Tag: Union

The case for Right to Work is simple.  You should not be forced to join or pay dues to a union as a condition of employment.  Unions claim to support workers, but they want to fire workers who refuse to give them money.

Yesterday while the President was turning a long-planned town hall meeting with Macomb County moms and dads into an invitation only speech for Democratic Party donors and big-wigs about Community Colleges a little dose of that "yes we can" attitude was force-fed into the southeast Michigan atmosphere.

If only it'd filtered south a few miles and made it's way into the D, where Robert Bobb has been waging a one-man war with the entrenched Democratic Party education bureaucracy in an effort to turn around one of the most maligned public school districts in the nation.  And the man has been getting things done.

His reward from the all-Dem Detroit Public School board?  A lawsuit seeking an injunction to stop him in his tracks.  The Detroit News:

"We have no problem working with him, but we have a problem with him working around us, (said board President Carla Scott). You can't do something without discussing it with us. You don't have a right to set the policy."

Last week, Gov. Jennifer Granholm's spokeswoman said Bobb, whom the governor appointed earlier this year, is not overstepping his role with the district. Granholm gave him a very difficult job of turning around the district, and he doesn't need to be micromanaged, Liz Boyd said.

Apparently Ms. Scott and the rest of the board (which voted unanimously to take the man to court) didn't get Ms. Boyd's message.  And while I fully understand there is ZERO chance the Governor will actually defend her appointee against elected Democrats in public, at least we've got last week's statement to keep us warm at night.

Not that I wouldn't trade those warm fuzzies for a bit of common sense at DPS.  Let the man do his job cleaning up your mess, Madame Chairwoman.

Read on...

The Grand Rapids Press is reporting that Farmer's Insurance will today announce plans to create 1,600 jobs in suburban Grand Rapids.  Maybe.  

I mean, the announcement is coming today and Governor Granholm will be there giving a speech and looking extra gubernatorial... but the actual creation of 1,600 jobs is a little more iffy.  

The announcement is expected to coincide with expected approval of huge tax breaks for Farmers by the Michigan Economic Growth Authority Tuesday morning...

The company would have 12 years after completing (two new) facilities to create 1,000 additional jobs at the campus in order to qualify for a 100 percent employment tax credit.

Farmers would need to create 1,400 jobs by the end of the 17th year in order to qualify for the final year of tax credits.

The only other certainty is that the Democratic governor had to offer a 100 percent tax credit (that's all of it, for the arithmetic-challenged) to convince a company already located in Michigan to consider expanding their operation effectively over the course of two decades.

Fingers crossed, knock on wood and any other superstition of your choosing that Farmers comes through but the recent track record of MEGA hasn't been that hot.  Won't stop the mainstream media from fawning all over the Governor, though, and giving her credit for creating thousands of jobs that won't exist until her kids are approaching the big 4-0.  

Going to go out on a limb and guess there won't be a reporter at the presser or anywhere else in the state with the stones to call the Guv on her tax policy hypocrisy, either.  The best kept secret in the state of Michigan is how much faith the Democratic administration actually places in tax CUTS as tools for economic stimulus and job creation.

Meanwhile, over on the other side of the state where automobile manufacturing plants continue to be shuttered, laid off Michigan auto workers can do little but look on as another auto manufacturing operation gets set to open somewhere else.  The Detroit News is reporting that the auto manufacturing hotbed that is... Louisiana... is set to build a few extra cars.

A well-financed company is close to choosing a shuttered north Louisiana site to start a new automobile manufacturing facility, creating up to 1,500 jobs, according to two elected officials from the region.

State Rep. Jim Fannin would not identify the company but said the vehicles would be its first and would be built at a former Guide Corp. plant in Ouachita Parish. He said Gov. Bobby Jindal would make an announcement about the deal Wednesday.

Monroe City Council member Arthur Gilmore said the project, which would build fuel-efficient vehicles, involves California venture capitalists Ray Lane and John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers, which has been extensively involved in "environmentally friendly " projects and companies.

Got that?  California environmentalists are set to open a green-car manufacturing outfit in Louisiana.  Not Michigan, where our workers, engineers and infrastructure have been built for the last one-hundred years specifically for projects like this.  Louisiana.  What do they have that we haven't?  I mean, besides a dynamic, successful economic conservative in the Governor's office.  

Then again, maybe the more relevant discussion is about what Michigan has that Louisiana doesn't.

From For a Better Day

Most of you are local-government kind of people.  You realize that the closer government is to us, the more say we can have in how it operates.  That is why contemplating the question of county-wide school districts has been an interesting proposition.

After looking at our county and all the changes that are going on, it seems like the perfect time for Livingston to become the first county-wide district.  While this goes against local government philosophy, we don't really have that much say in our districts anyway. Most of the curriculum is decided at the State level via the MEAP.  The MEA, a state-wide union, strong arms districts into submission by electing school board members who will vote for their interests or by threatening action if the districts don't cooperate.  With all the increased Federal and State involvement, there are laws that cover most everything else.  

Yes, school boards are charged with passing the budget.  However, the State determines how much money we get and the union determines how much we spend, given 88% of our budget is wrapped up in personnel.   We get to decide what to cut.  Yes, we are charged with making policy, but much of that is governed by law and the Department of Education.  Some of it isn't but we are given "model" policies that we are (wink, wink) free to use if we want to.  

So what are the advantages of having a county-wide school district?

I am a recent GM retiree and a Union member. I have had intimate experience with the UAW during my 30 years as a GM employee. I believe there was a time where the Union did serve a purpose. However, my experience has shown that the UAW has become what at one time they fought against, a bloated, corrupt, bureaucracy run on nepotism.