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.
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.
