Day 4 – Bill Gillespie’s Road Trip Diary

Darrell Minor is NOT a union activist. He IS a respected math professor at Columbus State Community College in Ohio. 
 

For the past two decades or so he has watched the decline of the American middle class with growing dismay. So last year when he saw a pair of Right Wing Republican Legislators on television claiming that anti-union Right to Work Laws bring prosperity, he decided to use his high-end math skills to determine if their claim would stand up to the facts.
 

Using an accepted mathematical measure know as the “Mann-Whitney Ranks Sums statistical test” he ranked states from best to worst to see if there were any significant differences between Right to Work states and what he calls Worker Friendly States.
 

After a five-hour drive from Lansing Michigan we dropped in on Professor Minor at his office in the Davidson Building. 
 

Columbia State Community College is a sprawling downtown campus that attracts a yearly enrollment of just over 32,000 students. As our Dodge Caravan rolled into the parking lot, we noticed a warning sign featuring a picture of a handgun with a line drawn through it. Even in the ‘Land of the Free’ students are not allowed to bring their guns to class.
 

Professor Minor was waiting for us and we (cameraperson Anna Jover Royo, logistics coordinator Aura Aberback and graphic artist/driver Jason Alward) set up the camera, lights and started rolling.
 

Minor told us that what he found after crunching all the numbers surprised him. 
 

Rather than Right to Work laws ushering in an era of prosperity, he says the opposite is true. His research showed that annual wages in Right to Work states are an average $1500 LOWER than in worker friendly Non-Right to Work States. And that wasn’t all. 
 

He compared the two taking seven common markers used to measure standard of living – per capita GDP, poverty rates, the cost of health insurance, unemployment, home ownership, income gap and life expectancy.

He found that there was no significant difference in three of the markers - unemployment, rate of home ownership and the income gap.
 

However, Right to Work states also scored lower than non-Right to Work states on the other four. Their per capita GDP of Right to Work states was 13% lower, health insurance was more expensive, poverty rates were higher and life expectancy was lower.

Why?

Minor says it is difficult to determine cause and effect with absolute certainty but he says the data indicates that there is a 95% probability that the difference is Unions.

Right to Work states have fewer unions. Fewer unions means lower wages.

If you’d like to see more of Darrell Minor click on the Video tab.

Tomorrow we’ll feature an interview with a teacher who took a 25% pay cut when he moved from a non-Right to Work state to a Right to Work state.

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)

Road Talk

opseucommunications' photostream on Flickr.

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.

OPSEU ROAD TRIP DIARY - Day one

Today was a travel day.

Aura Aberback (who makes great homemade biscotti), Jason Alward, Anna Jover Royo and me, Bill Gillespie, pulled our Dodge Caravan on to the 401 and headed south for Sarnia on our way to Michigan.

Crossing the border is no simple matter for a camera crew.There is paper work and lots of it. We had to record every piece of camera and electronic equipment we have with using a legal document called a Carnet stating its make, its value and where it was manufactured. Then we had to have the document reviewed and certified by both Canadian and American customs.

Road Talk - The adventure begins