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The Detroit News Editorial by Mark T. Gaffney August 2009 Right to Work is simply wrong for Michigan. In these days when small businesses need customers who shop, who spend their discretionary income, reducing worker’s pay hurts local economies. In these days when fewer and fewer people have good healthcare coverage, those employees with decent health insurance are keeping our hospitals open. And in these days when so many people have had to put off their retirement plans because their 401(k) has turned into a half a one (k), the benefit of a secure retirement is obvious. Unions, their members and their collective bargaining agreements in Michigan, have provided the tide that raises all boats. Even non-union workers make more in Michigan than in so called right to work states. It’s about $6,000 more a year even for a worker not in a union. More children have insurance in Michigan than in so called right to work states, because more of their parents have insurance. There are higher poverty rates in right to work states, higher infant mortality rates and more work place deaths and injuries (according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics). It is indeed a quality of life issue to avoid being a right to work state. More workers with more money in their pocket means more to spend in the small businesses. It means more vacation days and it means hospitals and other healthcare providers staying in business. It means healthier and a bit wealthier families. The conservative fringe will claim income is rising and jobs are created in right to work states. This is an example of using statistics to misrepresent the truth. Many right to work states have suffered manufacturing job loss just like Michigan. North Carolina and Texas are two examples. General Motors closed its plant in Oklahoma after they became a right to work state. Wages are rising faster in some right to work states because the wages started lower, thereby producing a higher percentage. Michigan wages, on average, have been declining, because we have lost so many good paying manufacturing jobs, do to bad foreign trade deals. Two thirds of those jobs lost have been non-union, by the way. A call for making Michigan a right to work state is only a political statement. Union members participate more in voting and politics than the population at large, and tend to vote more Democratic than others. Don’t be fooled by a political power grab which reduces the number of one side’s political opponents. Reducing union’s abilities to talk to voters is a cheap way to try to win elections. Michigan needs an economic renewal, not political tricks disguised as job growth. Companies will relocate in Michigan for our skilled workforce, for our water, to be close to customers and suppliers. When we figure out how to market our state as workers and employers working together, instead of showing off our political fights, we’ll be more successful rebuilding our state. |
