In Michigan, Foundation staff attorneys are providing legal aid to Johnson Controls (JCIM) Grand Rapids employees who want the UAW union hierarchy removed as the monopoly bargaining agent. Meanwhile UAW union organizers are attempting to force their way into JCIM’s Holland plant:

Grand Rapids, MI (December 23, 2008) – With free legal assistance from the National Right to Work Foundation, a Johnson Controls (JCIM) employee at the Talon Court facility in Kentwood has filed a decertification petition seeking an election to oust the United Auto Workers (UAW) union as the JCIM workers’ monopoly bargaining agent.

The development is another blow to the UAW union hierarchy which has taken a major public relations hit in recent months because of its role in driving the Big Three automakers to the brink of bankruptcy.

JCIM worker Dawn Lambert filed the decertification petition with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which should conduct a secret-ballot election to determine whether or not a majority of the workforce wants to retain the UAW union as their monopoly bargaining agent. Under federal labor law governing the private sector, once the NLRB grants union officials monopoly bargaining status, it is illegal for any present or future employees – whether they are members of the union or not – to negotiate with their employer for themselves unless they can prove that the union hierarchy does not retain majority support.

Because a clear majority of the employees at the Talon Court facility in Kentwood have expressed their intent to remove the UAW, National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys have also sent a letter to JCIM management demanding that they cease further contract negotiations and also withdraw recognition of what is now a minority union. Under the law, recognizing and negotiating with a union that does not have majority support is an unfair labor practice.

Read the rest of the Foundation's press release here.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union is objecting to a plan by Detroit city officials to turn over an abandoned nursery to Greening of Detroit, a nonprofit group. What's the problem, exactly?

Using privately raised funds and volunteers, the group would restore the nursery and use it to provide mature trees to neighborhoods. Greening already plants 2,000 trees a year throughout the city.

But the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees obtained an injunction from Wayne County Circuit Court against the deal, saying it violates the collective bargaining agreement. The union says the bargaining agreement applies to any deals to turn over control of city operations to a third party -- meaning city workers must staff the nursery.

...

Terrence King, director of the city's General Services Department, called the union's position baffling. Not only would no city workers be displaced, but there should be more work for city forestry workers once the trees are grown, he said.

Baffling is an understatement. But if these volunteers were paying forced union dues like Detroit city employees must do, we doubt the union bosses would be objecting.

A few Right to Work-related updates from over the weekend:

1.) A recent survey shows broad, bipartisan support for maintaining secret ballot elections in the workplace. Although the erroneously-titled "Employee Free Choice Act" has gained legislative momentum, 82% of all Democrat voters, 77% of all Republicans, and 79% of Independents oppose replacing secret ballot elections with coercive "card-check" organizing drives.

2.) Both the SEIU and the United Steelworkers unions are considering overseas expansion in concert with unions in Australia, Great Britain, and elsewhere. International efforts at unionization may exacerbate existing tensions within the SEIU over inadequate local representation.

3.) Implictly rebutting the claims advanced by union officials in a recent Detroit News op-ed, community and business leaders in Michigan are speaking out in favor of greater worker freedom. Here are a few choice excerpts (emphasis mine):

Michigan as a whole is at a critical crossroads. West Michigan wants a voice of its own," Jeanne Engelhart, president of the Grand Rapids Chamber of Commerce, told me in a recent interview . . .

. . . Engelhart doesn't trash the Mackinac conference; she has attended in past years and found it useful. But she does suggest that west Michiganders might be more willing than Detroiters to push hard for government spending cuts and discuss controversial topics like right-to-work legislation, which would ban compulsory labor union membership."

. . . Dick Haworth, chairman of Holland-based Haworth Inc., believes a serious discussion of right-to-work status for Michigan is worth pursuing. "The union environment," he said, "does not allow you to adapt quickly, or at all, to the world we live in."

It's not just about wages and benefits; it's more about flexibility, Haworth said. "In a lot of cases, we're not using world-class methods and processes. We need to be better students of what world-class is."

 

The Detroit News has just published a remarkably fact-free op-ed on the economics of the Right to Work issue. Given the author makes his living from Big Labor's forced dues gravy train (he's a treasurer with the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters & Millwrights) which is partly responsible for Michigan's ongoing economic nightmare, it's no wonder he would be alarmed by the talk of cancelling union bosses' compulsory union dues privileges in Michigan.

The author starts out with this mind-boggling passage:

"Undeniably, having Michigan become a "right-to-work" state would be bad for workers, helping dismantle freely negotiated wage standards and benefits, as well as worker protections, in many industries. In right-to-work states, nonunion members can opt out of paying union dues, even though they receive all the guarantees and protections of the existing union contract under which they work." [Emphasis added]

Freely negotiated wage standards? Really? Is that what they are calling the system of mandatory bargain-or-be-prosecuted federal labor policy? Warehousing employees into collective bargaining units doesn't result in "free" anything, and to suggest otherwise is Orwellian double-talk.

The article continues:

"The reality is that "right-to-work" is not just a union issue. Our modern Michigan economy is in many ways "indivisible." For example, the strength and quality of our outstanding Michigan health care sector relies on the earned health care benefits of workers across many employment sectors, union or nonunion, skilled trade or service worker, blue collar or white.

Similarly, pension funds (whether defined benefit programs negotiated by labor unions in both the public and private sectors, 401(k) and similar plans provided by private employers or individual retirement accounts) are invested directly in our community, while their management supports the financial services sector of our Michigan economy."

Union officials' corrupt history of pension fund management should immediately give Michiganders pause. And the union record on health insurance is hardly better. Take the Michigan Education Association, for example. The Association's health insurance plan forces Michigan taxpayers to subsidize a bloated, uncompetitive payment scheme whose shady accounting procedures have been linked to union political activism.

The article concludes by citing some bogus report issued by Jeff Vincent, research director of the Indiana University Division of Labor Studies' Institute for the Study of Labor in Society.

Vincent's study conveniently ignores Right to Work states' comparative advantages in both higher real earnings and lower average costs of living. In other words, workers' paychecks go a lot further in economically dynamic Right to Work states because the goods they purchase are significantly cheaper.

At this juncture, it's worth noting that the moral case for Right to Work principles is entirely separate from the issue of material prosperity. Here at Freedom@Work, we believe that employees everywhere have an inalienable right to choose whether or not to associate with a union, regardless of anyone's feelings or the perceived economic benefits of collective bargaining. But it's also nice to know that study after study has validated the significant economic, job-creating advantages of Right to Work policies.

As we've said before in this space, defending the rights of employees' not to be forced to pay dues to get or keep a job is the right thing to do no matter the economic ramifications. Fortunately though, there are economic benefits to protecting employees' Right to Work, as many studies by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research have found.

And a new paper released yesterday by the Michigan-based Mackinac Center, again confirms the Right to Work economic advantage:

In the key metrics of economic growth, Right to Work states have a distinct advantage when it comes to unemployment rates, income growth, population increases and jobs.

You can read the Mackinac paper in its entirety here. The paper also looks at the devastating economic impact that forced unionism has had on Michigan.

The Foundation's sister organization, the National Right to Work Committee, reports that it is increasingly gaining traction in efforts to pass a Right to Work law through the Michigan legislature.

Over at the Times Herald’s opinion section, another union boss whined about the growing Right to Work movement in Michigan. The ex construction union chief had this to say:

“If Michigan becomes a right-to-work state, you might as well pack your bags and leave it.”

The problem is (as we have repeatedly reported here) Michiganders are already leaving the state – precisely because of Big Labor’s forced unionism stranglehold. The lack of a Right to Work law has not only deprived employees of their freedom of association, but it has also contributed to Michigan’s skyrocketing unemployment levels and heavy taxes.

Right to Work laws guarantee that no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join, nor to pay dues to a labor union. It’s no wonder Michiganders are packing their bags for Right to Work states.

Let’s hope that this situation changes before the state’s economy collapses.

Speaking of not taking no for an answer, local story from The Morning Sun in Michigan highlights that the housekeeping staff at the Soaring Eagle Casino & Resort rejected the Teamsters union in a vote against unionization by more than 2-to-1.

On the surface, one would think that it was a victory for the employees at the hotel and casino. But having received news of the election defeat, Teamsters bosses promised to stick around for another year to make sure they successfully influence the next vote in their favor.

The Morning Sun reports:

“They waxed us pretty good,” said Ed Morin, business agent for Teamsters Local 486. “We’re not walking away from it.”…He said the Teamsters will not go away, and will continue to try to organize other employee groups. “We’ll be around to talk to the other people,” Morin said.

The employees have spoken, but Teamsters officials just refuse to listen.

For some time now, we have highlighted the immense advantages Right to Work states have over forced unionism states. But one particular Midwestern state just keeps inching its way back into the limelight – and not in a good way: Michigan.

Workers in this struggling, economically-depressed state have been forced to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job for years. Correspondingly, the data shows the state’s economy is one of the worst in the nation and has a 7.7 percent unemployment rate.

In this Grand Rapids Press piece, Paul Kersey (director of labor policy for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy) tells Michiganders that it’s time to take a long, hard look at and the vice grip that compulsory unionism has on workers. Kersey writes:

“…it's time we made union dues optional and let workers decide whether the union is representing them well. States that make union dues optional have been outperforming Michigan for better than 30 years.”

No person should be compelled to pay dues to a union if they don’t want to and Michigan’s situation proves forced unionism doesn’t pay off. Only when the payment of union dues is strictly voluntary, maybe then Michigan’s economy will see prosperity like Oklahoma, which was the most recent state to pass a Right to Work law.

It’s no secret that The Wolverine state is a high-taxed, forced unionism state. Without a Right to Work law on the books, Michigan is lumped with 27 other states in the nation that force hard-working Americans to pay tribute to a union in order to get or keep a job.

Another economic analyst recently pointed out that most of Michigan’s economic woes are a result of Big Labor’s stranglehold over worker free choice and argued the state will be better off with a Right to Work law.

The Midland Daily News pointed out the economic benefits of Right to Work laws:

In 2005 and 2006, nine of the 10 fastest-growing states had Right to Work laws and, in the longer haul, from 1986 to 2006, eight of the fastest-growing states had such laws in force.

Read more about Right to Work laws here.