On 2012-12-08, at 2:35 AM, andie_nachgeborenen wrote:
> Big Auto and the UAW have a close, even a friendly relationship. I don't think the automakers could run their companies without the unions.
But doesn't the legislation take direct aim at union security by relieving employers of the obligation to checkoff and remit dues? If workers covered by a union contract aren't required to pay dues in exchange for its benefits, you get increasing numbers of "free riders" and the union gradually withers and dies. As you know, it's a stealth way of deterring or destroying unions in all so-called "right to work" states.
The remaining big employers like the autoworkers who continue to tolerate unions do so because they cannot arbitrarily bust them, and because they help ensure labour peace and, in today's unfavourable conditions, are prepared to accede to demands for concessions. But I doubt the Big Three would do anything to help the UAW maintain itself in their plants if they are no longer required to do so by law - not in the absence of wildcat strikes, sit-ins, and other forms of class conflict which forced them and other big manufacturers in the 1930's to accept the union shop and the institutionalization of industrial relations.
But perhaps there's something in the Michigan legislation which is not as sweeping an attack on union security as I expect.
> On Dec 7, 2012, at 4:42 PM, Marv Gandall <marvgand at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> On 2012-12-07, at 3:45 PM, c b wrote:
>>
>>> By the way , yesterday , a day that will live in infamy, the Michigan
>>> Republicans made Michigan a Work-for-less state. I think we are about
>>> to have a big class warfare battle here.
>>
>> Who'd have thought Michigan, birthplace of industrial unionism, would have a Republican governor and legislature daring to engage in union-busting of this kind. Is it the same picture as elsewhere - mostly white small towns, suburbs, and rural areas against organized labour and people of colour in the cities, ie. Detroit? Seems last month's failure of the referendum to entrench collective bargaining rights has emboldened the state government. Have the big automakers been supporting the legislation, quietly or otherwise? And are the unions planning actions apart from demonstrations?
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