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Majority rule is supposed to be a fundamental principle of labor law: if workers want a union, they get one. If they don’t want one, they don’t have to have one. Workers have a right to join a union, but also a right to reject unionization. That’s not the case any more thanks to a recent National Labor Relations Board ruling in the case of Lamons Gasket, a gasket and bolt manufacutring company in Houston, that opens the door for collusive unionization.
All too often, township officials around the state seem to have a double standard when it comes to permitting wind farms vs. other developments. In many townships, property owners are dismayed to find that many uses of their property are controlled by a myriad of rules and ordinances. The same level of local government control does not always apply to wind farm developers.
The founder of a self-described “centrist” think tank praises a recent statistical analysis by Mackinac Center experts regarding needed changes in Michigan’s liquor pricing and distribution system in an Op-Ed for today’s Livingston Daily Press & Argus.
An editorial in today’s Detroit News on school reform cites work by Mackinac Center analysts that shows Michigan could save $5.7 billion annually if public-sector benefits were brought into balance with those offered in the private sector.
James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, addressed recent legislative changes regarding savings from school employee health insurance yesterday in Michigan Capitol Confidential.
Keynesian economics — “stimulus” or deficit spending by the government to “prime the pump” of a slow economy — is one symptom of a central planning approach to growing an economy at the national level, vs. adopting policies that unfetter entreprenuerial free market capitalism. Any pretentions to its intellectual validity were demolished by the “stagflation” of the 1970s, when the theory’s prescriptions led not to prosperity but to something it predicted could not happen: high unemployment and high inflation. Remember the 1980 “misery index?” (Unemployment rate plus inflation.)
Ken Braun, managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential, was a guest recently on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR 760AM, where he discussed a recent article that exposed how the city of Lansing is spending hundreds of thousands of dollars a year on golf courses it owns while at the same time contemplating laying off dozens of police officers.
A recent story in Michigan Capitol Confidential about Michigan International Speedway receiving more than $18 million in taxpayer subsidies is highlighted in a Detroit News editorial today that calls for an end to what it calls “special deals in the tax code.”
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s war on energy, which has been fought primarily in the political trenches of Washington, is about to be taken to the streets and neighborhoods of America.
The EPA has launched an unprecedented attack on coal-fired power plants through a plethora of rule makings that will take effect in the near future. The proposed rules have the common goal of eliminating coal as a source of fuel to generate electricity. The new EPA rules are bad news for Michigan which currently generates about two-thirds of its electricity from coal-fired power plants. Replacing these with unreliable wind energy is not practical. Power plants fueled by natural gas can replace lost production from shuttered coal plants, but the cost of electricity will necessarily increase. Michigan already has the highest electric rates in the region and a further increase in electricity rates will only further erode the state’s competiveness in creating jobs.
State Rep. Timothy Bledsoe, a Democrat from Grosse Pointe, said he's worried that a statewide, mandatory schools of choice program would be the "death blow" to local control of schools.
Every time you hear “public schools have to accept all kids,” remember these words from Rep. Bledsoe: "If your school board cannot control its boundaries and who is allowed to attend your schools, there just isn't much left that Lansing can't determine," Bledsoe told The Associated Press.
Today’s Detroit News editorial cites a new analysis by Mackinac Center experts and calls for an end to the state’s role as “middleman” in the sale and distribution of liquor.
Gov. Rick Snyder recently appointed a 21-member panel to review the process that sees the state purchase all liquor sold in the state, then place a 65 percent markup and four different taxes on the spirits that then go to retail stores, restaurants and bars.
Earlier today the Gerald Ford School of Public Policy released a survey of local government officials revealing that local politicians are much more likely to see government employee unions as a negative than as a positive.
The survey, part of the Ford School’s Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy (CLOSUP), asked local officials for their opinion on government employee unions. In particular the survey asked for opinions on how unions affected overall performance and fiscal health, and then asked for an assessment of labor relations between local governments and the unions that represent their employees.
Imagine if the Legislature imposed a windmill and solar energy mandate on electric utilities that required many more workers to produce the same amount of power and also increased your annual electric bills by around $100. (Actually, it already did — see 2007 Senate Bill 213; House vote here, and Senate vote here.)
More than half of Michigan’s public school districts contract out for custodial, busing or food services because they have to in order to direct more dollars to the classroom, according to an Op-Ed Sunday in the Detroit Free Press by Mackinac Center researchers.
MichiganVotes.org sends a weekly report to newspapers and TV stations around the state showing how state legislators in their service area voted on the most important or interesting bills of the past week.
Senate Bill 7, Mandate 20 percent government employee health benefit contribution: Passed 25 to 13 in the Senate
To prohibit local governments and public schools from providing employee health insurance benefits whose premiums cost more (in the aggregate) than $5,500 for a single person, $11,000 for a couple and $15,000 for a family plan, or alternatively, require employees to contribute at least 20 percent toward the cost. Most local governments but not schools could waive the requirements with a two-thirds vote of their governing body. Republican Tom Casperson joined all Democrats in voting "no."
Climate change alarmists have been busy blaming every conceivable threat to mankind and the planet on global warming. The mainstream media eagerly report every new study that predicts the Armageddon-like consequences we can expect from defiling the planet by breathing and burning fossil fuels. If we did not have enough to fear from melting glaciers flooding our major cities to extensive droughts and the invasion of exotic diseases, we now have to worry about aliens invading the planet to punish us for our eco-sins.
The Washington Post reported this week that in the face of hesitation and outright resistance from governors and legislatures, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is "working on a new partnership model to let state agencies help run the exchange — perhaps without the need for legislative authorization."
State law requires that schools, not parents provide school supplies, according to a recent commentary by Patrick Wright, director of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which was reported on WEYI-TV25 in Saginaw.
Wright also discussed the issue on “The Frank Beckmann Show” on WJR-760AM.
Paul Kersey, director of labor policy, pointed out in a Detroit News editorial regarding the labor strife between the Central Michigan University Faculty Association and the administration that the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act does not require that “management agree to union demands.”
Imagine a law that gave a government board the power to decide whether or not new grocery stores could be built, and whether existing ones could expand or install new equipment. For example, a law that forced the Meijer’s near your house to go through a complex and lengthy bureaucratic process before it could add some new freezer cases, and prove the new capacity wouldn’t drive up overall grocery prices.
In the Detroit News account of the faculty strike at Central Michigan University, one comment stood out. It comes from CMU Faculty Association President Laura Frey:
This take-it-or-leave-it attitude is what we’ve faced all along…We’ve filed unfair labor practice charges against the university, citing their refusal to bargain in good faith. This is why the faculty is not where they really want to be – with their students.
Faculty members at Central Michigan University who are demanding higher salary and benefits than the university is prepared to pay have voted to defy state law and go on strike. Here's how President Ronald Reagan famously dealt with another group of government employees who thought they were indispensable and above the law:
An Op-Ed by Michael LaFaive about how a newly appointed panel can help reform the state’s beer and wine laws appeared recently in the Shelby Township Advisor & Source.
LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, has written about the issue numerous times, including here, here and here.
No fewer than three Mackinac Center’s “Viewpoints” are featured on The Oakland Press editorial page today.
James Hohman, assistant director of fiscal policy, discusses the state’s underfunded pension liability for government employees, Labor Policy Director Paul Kersey explains how to fix public-sector union problems, and Education Policy Director Mike Van Beek lays out a case for more school choice in Michigan. Van Beek's piece also appeared in the Port Huron Times-Herald.
An oppressive regulatory regime that is hostile to creating jobs is holding back economic recovery in the state. Environmental rules and policies enforced by the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality are especially effective in creating barriers to companies that would like to locate or expand in the state and create much needed jobs.
