-work legislation that also reduces union strength, which was introduced and enacted within a week as thousands of protesters massed at the Capitol. But opponents noted that the emergency manager bill was considered during a committee hearing this month.

Snyder has appointed emergency managers for Benton Harbor, Ecorse, Flint, Pontiac and Allen Park, as well as school districts in Muskegon Heights, Highland Park and Detroit.

Officials in Detroit are trying to fend off appointment of a manager, but state treasurer Andy Dillon this month announced a potential first step in that direction, saying he was leaning toward ordering a review of the city’s finances. Detroit is deeply in debt and has a budget deficit exceeding $200 million.

[Darth Wong]

I spent five years living next-door to Michigan (so close that we received their FM radio stations stronger than Canadian ones) and I have absolutely no doubt that large numbers of working-class people and union members vote straight-ticket Republican in every election, at both the federal and state level. It's the home of Ted Nugent after all.

In other words, I find it hard to sympathize with working-class people in Michigan, who are doing this to themselves.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Rochester Hills Republican Rep. Tom McMillin said the legislation is needed for local governments “that refuse to deal with their spending problems.” He said Pontiac has become a safer place because of an emergency manager who “came in and started to make adult decisions.”

What is it with Protestants? Seriously, the US seems to have a culture where it is impossible to approach economics without incorporating cheap moralizing. Americans seem to think that numbers are so hard to deal with, it is better to approach anything about them from a pulpit.

Hmm... I guess it could make for a good sociological study: "Protestant tradition and the inability to process numbers as such." Or similar.

On a last note, what exactly does an "emergency manager" entail? Who will be doing the managing? What are the criteria? Just don't tell me it means "we'll poach corporate whores and sic them on poor areas".

[Thanas]

Don't blame Protestants here. The vast majority, if not nearly all the successful merchant leagues and houses of Europe are Protestant. It is very hard to find successful catholic or orthodox leagues or houses.

[Lord Zentei]

Apologies for the tardy response, I've had a world of shit to deal with over here. But in any case:

Many employees work in sectors that have no unions, or effectively no unions (big box retail, fast food, lots of white collar jobs...) So I don't see how you can justify saying the benefits of the contract are inadequate in light of that. Just one example: we honestly don't know what kind of contracts Wal-Mart would have to sign with unionized employees. Because they don't have any, and go to considerable trouble to avoid having any.

So? We know this about the sectors which are unionized. What makes you think that retail will be different?

Plus the free-rider question: much of what unions have done at the national political level affects all workers, including the nonunion ones, because it affects labor law, not just union contracts. You may get some of the benefits of the union's existence without paying them a dime; weighing the cost-benefit analysis is far beyond the capacity of the individual worker.

It's not 1890 any more. We have the Department of Labor and a raft of regulations nowadays. As for the free rider problem, here is a paper discussing it. It exists, but is much less than many pro-union advocates probably suspect.

Economic decisions aren't made in an ideal frictionless vacuum; people often decide to spend or not spend money when they are not in possession of all the facts.

And therefore, it's meaningless to compare people's actions and making inferences about benefits? That's an argument which is at best a two-edged sword. After all, you can just as well make that argument against unions as well as for them.

What will you then do to a corporation which uses systematic union-busting tactics like closing any store where a union makes headway?

Work for a corporation which doesn't do that and unionize there. But first, try to see whether the benefits are actually better there. If not then there's no reason not work for the union busting corporation anyway.

I consider this important, especially since we now have a Supreme Court decision explicitly ruling that spending an arbitrary amount of money to influence elections is "free speech."

Hell yes they are out to make paid activists, canvassers, and politicians. The only difference I see is that said activists, canvassers, and politicians are on my side instead of being on Richard J. Butterworth VI's side. Since he can pay his own damn PACs whenever he likes, I'm pretty glad to have that going for me.

If you don't like it, switch to public-only funding for campaign finance, or take some other drastic step to ensure the honesty of politics. Maybe have the federal election fund pay candidates X dollars for every duly authorized signature they can get on a petition or something.

Seeing as you're opposed to Citizens United, does that not imply that you're principally opposed to unions acting as political machines too? Citizens united actually benefited big business less than people think it did vis-a-vis other agents. Case in point, Obama's Super-Pac money. The truth of the matter is that the big media companies had the run of the campaign ad market and could essentially plug for any candidate of their choice in their "news" broadcasts, and everyone else was cut out of the loop. For instance, ironically, unions count as corporations and benefited from Citizens United.

In any case, my point was not that unions should not be allowed to spend money on politics, even though I put their political activities rather dismissively. Of course people should be allowed to organize and spend money on the campaigns of their candidates. The objection was made in the context of right-to-work laws. Point being, I do object to the unions being political by spending money which people have no choice but to give them or face penalties, especially if their political views don't match those of the donor - regardless of whether they benefit personally. If I benefit from some action that doesn't automatically mean I should be required to pay for the service if I not only didn't ask for it, but also thought that it was unethical or contrary to my political opinions. It would be like, for example, companies requiring their workers to vote for such-and-such on election day or face the consequences (which some companies actually did, to loud objections on this very forum). If an organization that workers were forced to pay dues to regardless of membership would be paying GOP politicians I suspect that you'd be objecting to that arrangement, balance with the corporate bosses or no.

(That's different from the company spending some of its profits on political ads, since the profits are what remains after they've given the workers their share of the revenue. Force of this sort is always easy to excuse if it serves your own political views, but it's still not kosher.)

Right to Work, for all the legitimate arguments about unions, are bad, economically, for the states. A study I found.

PDF Link

Lower wages, Employee-sponored healthcare, pensions.

Nit, I respect your position, but it's hardly surprising that a liberal think-tank would produce a paper finding that right-to-work is bad for the economy. To balance this, here is a selection of other papers whose findings are not quite the same. PDF warnings for some of these, incidentally.

The main issue is the cost of living being higher in union states than they are in Right to Work States, even when you look at similar population density areas: linka.

Barry W. Poulson, Ph.D.
Professor of Economics
University of Colorado, Boulder

Twenty-two states now have Right to Work laws. In these states employees do not have
to financially support a union with monopoly bargaining privileges at their work place in
order to keep their jobs. In states that do not have Right to Work laws, an employee of a
unionized firm must financially support the union in order to get or keep his or her job.
Individual employees in these states are coerced into paying union dues, regardless of
whether they desire union representation. Union officials often defend this coercion on
the grounds that employees are better off in states without Right to Work laws. They
point to evidence that money incomes are higher in the 28 forced-unionism states.

But to answer the question of whether employees are better off in forced-unionism states,
we must look beyond money income. Just as money income varies across regions, so do
other factors that influence individual well being. Other tangible factors vary across
regions, such as cost of living and the burden of taxation. To ascertain whether
employees are really better off in forced-unionism states, we must compare money
income after adjusting for cost of living and taxes. It is this adjusted income measure that
captures the real purchasing power of employees’ disposable income in the different
states. Intangible factors that influence individual well being, such as freedom from
coercion, also vary across regions. In the present study, we approach this issue utilizing a
new data base and a different methodology than that utilized in previous studies.

PDF to paper.

Moreover:

Seven lowest cost of living states are right to work states: linka.

It's not hard to see why, considering the compensation penalty for right to work laws: linka. This extra cost gets shifted onto consumers in no small measure (it's not as if the investors are going to swallow all of that cost by themselves).

Meanwhile, there is evidence that right to work laws benefit economic development: Link 1, Link 2.

[Lord Zentei]

Hmm. That second-to-last paragraph obviously has the wrong link in it (that's Nitram's paper, lol). But now I can't find the one I had dredged up earlier. Please disregard that link. The other points still stand, though.

[K. A. Pital]

The AFL-CIO, like any American union, touts the large gap between compensation of members and non-members as a big selling point.

If that's really the case with the majority of American unions, they are behaving in a rather despicable fashion. No wonder many people are no longer sympathetic to the unions in the US.

[Aaron MkII]

Then we should be working to get non members into the union so they can enjoy increased pay and benefits. But no, instead we have an animosity created specifically to drive a wedge in the workforce, because if we're busy fighting each other, we won't notice the government fucking us.

[Broken]

I read an op-ed, I believe it was in the New York Times, a while ago that discussed labor and capital in America in an interesting way. In the US, it basically said, labor lost and has been defeated for years. The post-WWII boom which employed as many people as were available is done and gone forever while capital is more powerful then ever. But the recent remarkable attempts to keep labor down is due to the raise of a new group, the article termed talent. Talent is the group of employees that are not just cogs in the machine due to skills, education, or other attributes. Highly educated individuals or star players in professional sports or actors in major roles in film were all examples given. People with the fame and/or ability to pack their bags and move to a different employer at a moments notice. The argument was the raise of talent; of expensive, non-easily replaceable employees, has driven capital into responding ever more harshly to the employees that don't have that ease of movement, aka labor. I'm not sure I buy the argument (I'll try to find the article when I get home from work) but its an interesting take on the recent attempts to strip ever-more power and safety from labor class.

[Dr. Trainwreck]

Well, I don't buy the 'talent' theory. These 'talents' are all educated and raised in a culture and mindset that makes them skilled and talented; effectively, they are mass produced. They're exceptional, yes, but far below the level of telling their boss to just fuck himself. The fact that the examples given are athletes and actors just weakens the argument further; are the people who enjoy the adoration of millions now supposed to represent the majority of the workers?

Don't blame Protestants here. The vast majority, if not nearly all the successful merchant leagues and houses of Europe are Protestant. It is very hard to find successful catholic or orthodox leagues or houses.

European and American Protestantism have gone down different paths. It is my observation that American Protestants use morality instead of numbers to discuss economics. All conservatives do, to a degree, but I talk about Protestants because their thought has had a lot more time to take root.