According to a recent poll, only 6% of Michiganders said they wanted Michigan legislators to pass a law in the legislature’s lame-duck session making Michigan a “right to work” (for less) state. (Editor’s note: the poll also showed that “right-to-work” is a highly divisive issue in the state, with 51% opposing “right-to-work” and 42% supporting it when they’re told what it is). But Governor Rick Snyder doesn’t give a rat’s tail. And today, the wretched (Republican-controlled) legislature of Michigan enacted a union killing bill pawned off as a “right-to-work” bill.
Meanwhile, a new study shows the folly of the so-called right-to-work laws. The Center for American Progress has produced a study to show just how badly Gov. Snyder’s plan will hurt Michigan workers, the state of Michigan and, if extrapolated across the U.S. economy, the entire country.
You gotta hate workers to want them to work for less. And that’s precisely what the latest Republican trashing of unions does. Gov. Snyder’s doing the bidding of ALEC and the extractive/banking/manufacturing sectors who are so greedy they would ratchet back wages to sub-minimum wage if they could get away with it. Think I exaggerate?
Republicans in Congress and in statehouses have already made the case to get rid of the minimum wage. What’s left? And Bearing Drift had the nerve to equate union membership with slavery when, as Lowell reminded, it is precisely the opposite.
Speaking of Bearing Drift, they’ve jumped the shark yet again. Now we are told unions are “terrorists.” That’s right, unions are like Al Qaeda. Let me get this straight. Today’s Republican Party and its mouthpieces actively try to savage everyone in America but the rich. They have brought government to a standstill over and over again. And they have extorted draconian cuts that hurt real people.
They want the old without Social Security and Medicare. They want to lay off workers at will so employers can ship jobs overseas and leave workers with no unemployment insurance. They want to take health care away from the sick. They want those who are sick with insurance to be able to be stripped of it. They want children to go to for profit schools who do education on the cheap and exploit kids with unhealthy food. And they appear to want war without end.
It never stops. Over and over they have held us hostage to their ruthless, extreme scorched-earth tactics. It’s their way or the highway. They think they actually won the election when Democrats won both the Senate and the Presidency and picked up seats in the House. Essentially, they think John Boehner is president. Today they hold 98% of Americans hostage again in a bogus “fiscal cliff” phony crisis. Again, just who are the terrorists?
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