Day 11 – Bill Gillespie’s Road Trip Diary

Today’s entry is the last entry in our Road Trip Diary.

It’s been 11 days since Anna Jover Royo, Jason Alward, Aura Aberback and I jumped into our rented Dodge Caravan in Toronto and headed for the U.S.A.

If you have been clicking on our daily written and video blogs, you will already know our assignment was to investigate how the anti-union Right to Work laws, that a growing number of conservative politicians are now promoting for Canada, actually work in practice.

Right to Work is an insidiously misleading slogan. It suggests it’s about the right to a job but it’s not. It’s a law that allows a union member to stop paying dues but still get the benefits of the collective agreement negotiated by the union and its dues-paying members. I hesitate to use the phrase but that idea sounds a little un-Canadian to me.

We headed first for Michigan where we met high school science teacher Dan Dennis. In 1999 Dennis left his teaching job in non-Right to Work Michigan and moved to Right to Work North Carolina. Immediately his salary dropped 25%, his workload increased, his prep time disappeared, his pension plan was dumbed-down and so was his medical coverage.

In Columbus Ohio I interviewed mathematician Darrell Minor. Minor crunched the numbers and found that far from ushering in prosperity, workers in Right to Work states suffer higher unemployment rates, pay more for health insurance and have shorter life expectancies than in non-Right to Work states.

South Carolina was even more disturbing. It adopted its Right to Work law in 1954. The prosperity? With the 4th highest unemployment rate and the 45th lowest person income in the U.S., folks are still waiting for that.

You can see some of the inspiring people we interviewed in South Carolina on the video blog. People such as Democratic state congresswoman Gilda Cobb-Hunter or the head of the International Longshoremen’s Association Ken Riley.

But the daily blog wasn’t our main assignment. Our primary task is to create a documentary putting the rhetoric of the Right to Work boosters to the test. We gathered firsthand interviews, facts and video. When we get back to Toronto we will start writing and editing.

I want to say however, what a pleasure it has been to work and travel with the three fine OPSEU professionals assigned to this project.

Jason Alward who, in his normal working life, is a graphic artist. Jason was our driver. He got us where we had to go on time and safely. He has an odd habit of backing into every parking space but never backs into a conversation. The Maritimer that he is, he is able to chat up anyone and immediately put them at ease – a real asset when you are strangers in a strange land.

Aura Aberback was our logistics wagon master - meaning she was in charge of just about every aspect of our lives for the 11 days from finding the lowest-cost union hotels, to meals, to editing my writing. She also kept disappearing (Where’s Aura?) to take about 10,000 photographs (some of which you can see by clicking on the photo tab).

Videographer Anna Jover Royo worked harder than any of us. During the day she shot interviews, road signs, fireworks, crowd scenes, the Charleston docks, the Michigan state legislature – the list seems endless. At night she stayed up late editing the video blog. Our workdays ranged from 10 to 15 hours and Anna was always up the latest.

The final member of the team wasn’t with us in the van. Cynthia Clayton was back in Toronto. Cynthia is OPSEU’s web specialist. She stayed up late at night and got up early in the morning and on weekends to take our written and video dispatches from the field and put them up on the website. No matter how many demands we put on her, she was always positive and helpful from start to finish. The blog would not have happened without her.

Ok. Now for the big questions.

Did you get on each other’s nerves? Did you have any big fights? Any small fights? After all, you were packed into that van together for almost two weeks.

The answer is we got along famously.

Ok, we did have to listen to Jason’s boring CBC Radio Three music. But he had to listen to mine and Anna’s annoying country music (go Zac Brown Band). Sadly, Aura could not find a radio station that played her two favourite artists – Burt Bacharach and Supertramp.

So thanks for clicking on the blog.

If we learned anything from our American friends it is we should take the threat of Right to Work legislation very seriously. They told us it is just a first step. Once RTW passed in their state, more anti-labour legislation followed.

Their message was “don’t think it can’t happen to you”. As Democratic congresswoman Gilda Cobb-Hunter put it “you DO NOT want to become South Carolina!”

You’ve read and seen the blog. Get ready for the movie to be released this fall.

Bill Gillespie’s Road Trip Diary – Day Three

We hopped in the Dodge Caravan bright and early this morning set out for a town called Dexter Michigan.

Why? Because that is where Dan Armstrong - the media relations guy for the Mackinac Center - is sending us to interview Vincent Vernuccio.

Mackinac is a right wing Michigan think tank. Vernuccio is its labour specialist.

When he talks about unions Vernuccio sounds a lot like Ontario Conservative leader Tim Hudak - co-incidence or not? He talks about the need to “modernize” the labour laws. How? By pressuring politicians to enact so-called “Right to Work” laws that weaken unions.

I was up-front with Dan Armstrong.

I told him we are OPSEU employees shooting a short documentary on Right to Work and that our starting point is WE DON’T LIKE IT. Not one bit! The carrot I offered however was that Mackinac would have the opportunity to speak to 130,000 OPSEU members directly.

Two days later Dan emailed me to say yes but with two conditions – 1) We would allow the Mackinac’s cameraperson to shoot us shooting the interview and 2) We would let the Mackinac Center see the finished film before it is released. Let the bargaining begin.

I said no problem to the first condition and no way to the second. 

Bob said what the heck. We’ll do it and if you want to see just a sneak preview to what Mr. Vernuccio had to say just click on our video tab. Oddly, he bears an eerie resemblance to Tim Hudak!

In the interview Vernuccio claimed the Mackinac Center is not anti-union rather it is pro-worker. At the same time demonized Union leaders as being more interested in plush vacations than serving their members.

Hmmm. Where in Ontario have we heard that before?

As the interview progressed it became even scarier. For the Mackinac Center and other right wing American think tanks, Right to Work legislation is just a first toward a future where unions are reduced to tame employee benefit associations and collective bargaining is no more.

(Note to all amateur grammarians. I did not just misspell the word Centre. Out of respect for our present geographical location, I used the American spelling Center)

Bill Gillespie’s Road Trip Diary – Day Two

Today we did our first two interviews in Lansing Michigan, the State Capital.

Our assignment is to produce a ten-minute documentary for OPSEU’s 130,000 members showing the impact US-style labour laws, such as the ones Tim Hudak wants to bring to Ontario, are having on American workers.

The reason we’ve come to Lansing is because just such a law was recently rammed through the Michigan State Legislature in two days.

Michigan has always been known as a “Union State” but perhaps not much longer.

The Republican dominated Senate and Congress and Republican Governor Rick Snyder are turning Michigan Labour history on its head.

The new law, deceptively called the “Right to Work” law by its Tea Party Republican backers, allows union members to opt out of paying dues while still receiving the benefits won by their Union.

Safety Inspector Eric Waters and union lobbyist Christina Canfield were in the front lines of the battle against RTW. When we spoke to Waters today at the State Capital building he told us it was the first time he’d been interviewed on camera. But he wasn’t shy.

He called the legislation un-American – comparing it to someone who is pleased to have the municipal fire department protect their house fire in the event of a fire or the police department protect their security while at the same time refusing to pay taxes.

Christina Canfield has been a lobbyist and a political activist for 27 years with Michigan Teachers’ Association and until March of this year she had never seen such an important piece of legislation rammed through the legislature in just two days.

People being people, she expects some union members will stop paying dues. If the union membership begins to shrink, she says its financial base shrinks and the union will have to lay off staff thereby becoming less and less effective.

Moreover, Canfield says there is abundant research on Right to Work States that show that as good paying Union jobs disappear, the middle class begins to shrink causing a drag on the economy.

Tomorrow we will talk to a Michigan teacher who had to take a $10,000 pay cut when he left a non-RTW State to work in a Right to Work State.

If you want to see more about our American adventure click on the link to our video blog.