No, this isn’t about the rousing speech President Obama is working on in Hawaii for the big January get-together with all of us. You know, the speech where he will tell us all the great things he did in 2009 and how good things will be in 2010, thanks mainly, to his good work.
This is about a state that has taken the union label to heart. The great state of Michigan, the state where I was born and raised and still love to this day. A more beautiful state is hard to find. But, alas, my home state has fallen on hard times. Detroit, the only metropolitan market in Michigan will be the first metropolitan market to be delisted as a metropolitan market due to severe population decline. A decline that began in 1967 when I moved there during the riots and continues unabated today. Not much motor city left in the motor city. A series of corrupt and inept mayors have done it in. Dave Bing, the old Piston star and present mayor is trying to save it’s bacon, but Dave, it’s too late.
Unions have destroyed Michigan. The UAW took too big a piece of the pie from the auto industry for too long and now we own them, except for Ford. Now, the union wants to kill Ford too, since they are making money.
The State of Michigan is the biggest employer in the state and that would be nearly 100% union. A man I knew from my business life offered to donate $100 million to Detroit to build magnet schools. The teacher’s union turned him down. They don’t want competition. So, the second biggest employer in Michigan, the educational system state-wide, is also pretty much union. Most city employees are union.
As the city of Detroit and the state of Michigan both teeter on bankruptcy, what do they have in common with GM and Chrysler? All were union dominated.
So, what is the state doing to make things better for the residents of Michigan? According to the 12/26/09 Wall Street Journal, they are” forcing business owners into public sector unions.” That’s right, expanding union membership into other areas so they, too, can fail. And it’s the most egregious misuse of the Constitution you will ever see.
According to the Journal article, if you are running a day care in your home and you have low-income clients, you are declared a union member by the Michigan Department of Human services. You are labeled a government worker and a union member and the state will withhold union dues from the state subsidies your clients get to afford your child care. No vote, no questions asked, that’s the way it is.
The state of Michigan economic Development Corporation grated the SEIU a $2 million refundable tax credit to locate a new business facility in the state that will provide administrative services for the SEIU union and other labor organizations. The SEIU said it needed this because the state of Michigan has high labor costs.
So, who will the state of Michigan decide next to unionize? And, when everyone in Michigan is union and works for the state, who pays the bills?
Makes me want to move right back to Michigan or at least buy or start a business there, right?
