Less than six weeks before Michigan's controversial right-to-work law takes effect, teachers unions across the state are clamoring to get new contracts approved, in what some observers say is an effort to get around the measure and keep dues flowing into union coffers.If I were a representative of those school districts, I wouldn't negotiate at all.
Union leaders representing teachers in Utica, Plymouth-Canton, Dearborn and Detroit Public Schools are all working toward new collective bargaining agreements ahead of the new law, which takes effect March 27.
The law includes a clause that says all contracts in place before that date are immune from the new rules, which means members would be tied into paying dues until the new contract expires. The measure bans requiring financial support of a union as a condition of employment for private-sector and most public-sector workers.
How did California become more union-crazy than Michigan, home of the UAW, and Wisconsin, home of the so-called progressive movement? Can we ever fix this?
Unless you were elected to the board by the union or were yourself a union member.
ReplyDeleteAnd in answer to your last question, at least about Michigan, it's the money.
The UAW was responsible for bringing lots of money into Michigan, via it's over-paid membership, and when the union's greed helped crash the auto industry, and with it the Michigan economy, along with all those union jobs went the union's political influence.
Not for a long time in California. The unions have a vice grip on state government and voters proven by the fact they got Californians to pay more in taxes. Power like that lasts for a while.
ReplyDeleteIt's already lasted for a while and the lesson to take from the fall of the Soviet Union is that even draconian power can disappear in a wink under the right circumstances. Being an optimist I see those circumstances building towards a collapse of left wing control over California.
ReplyDeleteThe difference between California and the Soviet Union is that California's oppression is actually welcomed and supported by a majority of the people here.
ReplyDelete"...California's oppression is actually welcomed"
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, that's true, but not by ALL of us.
That's true but oppression's oppression even if it's legitimized by a representative form of government.
ReplyDeleteBut that oppression still builds a reservoir of dissent and when enough people get mad enough the grip of the left will loosen. Once loosened the grip quickly fails.
Take Michigan as an example. Who would have thought that the home state of the two of America's most powerful unions would go right-to-work. But here we are with the unions and their supporters reduced to shaking fists and extending fingers and, on a historical basis, in a shockingly short period of time.
California lefties do have a significant advantage in the wealth that naturally flows into California. Money's the balm that heals, well, not all hurts but a heck of a lot of them. But no advantage is so great that it can't be overcome and I just choose to believe that the excesses of California's lefties will result in their demise and before too very long.