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Subscribe to RSSPresident Obama is expected to address right to work laws today, while speaking in Michigan. Mich. State House Democratic Leader -Elect Tim Greimel discusses lack of transparency by Gov. Rick Snyder and state legislature in run-up to right-to-work vote, how the bill will hurt unions and wages and the likelihood the bill will pass. Greimel calls the vote "slap in the face to democracy."
Updated 7:39 p.m. — Republicans stand on the cusp of delivering a major blow to organized labor, as they prepare to vote Tuesday on legislation to make Michigan – a state linked to unions in the public conscious – a “right to work” state.
Carlos Osorio / AP
About a dozen members of the Michigan Nurses Association stand on the state Capitol steps in Lansing, Mich., Monday, Dec. 10, 2012, protesting right-to-work legislation.
State lawmakers are expected to approve legislation barring rules in workplaces that make union membership a condition of employment. The offensive would mark the culmination of efforts by Midwestern Republican governors to curb labor rights in the heart of industrial America, where unions once loomed large.
President Barack Obama led Democrats on Monday in a counteroffensive, hoping to stymie Republicans in control of Michigan’s House and Senate, who could act as soon as Tuesday to approve right to work legislation after approving initial versions of the proposed law last week.
Related: Obama decries right-to-work proposal during trip to Michigan
“These so-called right to work laws, they don't have anything to do with economics. They have everything to do with politics,” Obama said in Redford, Mich., where he had planned to travel well before the labor fight erupted last week. "What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money."
But Republicans maintain commanding majorities in Lansing. And Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder has said he would sign the legislation if it reached his desk. With that, he would become the latest Republican governor to be elected in 2010 in a Midwestern state to advance legislation meant to curb labor rights. A familiar battle, which played out with such intensity in other states over the last two years, has now found a new epicenter in Michigan.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker memorably pushed legislation through his statehouse that stripped public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights; his initiative prompted a recall election, which the Republican survived in June. Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s similar effort to curb bargaining rights was only halted when voters reversed such a law through a ballot initiative.
But Michigan Republicans might now succeed in passing a right to work law, a favorite proposal of conservatives that isn’t even on the books in Wisconsin or Ohio. Snyder, who had previously said that seeking such a law wasn’t on his agenda, may now preside over one of the most striking symbolic blows to organized labor in some time.
President Obama tells an enthusiastic crowd his plan to raise taxes on the wealthy at the Daimler diesel plant in Detroit. Watch the entire speech.
“I think he's defaulting on his responsibilities,” Michigan Democratic Rep. Sander Levin told NBC News on Monday. “It's a cave to the radical right.”
Levin was among the group of lawmakers who met on Monday with Snyder to plead with him to veto the legislation, or at least delay a vote in the state legislature. Absent that, Levin said Democrats want Republicans to change their proposal to allow for voters to repeal the law through a ballot initiative, as voters did in Ohio. The Michigan law is coupled with an appropriations bill that would exempt it from a popular vote challenge.
Related: Dems launch blitz to halt 'right to work' law in Michigan
“I would have a very difficult time seeing that get changed,” said state Rep. Marty Knollenberg, the chief sponsor of the law in the state House. He contended that the appropriation provision is necessary to help implement the law.
In short, opponents of the Michigan proposal would have little recourse available to challenge the law in the immediate future, making its impact on a union-heavy state like Michigan even more pronounced.
“I think the Republican strategy in doing this so quickly is that they don’t want what Wisconsin had, dragging on for so many days,” said Bill Ballenger, the editor of the influential “Inside Michigan Politics” newsletter. “This is a blitzkrieg, and Republicans hope it’s going to be over and done with tomorrow.
While Republicans in the Michigan Capitol had long pined to advance this law, it languished until after the election. In November, the state’s voters rejected an amendment that would have added a right to collective bargaining to the Michigan state constitution. Amid rumblings that the GOP leadership would resurrect the proposal, it was brought to a vote in the state House and state Senate before organized labor and Democrats were effectively able to mobilize.
Democrats have now turned their attention toward Snyder, who had styled himself as a kind of pragmatic Republican who avoided the ideological trench warfare of his fellow partisans, in halting the law. According to congressional Democrats, during a meeting with Snyder the governor said he took their concerns “seriously,” though they’re less optimistic privately that he’ll reverse course.
Organized labor groups are organizing a “day of action” on Tuesday in Lansing, including a march to the state capitol that will likely invoke memories of the tens of thousands of activists who flooded the state house in Madison, Wis., during the height of Walker’s legislative battle in 2011.
But Knollenberg said he “can’t think of anything” that would prompt him to back off the legislation. Moreover, Knollenberg suggested it’s state Republican lawmakers – rather than Snyder – who are driving the effort.
Former Michigan Republican Governor John Engler, who is the president of the business roundtable, joins The Daily Rundown's Chuck Todd to talk about President Barack Obama's trip the Michigan, the fiscal cliff, and Michigan's 'right to work' law.
“It certainly started from the legislature, and then it was presented to the governor,” he said.
“It wasn’t on his priority list, as he indicated,” Knollenberg said of Snyder. But once Republicans had gathered adequate support for the proposal, Snyder “adapted his beliefs and saw that this was a real opportunity to put Michigan on the map in terms of creating jobs.”
And as the law’s passage seems more like a fait accompli, Snyder, if nothing else, will join the ranks of Walker and Kasich. All three will be seriously targeted by Democrats and organized labor in 2014, offering a chance for voters to render their verdict on this trio of Republican antagonists.
For their part, Democrats warn that the toxic partisanship that took hold in Wisconsin and Ohio would now spread to Michigan.
“Instead of Michigan united, it becomes Michigan divided,” Levin said. “We’ve gone from a bipartisan effort to deepening partisanship.”
Alternatively, it could enshrine Snyder – a former business executive who postured himself as “one tough nerd” during his 2010 campaign – as a darling of conservatives who wish to further put unions on the defensive.
“For the state, I think it's absolutely monumental,” said Stu Sandler, a Republican consultant in Michigan. “It's the most significant piece of legislation in decades, and sends a very strong signal about the direction the state is heading.”
Warned one senior labor official, "If this bill is signed, it's going to be Thunderdome between now and 2014."
Knollenberg argued his legislation is only about providing opportunity to the state’s workers.
“I just hope that at the end of the day … the unions will then have to sell their story as to why they’re benefiting the workers,” he said. “I believe that if they can demonstrate their value to their workers, they’ll do fine. But they’re going to have to work for it.”
Update: Not all hope was lost for supporters of organized labor, who believe they would be able to use a citizens initiative under Michigan law to eventually challenge the right-to-work law. Under such a scenario, if labor supporters could gather a higher number of signatories to a petition, they could force a vote to undo the law in 2014. However, the new right-to-work law would be allowed to take effect in the meanwhile.
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I worked a union job for almost 12 years.....what a joke......never looked back!
"Right to Work" is a law out of the republican/conservative handbook. Screw the employee, profit is king! If you think I'm wrong, read history, where it pertains to Henry Ford!People who don't study history are fools!
yep
There is sure no cure for stupid. So in Minnesota the DFL Governor is supposedto negotiate in good faith with the State employees Union on behalf of the taxpayer when that very labor union is also his number 1 campaign contributor. Only a liberal fascist mongoloid could demand such an obvious and flagrant conflict of intrest to take place under the guise of it being fair to screw the taxpayers who have no business deciding the pay, benefits, bonuses defined benefit pensions and other juicy perks for substandard lard butt government employees who have a right to get paid 110,000 a year like the average GM UAW member gets so GM can continue losing $4,000 on every car they sell but they plan to make it up in volume. Oh and by screwing the bond holders and investing in new GM "stock that even after the long delayed IPO opened at $33 and after 1.5 billion shares have sold the taxpayers still have a 40% stake in the new GM stock that would have to sell today at $56 a share for taxpayers to break even on this rip off scam. GM has 1,000,000 employees on the payroll 100,000 build cars the rest are retired pensioners sucking up fat retirement benefits that cannot be paid if GM is to remain viable. By this I mean make a profit, which is a good thing not bad and when a bad company makes no profits for long enough the taxpayers get soaked for 60 billion to bail these bums out and GM still is losing it's ass and will need to file a real bankruptcy ending these outrageous Union benefits that have turned GM into an old folks home not a car company 90% of the payroll goes to retirees!! fairness dictates that atrillion dollars should be taken from taxpayers and given to these clowns making 6 figures a year sitting on thier duffs until the end of time to bad if Toyota makes a better product, at a better price, a profit and pays fair wages they ship the jobs overseas to Tennesee where they manage to whip GM in every metric every year without fail or exception these lard butts deserve $110,000 a year to not work no matter how much money in extra taxes the greedy rich folks never making north of 50k a year have to pay out of thier own earnings for the benefit of the former employees of a rival company that is only fair and just screw the rich lower to middle class stiffs working 50 hours a week for 35% of the money the UAW workers get they were the top 1 or 2 campaign contributors to Obama who they bribed to screw the average worker over fair and square. Morons how have you not already swallowed your tongues and died for lack of figurring out how to breath without getting time and a half minimum from the rest of us. You Jerks are real Jerks you know that right?
You pigs are ripping off your own neighbors of thier hard earned money so you can have more your pathetic cowards and worse than a theif who has the guts just to break in and take what he wants from his neighbors. You gutless cowards send political hacks to legize your stealing from your own neighbors and have neither dignity nor shame sad that so many Americans have lost any trace of what used to be called character. You clowns have a lot of class too bad it's all low.
unions influrence your pay outcome,if it's you who love making minimum wages,it's the union that make your wages worth being able to live better. i for one worked for G.M.,and had it not out for the union(UAW), we'd not be able to provide for families. so what's the hang up for those who disagree with unions. you must love trying to make ends meet.
udoneit
So do you think those UAW workers who were fired for drinking and smoking weed should have gotten their jobs back?
NO
Can you explain why they got their jobs back?
because you cant have fox news playing the cops
elvis
What does fox news and cops have to do with UAW members being drunk and stoned on the job?
Would you buy a Jeep Cherokee made at that plant after lunch knowing that there are drunks and stoners working there??
now there's some logic - didn't see the union taking any action did you???? YEAH, I'd want to buy a car built by those idiots!!!!!
remember fox news went on a cop hunt
elvis
So your only problem with those UAW workers is they got caught?
I think he challenges the honesty of the report and the politics behind it.
elvis payne (29.4):
Great comment!!!!!!!
No moron I make my wages better by providing high quality work skill and additional productivity to my job which brings in more profits and pays me better money so I don't quit and work for a more shrewd employer who is willing to pay for value. Price is what you pay value is what you get, your failure to grasp such an elementary concept is astonishing or are you really just wanting to get more pay and better wages based on arbitrary nonsense like seniority rather than have to compete with other productive workers who make their own job security and earn the best wages they can because they are providing productivity and profit rather than dead weight which I hate to tell you won't get your company any profit and when that happens for to long you get no job at all unless you are a parasite living off the backs of your fellow Americans where did you lose your way? it's really sad and pathetic what you have become. Another Union benefit I guess? At long last Sir do you have no shame at all?
No I work for and earn the wage I negotiated and have earned it is you who has your hand in my pocket at the end of the day demanding a cut of my paycheck that I feed my family with, and try to provide a better life for myself and my loved ones it is you Sir who entitle yourself to my labor as your right and privilege first then whatever you leave me I can try to make ends meet you are a creep, a coward and a scoundrel of the lowest character and should be tarred feathered and run out of town on a rail like the parasite that you are, you are a maggot on the ass of humanity and that is always what you will be. No wonder God hates a coward I sure hate them and am sick of them stealing from me and calling me greedy for expecting to keep the fruits of my own labor while they wish first to pluck whatever fruits of mine labor away they wish for themselves to enjoy and want to call me greedy or a thief? Why has big Pharma not found a cure for stupid other than a lobotomy in 200 years of trying. Just think of all those evil profits they could make then for you to steal away for yourself as your right to thier free labor is annointed and pure as the wind driven snow in it's utter disgrace of the human condition at it's very worst it put's on display for anyone to see. Clown.
Bwa ha ha! I love it! Obama Claus and his bleeding heart marxist liberals are taking one up the chute! Gee, how terrible for Michigan to become a right-to-work state. Such a terrible tragedy!
I'm continually fascinated by libs screaming and squawking about those nasty corporations that won't provide everything the sanctimonious libs think they should provide. Get over yourselves. The U.S. is definitely on the decline on the national stage and most corporations are looking to growing economies, not ones like ours. Companies are in business to make money...period.
It is on the decline Because of corporations like Goldman-Sachs, that wrecked the economy, or Walmart, that shipped jobs overseas. Companies are in business to make money was not Always true - that was an invention of the Chicago School of Business. At one time many companies were good citizens and good neighbors (and why not since they're defined as "persons.") But the Chicago Rules took over and the shortsighted quarterly stock was the Only value, even if it hurt the nation and the company in the long run.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. Hey Karl we tried it your way with the Soviet Union where everything belonged to the people and profit was of no concern and that is why the USSR got so rich they all flew to a liberal galaxy where people throw ducks at balloons and nothing is what it seems so it worked out swell for the lot. On planet earth if I don't get my paycheck when I'm supposed to I don't just keep right on working wondering if next time I'll get one or just be working for free from now on and cannabalizing boobs like you to stay alive we all work for a profit fool. P.S. Karl Marx died in an insane asylum in Britain rightly so considerering his raving lunacy and the untold atrocities it unleashed thanks to pigeons, deadbeats and rubes like you who want a free lunch and everyone else be damned. In your unsatiated cupidity for your own wants and needs on the backs of others it is you who have lost your soul and your manhood trading it away for a bag of magic beans like living wages, affordable housing, free health care, get paid not to work, spend your life in grinding poverty with just enough stolen away from others for you to get by doing less and promise to keep voting for the man who promises you eternal mediocrity and inter-generational poverty in return for your vote and your dignity. Soon enough your soul itself dies and you become what you claim to revile. Irony is one of Gods favorite life lessons throughout recorded history as I see it. You will have spent your life in a kind of hell and earned every bit of the eternity you'll spend their when you finally assume room temperature. Funny it will be the first and only real thing you yourself did everything you could to get and you shall reap what you have sown. Reap the whirlwind pal you deserve the life you live and all you have coming your way I assure of this and am proud to be the first to congratulate you on this fact I couldn't be more in agreement with it and you couldn't be any more deserving of it.
Let the big hammer fall on the mindless "borg" that is "union". Way to go GOP!
The only good Republican is a dead Republican.
Jim, thanks for reinforcing my comment on "mindless"...Your extreme response is typical of the violence and corrupt nature of "unionism".
Not every Democrat is a horse thief, but every Horse thief is a Democrat. Horace Greeley another fox news watching fool and shill for the rich right morons?
Hammer & Cycle.
'“I think the Republican strategy in doing this so quickly is that they don’t want what Wisconsin had, dragging on for so many days,” said Bill Ballenger, the editor of the influential “Inside Michigan Politics” newsletter. “This is a blitzkrieg, and Republicans hope it’s going to be over and done with tomorrow.'
You could say the exact same thing about 2009-2011 Congress, yet it would be in a totally different tone. The Dems scrambled to pass as many liberal bills as possible during those two years because they knew their time was short. And since when in a free country do people want others to have to PAY to work. Isn't the company supposed to pay YOU, not you to the union? If someone doesn't want to be in the union, why do you care? Oh yeah, less forced money to sustain the union admin jobs. Got it.
Talk about a bunch of two-faced Democrats and Union members... They claim that a worker's FREEDOM of CHOICE to join or not join a Union is bad???? Seems like the Unionis are the ones who are trying to restrict American freedoms!
If they truly have value, the Unions would not need to force membership!
Traveler, When has any union forced anyone at anytime to join their ranks?
When I tried to get a job working at Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in 1969 I was told "JOIN THE UNION then I'll hire you". I couldn't join the Laborers Union because they were full. I finally got a job there after I was FORCED to join the Carpenters Union in 1972!
Iaintdruknk
Have you ever tried to get a job at GM,Ford or Chrysler without being a member of the UAW?
I don't see any problem with RTW. You don't have to join the union and you don't have to get union wages, or get paid overtime, or get paid holidays. I worked in places like that where you got paid if you were on the clock. No holiday pay, no vacation, no sick leave, no overtime. See how long it takes for the union to start signing up new members. Do you know that in RTW states where there is a union present, the union is required to represent non-union members (freeloaders) in disputes with the employer. I am not a union member and actually have to deal with unions as a manager, but I am not so stupid as to think that a lot of the benefits i enjoy today didn't come from unions. Are they perfect? No. Do they p**s me off on a regular basis? yes. Do I think the country would be better off if all unions were eliminated? No.
Nothing wrong with forming a Union for the purpose of the pursuit of collective bargaining rights and the added leverage that may be gained as well as efficiency. Something right with government employee Unions collecting dues and bribing Democrats to rape the taxpayers for the extra campaign cash no, nothing even remotely pure involved here this is outright corruption and self serving greed of the worst kind and it should be outlawed everywhere. Christ even FDR understood that giving Federal employees Unions and such rights was madness and assured absolute corruption and fraud from day one, which is why they never where granted any. Why is a State ggovernment any different. Answer it is not follow the money and you'll see who is the greediest of the greedy pigs alive and it turns out to be corrupt State employee Unions and the Democrat hacks they buy into office to abuse the governments monopoly on force to rape their fellow man. these are the worst of the worst kind of human scum that exist on earth. FACT!
sane maybe
We may have to face a difficult demon: the fact that the rich use us. We fight their wars (often only to benefit their profitability), protect their money, bail out their mega businesses, mop their floors, listen to their political clap-trap, and when the chips are down...when the decision is to pay the taxes that support a social contract or force an underclass to fend for itself in a world owned by an upper-class completely isolated behind privacy gates and no-trespassing signs, it may be time to awaken the one percent in a way they can understand. If they had sense, they would awaken themselves before those extremes are taken. However civic sense does not seem to trump pure greed.
It's not a blow at all. It provides workers and families a choice to pay union dues if they want to, or not be forced to if they don't.
If what the unions offer is that good, workers will flock to them and gladly part with a portion of their pay (average 4 hours) to pay the union dues.
It just gives the worker the choice to decide on their own. Seems very fair.
You have to work at blue collar right-to-work states, mostly in the South, which I have, to know that your theorizing is total BS.
Not BS at all. Spending the money I make for my family should be our call, wouldn't you agree? Not the union's.
If it's a great deal, then people will agree to pay to be a part. Kind of like Sam's Club or Costco.
This may be a big first but Jim Moonbeams has a fair argument and Right to Work laws are by design made to neuter unions which is what happens when Unions become political Partisans of one of a two party system and the party they blackball gets a chance they will stick it to the unions any way they can and why not their political lives could be ended by enough big union cash backing the right candidate. The true problem with Unions is that they got involved in partisan politicking to begin with rather than sticking to collective bargaining as they were designed to do. They then got granted all kinds of special exemptions like Anti-Trust exemptions and for years a Corporation was barred from making political contributions but Unions got another pass and so the story went until the inevitable happened political hacks and corrupt Union fat cats who enjoy six figure incomes and eating at all the finest five star restaurants they take their political puppets out to eat at and the next thing you knew the people elected to represent the people were no longer getting their monies worth out of the hacks and Union shills who were in power and allowed all kinds of abuse and corruption to run rampant for years and as is always is the case the check finally has come dew and Uncle sugar is broke and can't easily rape taxpayer wary of cronies wasting tax-dollars to buy off voters who in turn get more tax dollars so they can give extra to their slime they have come to depend on for their free lunch. I would in a perfect world have no problem with closed shop unions existing as part of a collective right of a majority of a particular group of workers in various industries who have by majority vote made the decision to form a union and pay dues to use in the process of bargaining for rights or better pay or overtime pay or safety or whatever they desire from management who has also been culpable of paying off politicians to let them put the screws to people and this still takes place and it always will so long as politics and money exist they will gravitate towards each other often in rather unwholesome forms. But the Unions have themselves to thank for the RTW laws that they got passed as a result of targeting one party while favoring the other 85% to 12% with 3% going god knows where and 90% of the union dues are now just bankrolling political cronies this is dishonest, corrupt and lead to the inevitable abuses that have paved the way for these laws to become the ringing of the death knell for Unions which began long ago remember they used to represent half of the workforce and now that has dwindled down to under 10% and shrinking. The bottom line is people do not appreciate having fat union dues carved out of their pay and finding out that 90 cents of every buck went to support Barnies Frank and Bernie Sanders the Socialist Boob from the County of Vermont who are in no way resemblingthe average American or otherwise working towards any of the ideals that would the average American appreciate. Rather they are busy bank rolling Fannie and Freddie and attacking profits in a manner that would make even Karl Marx blush as he understood for his system to work first must come Capitalism otherwise their would be nobody to steal from ie. North Korea is a terd world country specifically because of the mafioso style communism that sprang up as the ruling class and operates with an iron fist and pure self interest only in themselves the people be damned which is why Government is at best a necessary evil and at worst an intolerable one and as America has begun to forget this absolute truth America has begun to wither on the vine and will continue to until death do us part or until we kick the liberal ass hats out of our States and let them have the Left Coast and New England and the States be restored to the central authority ruling over and governing the lives of it's various citizens and an end of the day we live in now where for me to cut a tree down on my property requires an act of Congress this is a grotesque overreach of a grotesque progressive regressive assault on this Nation and the Constitution as well as the firewalls built into it to protect the people from much of the abuses and outrages that are courtesy of liberal judges obliging themselves to legislate from the bench. They must be ignored or impeached as unfit to serve immediately and if we can return to 50 laboratories of democracy operating within the sphere of a greater Republic America has bright days ahead yet but there is almost a century of the progressive unmaking of our nation as founded and empowering the leviathan they unleashed in the Federal Government that dark and tough days lay ahead as well and we will indeed have our rendezvous with destiny if we win the Jim Moonies of the world can all go to Vermont and work at Ben And Jerry's for 1 million an hour minimum wages while freedom minded folks in Texas, Florida, Tennessee, Wyoming will be left alone and allowed to choose for themselves the way they want to live by the manner of Governments they empower within each state to act as the central governing authority with little or no interference from an out of control leviathan Federal Government mad with power and crazed with their own god like images of themselves as the do-gooders of the world who torture us for our own good because they do so with the approval of their own moral consciencees whereas it would be better to be ruled by the greediest of robber Barron's whose cupidity might at times rest and whose cruelty and greed would sleep while this is not so with the Liberal who will torture us without end for the very reasons I have restated which C.S. Lewis in fact much more eloquently pointed out half a century ago and has been shewn prescient to say the least. But If Moonie wants to have a Vermont where everyone in the State is compelled to join the union and pay the dues and other Moonies flock like lemmings to such a scheme I am happy to let Moonie be a Loonie only Moony is not pleased with the idea that I might enjoy myself a thousand miles away from where he lives if I am allowed to smoke in a bar or my car or home and would favor Federal laws making everything illegal that liberalism has not already managed to do in one form or another so Moonie must be crushed like a bug and defeated or destroyed should he continue his pernicious assault on my liberties in a State that he does not live in never will live in but feels perfectly comfortable writing 10 million pages of Federal laws and codes to be followed by me in my State under penalty of fines, prison or death perhaps and in this way Moonie is his own worst enemy because he is loonie like Governor Moonbeams from California who has risen like Phoenix from the ashes to preside over the death throws of a once great economic mecca and now a Liberal nightmare come true known as California and California is a goner so the San Andreas Fault line not withstanding the Liberals will find ways to be just as destructive as would the sliding of much of California into the sea and we can all have front row seats to watch the madness unfold as liberalism does what it does best which is tear down and destroy because that is all it can due and all it knows as 5,000 years of recorded human history would demonstrate and facts are stubborn things but that has yet to stop a stupid liberal gone wild so far ass I can tell so we will indeed live in interesting times ahead as the Chinese proverb would say. Good luck:=)
A blow to labor, that's who they are, that's what they do, and that's why they are enjoying 2010 privileges of having a legislature that can do this. Have fun GOP, you are dead, and soon your corpse will emit a foul odor and you will dissipate into the soil.
see you in hell than and when I find you I'll know just what to do with you and have all eternity to enjoy doing it your worse than a pedophile in my book so I really do hope we get aquainted in hell when you arive which you will I promise you this and maybe I'll be waiting to say high for the welcoming commitee. hope so. ta for now sweetie.
Good going guys, kill off what is left of the middle class, even those dumb enough to vote for you.
I've worked in so-called right-to-work states. The pay is rotten, the work is rotten, and they treat you like dirt. Observance of law, from discrimination to safety to fair hours, or even lunch and coffee breaks, is often nonexistent. So of course the rotten GOP wants it. They want us all to be slaves and peons to the super rich. That's their Only goal, no matter how much Rush Pigbaugh lies, or the Koch brothers pay for propaganda. Lincoln made a big mistake. He should have let the South go since they've retarded the nation. And as for Texas, give it back to Mexico.
That is irrefutable, we know what median is in such states and its less. It sucks. I am not mad though, people vote, and if that's who they vote for, I hope they have it really hard. I hope they get sick and can't go to the doctor. I hope they have a hard time paying their mortgage. I hope their credit slips and they cant buy a new car. That is the only way they will learn.
I work in a RTW state and the wages are good.
But you have TO BE QUALIFIED for the job you want with the wages you desire.
If you're not, then of course they are going to suck. What you are QUALIFIED to make and what you WANT to make are not always the same and shouldn't be.
Chris-3950430
You apparently haven't been around long...
You can get a NEW CAR on 0 credit or bad credit, what rock have you been hiding under?
when will all you sheep learn that the gov wants 2 classes poor and rich so the rich can tell we the people what we can do ,eat @!$%# drive were we can go the only way to beat them is to vote every one of them OUT OF OFFICE then the rest will do the will of we the people not the will of the INCS WAKE UP OR BE GROUND UP BY THE CORPS not me im going to fight to my last drop of blood or theres witch comes first
If you dont want to ba apart of a union then you shouldnt have to be. Its a simple concept. You are mandated to be apart of something that takes money out of your paycheck and spends it on things that you might not want or need? It's ridiculous.
Unions have become coprprate bullies bossing businesses around
I whole heartily agree with you however they should not give you the same pay and benefits, if they can prove via recourse that the benefit was a result of the union. You can hire whoever you want, however the Union employees get the benefits they fought for.
$8.50 per hour is a GREAT wage. Many people get rich on that wage. If a boss wants to fire you because he doesn't like you or wants to hire his cousin that's what FREEDOM is about in the good ole USA!! Sick pay, family leave for new baby or dieing parent, paid vacation, pensions, only serve to weaken this country. I say "DOWN WITH UNIONS" !!
signed CEO making $45,000,000 per year
8.50 an hour Is a great wage - in the South. That's where all the retards who vote Republican are - and they're glad to get that much for a grade-school education.
oh my god where do you live mexico 8.50 is a @!$%# wage and you part of the problem i fix car at a dealer for 35 years and make 70.000 a year and its tough to get by when milk is 400 a gallon and of course you wan t to pay 8.50 an hour so you can make to more than yourt worth soon @!$%#s like will be gone ground up under the boot heal of the people @!$%# oh and if 8.50 is so great why do you make 45.000.000
Because I NEED $45,000,000 to meet my expenses. Afterall, I DO have a family to support!! Jeez, for all you other ingrates $8.50/hr. with no benefits should be MORE than plenty to live comfortably on!!!
Do you expect ME to take a pay cut so you can get EVEN MORE???? Get a CLUE!
If you can't get by on 70,000 a year - you have some SERIOUS money issues or some major leaks where money is concerned.
My Mom gets by great on less than 30,000 a year and she has a home, car, pets, etc.
Perhaps if you get rid of that cadillac, the computer, internet, $300 a month cell phone bill and quit having kids you can't afford, that 70,000 would go a lot farther.
See how well she gets along on $14,000 a year, which is what she will be making on minimum wage.
Just goes to show that obama is an idiot who supports only liberals and socialist. Wow: a president going against elected people in a state that has tried the liberal way and a state that is horribly broke. Oh, did you read today how a hidden tax of $63.00 more will cost all of us...well, the dems signed the bill without reading it and the dens are protecting their labor unions who are milking us clean in this country. Wow: the dems are a joke....socialist and communist do live well in this country. Give us a break and move to Europe. If you voted dem you really are not an american because the constitution would eliminate all the bills you guys have voted for over the years.
you wont be talking the samer @!$%# when your on welfare because jobs only pay mimin wage because you voted to let the company pay what every they wanted and thats where this pice of @!$%# law is taking us wake up
So do democrat love unions just because Obama loves their money. Unions were great 70 years ago. They do not have a place anymore. The county has labor laws that protect an employee. All unions do is force companies to pay employees more than they are worth. Remember. Democrats know nothing about economics.
It is ever body's right to belong to a union or not belong to a union and that should be the law.
people should be able to choose to join or not to join union for a job, which is a good thing. this is supposed to be a free country, and why not let people choose what they'd like?
WE NEED TO BAND TOGETHER AND VOTE EVERY AND I MEEN EVERY ONE WHO is up for reelection out thats the only thing they under stand and the only power we have left if we did that the new and the ones that were left would do exacly what they were told the way its ment to be the way the constition says it is soposed to be thats the only to beat them
@!$%# unions. They can shove their garbage right back up their fat asses.
" ... freedom to freeload ... " An elected legislator is making this statement? There may be something less useful than politicians - teats on boars comes to mind - but the boars don't get exorbitant salaries, benefits, staff and office space. This jerk needs to go out and find a job ... probably adjust his attitude.
I'm no big fan of unions (particularly in education, where I work), but the necessity for unions can be seen in statements of professional drones like this jerk.
The democratic rep. Sander Levin said "its a cave to the radical right".
Uhhh....excuse me? Since when did having a choice to join an organization or not become a "radical" idea in this country? Dont the left wing democrats always talk about "choice"? I guess when that choice is opposed to thier agenda then choice is no longer a cool thing.
Yes, and Yeah, the sooner unions are gone the better off our cities and businesses will be. If unions want to tell
business how to hire and fire, start your own business.