Dennis Sanders, publisher of the center-right blog, Big Tent Review, writes about the recent debate surrounding his home state of Michigan’s new right-to-work legislation:
It’s been interesting to see what’s going on in my home state of Michigan. As a kid, you learned how important the unions were in the state. Most kids learned of the 1936-7 Sitdown Strike in Flint, Michganwhich happens to be my hometown. It was that event where the United Autoworkers made a name for themselves and where the Detroit automakers had to get used to labor as a partner. For the next 70 years, the American auto industry and the UAW were partners in building the modern Michigan.
My parents came to Michigan and became autoworkers. My mother worked at AC and Dad worked at Buick. Of course they were union members as was every hourly worker in every plant in the United States. As a kid, I never did understand why every hourly worker were union members whether they liked it or not. My Mom would say in effect that they benefit from all the hard work the union did, so of course they had to be members and they had to have money taken out of their paychecks for union dues.
The passage of right-to-work legislation in Michigan this week is not going to make a big difference in my home state. Unions aren’t going away. Michigan will still have to deal with job losses and all the problems that come with that loss. Maybe new businesses will choose to plant themselves in the Wolverine State, but they might come for reasons other than right to work.
Source: Big Tent Revue. Read full article. (link)
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