Michigan Stands Up for Freedom...and Unions and POTUS Don't Like It One Bit

Michigan today enacted a series of laws designed to ensure employees' the "right to work". From press accounts one might think this is an exceptional and outrageous action, that it is reversing decades of union protections. Of course, that is untrue. Twenty-three States have had such laws in effect before Michigan. Such laws simply allow an employee to opt out of a union, to choose not to be a member. Some States place restrictions on that. But the basic principle of right to work is quite simple and fair. It is that every employee should have the right to belong to a union but no employee should be compelled to belong to a union.

For some bizarre reason, President Obama chose to wade into a purely State's issue to pontificate:

What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions… These so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics. What they are really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money. 

Nothing in a right to work law restricts a union's right to negotiate. Now, our President should know that. Even though he's never held a job in a "real" business--he's a product of community organizations and public sector roles--surely he must understand that a right to work law simply expands an individual's rights; it surely does NOT restrict those rights.

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news byte, 06-06-12

Governor Walker's Victory Spells Doom For Public Sector Unions: Forbes

Public sector unions have reached their high water mark. Let the cleanup begin as the red ink recedes. Despite a last-minute smear campaign accusing Scott Walker of fathering an illegitimate love child, the governor's recall election victory sends a clear message that should resonate around the nation: The fiscal cancer devouring state budgets has a cure, and he has found it. http://bit.ly/KfsH0O

Democrats Search for Silver Lining in Wisconsin Defeat : By John Fund - The Corner - National Review Online

John Fund writes on NRO: Democrats are looking for silver linings from the drubbing they received in Wisconsin last night. They've seized on an exit poll showing that while Scott Walker exceeded his 2010 margin of victory last night in winning by seven points, the same electorate that kept him in office would support Barack. http://bit.ly/M7QH7q

Occupy Union Halls?

I've read the Occupy Wall Street "manifesto". It's absurd, remarkably inarticulate and disjointed. It meanders from treatment of animals to student loans. It's essentially a handful of "I wants" that a handful of entitled people threw against the wall and decided that EVERYTHING should stick.

But one of their indictments, as it were, is against corporations for their campaign contributions:

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

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