Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio and Media Relations Manager Ted O'Neil explain in today's Detroit Free Press that right-to-work is as much about liberty as it is about economics.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio and President Joseph G. Lehman write in the Dec. 15 Wall Street Journal about the crucial role the Mackinac Center has played over the past 25 years in making Michigan a right-to-work state, and what it means for Michigan's future.
Michigan is now the 24th state to outlaw firing employees for not financially supporting unions, making it a right-to-work state.
While this concept is not new, bills making it possible moved quickly through the Legislature. School officials unfamiliar with the policy might be asking: “What now?”
Research Associate Jarrett Skorup was cited in The Wall Street Journal Tuesday in a story about Democratic legislators refusing to support a Republican plan to give corporate welfare to Detroit Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch for a new hockey arena. Skorup wrote about the issue here, and Michael LaFaive wrote that the deal should be put “on ice.”
In response to the legislature taking up a right-to-work bill, Maryanne Levine, the president of the Chippewa Valley School District local union drew a parallel to the actions of Adolf Hitler.
“We must close union offices, confiscate their money and put their leaders in prison. We must reduce workers’ salaries and take away their right to strike," Levine quoted Hitler as saying. "Those were the words of Adolf Hitler, May 2, 1933 … These are strong words, but that is exactly what they are doing and the path they seem to be taking (in Lansing)."
On Dec. 6, 2012, the Michigan Legislature effectively rewrote the three-decade-old law that designated Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan as a tax-exempt, nonprofit “insurer of last resort” (Senate Bills 1293 and 1294). Now that the federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act has made such insurers unnecessary, BCBSM has the opportunity to convert to a nonprofit mutual insurer that benefits from a streamlined rate review and approval process.
In the Detroit Free Press, Stephen Henderson expresses concern that right-to-work states are doing worse than forced unionism states in a number of social trends.
This past decade has not done well for decreasing poverty rates around the nation, and there’s likewise been an increasing rate of people that lack health insurance. The data is not entirely clear on whether these trends are in favor of right-to-work or forced unionism states, however.
Private-sector right-to-work, enrolled Senate Bill 116, now Public Act 349 of 2012:
Who Voted "Yes" and Who Voted "No” in the House
Who Voted "Yes" and Who Voted "No” in the Senate
Public-sector right-to-work, enrolled House Bill 4003, now Public Act 348 of 2012:
Last spring, Michigan eliminated its helmet requirement for motorcycle riders who had additional insurance coverage and met other conditions.
Six months after the bill went into effect, MLive ran an investigative series claiming to show the "regrettable impact of the change."
State and national media relied heavily on Mackinac Center experts to explain the benefits to Michigan becoming the 24th right-to-work state Tuesday.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio appeared on Fox Business and was cited in The Boston Globe, and also discussed the issue on KXNT 100.5FM in Las Vegas.
When future histories about Michigan’s right-to-work law are authored, there will no-doubt be much ink spilled on the role played by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy and others. The Center’s scholars have been talking and writing about right-to-work practically since we opened our doors 25 years ago.
Oh, how well I remember this piece in the Detroit Free Press from almost 20 years ago! Better yet, I remember the reaction to it: A scattering of lukewarm encouragement on the order of “good luck on that one” and “someday maybe, but not in my lifetime” and a whole lot of “no way, never” with some unrepeatable epithets tossed in to underscore the point.
Over at Michigan Radio, Rick Pluta makes an interesting observation: “The fact is union membership has typically dropped off in the other 23 states that have adopted ‘right-to-work’ laws.”
The fact that unionization is down is true. But adopting a RTW law, counterintuitively, does not seem to impact the rates of unionization. Unionization across the country is down, and there seem to be no difference in these trends between right-to-work and non-right-to-work states.
As Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, pointed out in this blog post, the Center has a long history of support for right-to-work policies that stretches back more than two decades. In researching that history, LaFaive found an interesting coincidence.
About 26,000 students in metro Detroit will miss school today because their teachers chose to travel to Lansing to protest right-to-work legislation, Michigan Capitol Confidential reports.
Many opponents of a Michigan right-to-work law cite figures generated by a union-funded entity called the “Economic Policy Institute.”
EPI President Lawrence Mishel is a "longtime member of the Democratic Socialists of America," according to an article posted on that organization’s website (go to page 15).
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was on Fox News Sunday and on CNN today discussing Michigan’s progress toward passing a right-to-work law.
President Obama last week spoke out against the effort in Lansing to pass a right-to-work law and is expected to reiterate his opposition to worker freedom today in a previously scheduled visit to Detroit.
"The President believes our economy is stronger when workers get good wages and good benefits, and he opposes attempts to roll back their rights,” said a White House spokesman. “Michigan — and its workers' role in the revival of the US automobile industry — is a prime example of how unions have helped build a strong middle class and a strong American economy."
The owners of the Detroit Red Wings are looking to building a new $650-million entertainment district for the team in downtown Detroit with the help of state and local taxpayers.
The plan is in its early stages and details are scarce, but the overwhelming economic consensus is that subsidized stadiums are huge losers for taxpayers.
An amusing asymmetry in historical studies occurred with the November publications of “The Iron Curtain” by historian Anne Applebaum and “The Untold History of the United States” and its companion eight-part miniseries by historian Peter Kuznick and Oscar-winning director and screenwriter Oliver Stone — amusing because the former is a diligently researched work by a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian while the latter is a revisionist fever dream by the loudest, most paranoid customer in Hollywood’s head shop.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio today in The Bay City Times explains what a right-to-work law can accomplish.
“It’s historic,” he said. “For the last 25 years, the Mackinac Center has said right-to-work is right for Michigan. It’s a huge policy that gives workers freedom.
Several school superintendents are suggesting that proposed education reform legislation would lead to segregation in Michigan schools.
In a column titled "A dagger aimed at the heart of public education," Bloomfield Hills Superintendent Rob Glass writes that House Bill 5923, which would allow for new forms of charter public schools, including selective schools, "...will likely lead to greater segregation in our public schools."
As Michigan gets closer to becoming a right-to-work state, the focus often is on economics. There are plenty of reasons to support worker freedom based on that alone, but we should always remember the most important aspect: Allowing members the choice of whether to financially support a political organization is a moral one.
House Bill 4054, Make Michigan a "right-to-work" state: Passed 58 to 52 in the House
To prohibit employers from enforcing a union contract provision that compels employees to join or financially support a union as a condition of employment. The bill also includes a $1 million appropriation to make it "referendum-proof." All Democrats voted "no" and all Republicans voted "yes" except for Reps. Forlini, Goike, Horn, McBroom, Somerville and Zorn.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio told CNN today that a right-to-work law, “simply gives workers the freedom to choose whether or not to pay a union.”
Vernuccio also pointed out that right-to-work laws have no impact on collective bargaining “except for taking away the union’s ability to get a worker fired for not paying them.”
