Indeed. The price of freedom - eternal vigilance. So long as their
bellies are full (whether it is good food or not - apparently), the
sheeple will not stand up to the challenge. They have been too well
conditioned to be brain dead, drones unable to consider the "whys" in
their lives. Unable to tell truth from lies. All too willing to follow
the carrot dangling from the stick, un-noticing of all else around them.
Limit and distort the education and the slave force will grow.
D.
On 11/12/2012 2:46 PM, Ray Harrell wrote:
You can never let down. They got lazy and were raped by the barons.
REH
*From:*[email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Arthur
Cordell
*Sent:* Tuesday, December 11, 2012 5:08 PM
*To:* [email protected]; 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME
DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION'
*Subject:* [Futurework] Limiting Union Power
What future for unions?
Michigan Bills Limiting Union Power Pass in Legislature
·/by/MONICA DAVEY
·Dec. 11, 2012
.
Protesters argued on the steps of the Michigan Capitol on Tuesday as
state lawmakers considered right to work legislation.
LANSING, Mich. --- *The Michigan Legislature approved sweeping
legislation on Tuesday that vastly reduces the power of organized
labor in a state that has been a symbol of union dominance and served
as an incubator for union activity over decades of modern American
labor history.*
The two bills, approved by the House of Representatives over the
shouts of thousands of angry union protesters who gathered on the lawn
outside the Capitol building, will among other things, bar both public
and private sector workers from being required to pay fees as a
condition of their employment.
The bills have already been approved by the State Senate, and Gov.
Rick Snyder has said he intends to sign the legislation as soon as
this week. Procedural maneuvering could still briefly delay the bill
through calls for reconsideration.
Lisa Posthumus Lyons, a House Republican, who said her family included
union members, said the legislation gave workers the freedom to make
their own choices. "Yes, we are witnessing history," she said. "This
is the day when Michigan freed its workers."
Mark Meadows, a House Democrat, had a different take. "I was hoping
that this day would never come," he said. *"In the last two years
there's been a chipping away at bargaining. But today, the
corporations delivered the coup de grâce."*
From a distance, there would seem no more unlikely a success for such
legislation than Michigan, where labor, hoping to demonstrate strength
after a series of setbacks, asked voters last month to enshrine
collective bargaining into the State Constitution.
But that ballot measure failed badly, and suddenly a reverse drive was
under way that has brought the state to a moment startling in its
symbolism. *How the home of the United Automobile Workers
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_automobile_workers/index.html?inline=nyt-org>**^1
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-1> **finds
itself on the cusp of becoming the 24th state to ban compulsory union
fees --- and only the second state to pass such legislation in a
decade --- is the latest chapter in a larger battle over the role of
unions in the industrial heart of the nation. *
As the debate over the bills intensified Tuesday, the authorities
closed the Capitol after saying the building had reached its capacity
of more than 2,000. That left thousands of noisy union members ---
many dressed in red --- on the lawn outside, although the doors to the
building were opened again later in the morning.
Streets around the Capitol were also closed to traffic and clusters of
state police, some equipped with riot gear, kept posts throughout the
building and along nearby streets.
At least two school districts around the state announced that they
would close for the day, as word spread that teachers and other
workers planned to protest in Lansing.
As Republicans in the state House moved uncommonly swiftly to pass the
measures, union demonstrators outside --- the sound of their drumbeats
becoming progressively louder inside the chamber --- chanted, "Kill
the bill! Kill the bill!"
Once the first bill
<http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billengrossed/House/htm/2011-HEBS-4003.htm>^2
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-2> ---
related to public employees --- was approved by a 58-to-51 vote, union
supporters cried out from the gallery, "Recall! Recall! Recall!"
Republicans hold a 64-to-46 majority in the state House, and aside
from a few dissenters, the vote was generally along party lines.
The second bill
<http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billengrossed/Senate/htm/2011-SEBS-0116.htm>^3
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-3> ,
covering private sector unions, was passed by the House about an hour
and a half later by a 58-to-52 vote.
Democrats around the nation, including President Obama, have denounced
the measures in recent days.
"You know, these so-called right-to-work laws, they don't have to do
with economics," said Mr. Obama, during a visit to a truck factory
outside Detroit on Monday. "They have everything to do with politics.
What they're really talking about is giving you the right to work for
less money."
Before the first House vote Tuesday, Democrats had sought to slow down
the proceedings by employing whatever tactics they could dream up. One
was to offer an array of amendments with the idea of destabilizing the
bill by a thousand cuts. Among the suggestions: Send the question to a
public vote. Each amendment however, was quickly rejected.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"This is being forced down people's throats," said Jon M. Switalski, a
Democrat . "It's being done so in a very poor way --- in lame duck
with no committee meetings."
Then, Democrats, one by one, recalled their family histories in labor
unions and reminisced about what unions once meant to the country. But
primarily, they spoke about their objections to the speed at which the
bills had made their way through the House and about the methods used
by their Republican colleagues to win approval for the measures.
Joan Bauer, a Democrat, said she was saddened and sickened by what was
happening.
"I cannot believe this legislation was rammed through in one day," Ms.
Bauer said.
But Rick Olson, a Republican, said the legislation was a matter of
worker choice, not of harming unions. Mr. Olson described the move as
"tough love" for unions.
The success of the legislation is a reflection of mounting tension
between labor leaders and Michigan Republicans --- who took control of
the state two years ago --- and the result of a change of position by
Mr. Snyder, a political novice who had long avoided the issue because,
he had said, it was too divisive.
It is also an effort being closely watched --- and fueled, labor
leaders say --- by national conservative groups who see the outcome in
Michigan as an emblem for similar measures in other states with far
thinner union histories.
"Everybody has this image of Michigan as a labor state," said Bill
Ballenger, the editor of Inside Michigan Politics
<http://www.insidemichiganpolitics.com/>^4
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-4> . "But
organized labor has been losing clout, and the Republicans saw an
opportunity, and now the chickens are coming home to roost."
Since the wave of Republican wins in 2010 in statehouses in the
Midwest, campaigns to limit unions have boiled over in Wisconsin,
Ohio, Indiana and elsewhere. But in Michigan, where Republicans also
won control, those efforts had seemed more muted, with some in the
party, including Mr. Snyder, shying away from the broadest measures.
As it has throughout the country, membership in unions has fallen here
in recent decades --- about 17.5 percent of Michigan residents are
members --- and the statewide ballot proposal failed by 14 percentage
points on Nov. 6, even as Mr. Obama won the state.
Outside the Capitol, the protests continued even after the voting was
finished.
"This has been a union state for a long time," said Jim Scarlett, 62,
from Ann Arbor, who retired as a union telephone worker last month. "I
think with this legislation the standard of living is going to drop,
wages will drop, and health care may go away for workers."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
References
1. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-link-1>United
Automobile Workers
<http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_automobile_workers/index.html?inline=nyt-org>
(topics.nytimes.com:80)(
http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/u/united_automobile_workers/index.html?inline=nyt-org
)
2. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-link-2>first
bill
<http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billengrossed/House/htm/2011-HEBS-4003.htm>
(www.legislature.mi.gov:80 <http://www.legislature.mi.gov:80>)(
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billengrossed/House/htm/2011-HEBS-4003.htm
)
3. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-link-3>second
bill
<http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billengrossed/Senate/htm/2011-SEBS-0116.htm>
(www.legislature.mi.gov:80 <http://www.legislature.mi.gov:80>)(
http://www.legislature.mi.gov/documents/2011-2012/billengrossed/Senate/htm/2011-SEBS-0116.htm
)
4. ^
<http://www.readability.com/articles/0gjj0icj#rdb-footnote-link-4>Inside
Michigan Politics <http://www.insidemichiganpolitics.com/>
(www.insidemichiganpolitics.com:80
<http://www.insidemichiganpolitics.com:80>)(
http://www.insidemichiganpolitics.com/ )
Original URL:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/12/12/us/protesters-rally-over-michigan-union-limits-plan.html?nl=afternoonupdate&emc=edit_au_20121211&_r=0
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