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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
INDIANAPOLIS — Indiana Democrats may not be able maintain their absence from the Indiana House to prevent a vote on that state’s right-to-work legislation.
The Indiana House was scheduled to resume at 1:30 p.m., but it is unclear if the 40 Democratic state representatives will show up.
Last week, House Democrats were not present, preventing the majority needed for a quorum that would allow House Bill 1001, the right-to-work proposal, to be introduced in the House on the record. Without a quorum, no legislation can be introduced….
Read the rest at Statehouse News.
Also see coverage by The Watchdog.org: Indiana Senate committee passes Right-to-Work bill; Unions protest while Democrats boycott
A grassroots movement to enact right-to-work laws in Michigan began a campaign Thursday that its spokespeople called a fight for free choice that would create more jobs.
The group, called Michigan Freedom to Work, could turn up the heat on an issue that has simmered in Lansing and gained momentum with a Republican-led Legislature and GOP governor.
Eight union members and former union members said at a news conference that though unions are beneficial, their lock on members who are required to pay dues discourages companies from coming to Michigan.
They cited right-to-work states with more robust economies…
Read the rest at The Detroit Free Press.
-By Warner Todd Huston
The Associated Press is reporting that resistance to right-to-work laws is coming from a surprising source in many states where the legislation has been lately introduced. It seems that Republicans themselves are divided on the efficacy of right-to-work laws and are busy obstructing other Republicans that are for such laws.
AP notes that only one state, New Hampshire, which has newly introduced the bill, has seen it pass the legislature but even that state still might find the thing vetoed by a Democrat governor. In several other states Republicans are bickering over the law stalling passage.
Maddeningly, AP reports that, “some Republican lawmakers who represent more heavily unionized areas have teamed up with Democrats to protect unions from the legislation.” Certainly Democrats that have for decades had their hands in the union till are against a right-to-work law, but that these liberal Republicans are also reticent to pass the economy-spurring law is infuriating.
This isn’t any new idea, either. Already 22 states have right-to-work laws and it is no coincidence that these states are the ones that have seen economic success in comparison to those states that do not have such laws.
One of the important things that right-to-work laws do is to stop unions from forcing employees to join unions as a condition of being allowed to work in their chosen profession. Another thing that these laws do is stop governments from automatically taking dues money out of paychecks forcing unions to charge union members directly for dues — as it should be.
This is a great boon to taxpayers who are no longer forced to pay for the accounting and record keeping efforts that government is responsible for when government takes dues out of paychecks for the unions. If collecting dues isn’t the job of unions, then who’s job is it? Why are taxpayers forced to pay for the accounting efforts to collect union dues?
Of course, the reason that unions want government to automatically deduct union dues from employee’s paychecks is because when government collects dues for unions the unions are sure to get their dues money right away. You see, once unions are forced to go directly to their own members to collect dues money, those members begin to get a tad behind in payments — after all, no one wants to pay dues. This heavily cuts into the bottomless pot of money that unions are used to spending.
… and that is another good thing about right-to-work laws!
The legislature in Chile has shot down a union move to allow the country’s government workers collective bargaining and a “right” to strike.
After two days of debate the measure was shot down gaining only 21 votes, four votes shy of the two thirds necessary to win the day.
This is a good move for Chile. For countries south of the US border, Chile stands as one of the most economically successful and one of the reasons for this is that the country does not allow its government workers to drive up the costs of government by giving them rights to collectively bargain or strike.
Chile posted 7% GDP growth in the last quarter, on par with recent trends. Per capita income is now $17,000, 10 times what it was in 1980, and its successful social security system is now private.
As IBD notes, this makes Chile a “full right-to-work county.”
The idea is to prevent the ugly anti-democratic dynamic — now seen in Wisconsin and elsewhere — of public employee unions extorting concessions from politicians in exchange for campaign support.
This should be a lesson to the rest of the world. Success and economic freedom is exclusionary of unions.
