Michigan Power Play over Unions

Whatever you think about unions,and increasingly American opinion on Unions is becoming transparent, what happened in Michigan yesterday should indicate how little power they now wield.

Yesterday after repeatedly stating it was not on his agenda Governor Rick Snyder and the lame duck Republican legislature rammed through bills limited union rights in Michigan. Democrats had no recourse. Republicans had greased the skids by passing rules calling for only a majority ( which they already had ) needing to be present to have a quorum for voting.

Elections count. In Michigan Republicans control the House, the Senate, and the Governorship. They can do what they want. If people do not like it the presumption is they can vote them out of office.

What is most galling to not just Democrats but anyone interested in representation is that in November, as in one month ago November, a ballot initiative to make the same limitations on union rights failed miserably to pass. Yes, that is right, one month after the will of the Michigan people was made known, the state legislature passed a bill thwarting that will.

It is not illegal. It is however beyond reproach.

Unions day might well be done. Call me a lover of lost causes. If I could go back and choose a profession again I would be a union advocate, a union lawyer, a union organizer. I can think of nothing that is so important and as it becomes more and more clear more and more obsolete.

Rick Snyder is today's worst, most cynical politician of the day. You can be anti union if you must, but to disavow a ballot decision by your state's citizens. What a skunk.