Poll: Support for right-to-work law evenly divided in Michigan

[alp227]

Source: AP via Detroit Free Press

Michigan residents are about evenly divided over whether their new right-to-work law will help or hurt the economy, according to a Michigan State University poll.

Forty-three percent of those polled said the law will help Michigan's economy, while 41 percent said it will hurt, the university said. The difference is within the poll's 3 percentage point margin of sampling error.

Measures the Republican-led Legislature and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder approved last year bars unions from collecting mandatory payments from workers they represent under collective bargaining agreements. They took effect Thursday.

Michigan is now among 24 states with right-to-work laws.

Read more: http://www.freep.com/article/20130331/NEWS06/130331029/Poll-Support-for-right-to-work-law-evenly-divided-in-Michigan

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See also Rick Haglund's latest column, "As GOP legislators stall on Gov. Rick Snyder's critical issues, this passes for lawmaking?"

[MrSlayer]

1. People don't understand the law.

If people knew that "Right to work" meant fucking workers up the ass and not "We have a right to jobs" the poll would be heavily against it. But people are dumb and the owners are clever in their marketing. Thus, an evenly divided poll.

[Kingofalldems]

2. Exactly. It's about driving wages down.

[George II]

3. I was just about to post the very same thing, then saw your post.

Of course, my response wouldn't have been quite as graphic.

But the general public really doesn't know what "right to work"represents or what it really means.

[etherealtruth]

5. Exactly! The majority of our voters simply do not understand

In addition "our" right wing nut jobs can "out nut" just about anyone anywhere.

[Occulus]

6. And what *exactly* does "right to work" mean in practical terms?

What "rights" does it grant employers and/or employees?

Forget the ideological opposition for a moment. Explain it to me. Preferably, as though I'm five years old. I'm serious here, because your post and the three that agree with you (I happen to as well) all say the same thing: the public doesn't know what it really means. The one thing missing from all of them, though, is what "right to work" really means, in practical terms.

Again, I agree, but please.. what does it actually mean?

[MichiganVote]

8. In Michigan it currently means

If you work in a Union shop and you do not want to belong to the Union membership, you are not compelled to do so. You do not have to pay a union severance fee. You would still be entitled to union wage negotiated contracts and other worker negotiated agreements WITHOUT paying into the Union-IF you don't want to. Hence the freeloader connotation. By law, if you choose to disengage from the Union and not pay union dues, you cannot be harassed or otherwise prevailed upon to join the Union.

On the flip side-, you as a non union member, are not guaranteed to the same wage and benefit package as the Union employees. So if or when an employer decides to slide your job description into a part time, consult or at will employee position, they can do so. Some Union members are required to be a part of a prescribed medical plan--if you are a non union employee, you may not be required to do so and/or you may not have medical coverage at all.

As a side note: In Michigan, no employee has ever been compelled to be a part of the Union in an employer shop. The only difference is that in some locale, employees have had to pay a service fee not to do so, usually ranging a few hundred dollars.

[MrSlayer]

12. Here's a good article that explains it.

http://www.epi.org/publication/working-hard-indiana-bad-tortured-uphill/

[Swede Atlanta]

4. I am totally opposed to "right-to-work" laws BUT......

I was a member of a union for the first 10 years of my working career.

While the union contract established work rules including overtime and holiday pay, health and dental insurance and pension rights, it also prescribed seniority and other rights that were not necessarily in line with employee productivity, capability or performance.

I agree with the general premise of collective bargaining but I think unions need to modernize to establish baseline salaries and work rules but provide mutually-agreed flexibility in recognizing and advancing union employees based on performance and capability.

At the time I took a "non-union" job at the same employer, I had supervisors who were supervisors simply because they had been there since they were 18 years old. They were arguably much less capable or effective than employees with less seniority. The system breeds an "age" bias that is not, in my opinion, warranted in today's economy.

It used to be that you start out as an apprentice and move on to eventually be a master of your trade. In many professions the path from apprentice to master is accomplished over the course of 2-5 years. That makes this an "age" based system and not a capability or performance based undertaking.

Unions would do themselves well to modernize and, while protecting employees' rights, work to advance the collective interests of the membership and the company. It CAN be done. Sure there are those entities such as Wal-Hell where that is likely not achievable in any lifetime before the second coming but there are companies out there where this approach is at least possible.

[Wolf Frankula]

7. Right to Work Means Right to Work for Less

That's what we called it in the Newspaper Guild and the Teamsters.

Wolf

[magic59]

9. 43% of Michigans population

are dumber than a fence post. That is why they keep voting fascists into office.

[putitinD]

10. I don't believe these numbers, the Detroit Free Press has become a right wing rag over the last few

years

[jwirr]

11. It seems to me that MI voters have set a course of self destruction. Obama saves the auto industry

but they turn the other way in self governing.