Michigan Cuts Unemployment Benefits

Does anyone out there still consider Michigan a bastion of union liberalism?

Michael Cooper of The New York Times reports:

Michigan, whose unemployment rate has topped 10 percent longer than that of any other state, is about to set another record: its new Republican governor, Rick Snyder, signed a law Monday that will lead the state to pay fewer weeks of unemployment benefits next year than any other state.

The Declining Popularity of Unions

Just how low has organized labor — a movement that shapes Flint's past, present and future — sunk in the court of public opinion?

James Surowiecki of The New Yorker reports that "more than seventy percent of those surveyed in a 1937 Gallup poll said they favored unions." My, how times have changed: "A 2010 Pew Research poll offered even worse numbers, with just forty-one percent of respondents saying they had a favorable view of unions, the lowest level of support in the history of that poll."

Surowiecki succinctly lays out the reasons for the decline, showing that many now view unions as "just another interest group," and paints a dire picture of the labor movement in the United States: "Labor, in other words, may be caught in a vicious cycle, becoming progressively less influential and more unpopular. The Great Depression invigorated the modern American labor movement. The Great Recession has crippled it."

UPDATE: Because this topic resonates with a lot of readers, I'll try to post some of the comments here as well as in the comment section:

William Weber writes:

I am from Flint. I will always believe in the positive outcomes that the union has achieved for workers (including the world famous sit down strike in 1936-1937). We are all better today because of what unions have accomplished. However, I do believe that what started out as a necessary grass roots movement to protect workers and ensure fair working conditions, has now transformed into a way for union leadership to make outrageous wages and screw the people they represent, the companies they operate in, and the general public. It's no longer about what is fair and just. It's now about how much can I get, how can I sue for breach of contract, and what's in it for me. Most of the people I know and speak with are very anti-union, and I live in California. If the current trend continues, and the leadership continues to operate in this way, well, let's just say that unions will mostly disappear. I feel sad about that because the workers will no longer have a voice or representation. I certainly don't buy into the theory that the recession has anything to do with it. I hope that all unions throw out their current leadership and align themselves with the reasons that unions were established. Regardless, I will always look for the "Union Label."

JWilly writes:

The general public's view of unions has been influenced by two patterns of behavior. These may be more common in recent decades than in earlier times, or maybe are just better publicized now:

1. Some unions have been more focused on the near-term gains of their current members than the ability of the companies with whom they're associated to compete effectively. Among other effects, this results in companies failing, and the US becoming uncompetitive internationally.

2. Some unions in sole-provider roles, such as those associated with essential governmental services, regulated utilities, sole commercial providers of essential quasi-governmental services, and socially essential commercial services have been willing to use their social leverage to extract increases in total compensation that are much greater than the average rate of inflation, thereby increasing their compensation relative to the rest of society while increasing the tax or cost burden on the rest of society.

Some of the general public see these behaviors as an abandonment of the original union concept of protect-the-workers-from-uncaring-management, and its replacement with raise-up-our-members-screw-everyone-else. Naturally, this perception results in pushback on the part of the screwees, who see such unionism as greedy and anti-patriotic.

In parts of the country where social duty and patriotism are regarded especially highly, i.e. southern and western states, it's become quite difficult to get workers to unionize even though the national union makes a strong argument that it would be able to achieve an increase in their compensation. My guess is that this problem for the union movement will continue until unions internalize that it's more important for the US and its individual companies to be economically competitive than for their members to have compensation increases, and that compensation increases at a rate greater than inflation in fact result in social harm.

Unclebuck writes:

My father was an organizer for John L. Lewis's coal miners union in the twenties when it was a very hazardous undertaking. The company goons made it difficult to hold meetings in church basements,civic halls or anywhere you could gather the workers to discuss the merits of unionizing. This was in Penn. and W.Virginia. I recall him once saying that one of their tactics was slipping a pistol cartridge into your coat pocket as a warning or causing some disruption to break up those meetings. He was young and mean and stuck with it because he was a believer in the union movement.

He came to Michigan and worked in the auto factories in Detroit when jobs were easy to get. Moved to Flint and became an employee of Consumers Power Co. after working at local auto factories. He used his organizing ability to unite the workers at the utility company, and to form the first union there under the "UAW" banner with the approval of the President of the CIO (Congress of Industrial Workers), which later became the UWUA (Utility Workers Union of America) this was in 1939-40.

He and four other organizers became regional directors and organized the rest of the United States. Region five included the state of Michigan which was his patch. Besides Consumers Powers, the rest of this state, including private utility companies was organized with the exception of Detroit Edison which was IBEW (International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers). After almost forty years of being local 101 President he retired from Consumers Power Company with thirteen years active seniority!

The many justified reasons for which unionism was based upon, and I can name a bunch, have morphed into some unreasonable demands and lack of leadership quality-elitism being one of them. My father was dismayed by the manner in which things had deteriorated before he passed on in the late eighties after being a pillar in this movement. He did his part for the betterment of the worker rights when his efforts were more appreciated. He is a member of "Who's Who in American Labor" and I'm very proud of his tenacity and achievement.

A Solution to Flint's Budget Woes

Mt. Clemens, looking suspiciously like Flint, in a photo by John Cruz.

With Mayor Dayne Walling locked in an ongoing battle with police and fire unions over concessions that will help balance the city budget, Mt. Clemens offers a novel approach to fiscal solvency:

A Michigan city is pleading with churches, schools and a hospital for donations to help cover its staggering budget deficit, reports Nick Bunkley of The New York Times.

The mayor of Mount Clemens, Barb Dempsey, sent a letter this week to 35 tax-exempt organizations asking them to voluntarily contribute to the city’s general fund, which pays for services like fire protection, streetlights and roads. Ms. Dempsey said the city has already drastically cut its expenses, having disbanded the police department six years ago, but still faces a $960,000 deficit that is projected to reach $1.5 million next year.

“Those are all services that they utilize at no cost to them,” Ms. Dempsey said. “We figured it can’t hurt to send out letters. If you don’t ask, you never know.”

Flint Meet Oakland...You Two Have So Much in Common

Flint, meet your long-lost cousin from the West Coast. Her name is Oakland. She lives in California.

Robert Gammon of The East Bay Express reports:

At times, Oakland feels like ground zero for the Great Recession. The city is grappling with alarmingly high rates of unemployment and foreclosure. The economic downturn also has crippled the city's budget. Since the housing bubble burst, Oakland has lost about 20 percent of its annual tax revenues, or about $100 million a year. The city council made huge cuts last year, but is now facing another $30 million budget hole, and is talking seriously about laying off 200 cops — or about one-quarter of Oakland's police force.

The one bright spot in Oakland has been the substantial drop in violent crime in the past eighteen months. But a massive layoff of police officers threatens to reverse that promising trend. Police Chief Anthony Batts told the Oakland Tribune that he has serious concerns about cutting so many officers and how it will affect crime fighting in Oakland. But the city council may have no choice — unless the well-paid members of Oakland's police officers' union agree to start contributing to their own pension plan.

Oakland awarded the union its generous benefits, which include the ability to retire at age fifty with nearly full pay for life, at a time of relative prosperity. The council figured that over-the-top pension benefits would help the city attract and retain quality officers when unemployment was low and the competition for cops was fierce. But in a time of record joblessness, it's clear that Cadillac pensions are not only unnecessary, they're foolish.

Direct Democracy

What happens when the U.A.W. pays a visit to Sen. Richard Shelby? Go here to find out.

Disorganized

Jonathan Cutler says the U.A.W. is partly to blame for the Big Three's problems, but not for the reason you might think. The union's mistake? The failure to organize workers at the non-union foreign auto factories in the U.S.

"And yet there is nothing inherently unsustainable about employing a high-priced, unionized workforce. The crisis of Detroit's wage bill is entirely relative. Specifically, their labor costs far exceed the low-cost, nonunion American workforce at the U.S.-based, foreign-owned plants of competitors Toyota, Honda, Nissan and Subaru.

"If the UAW really is to blame at all, then, it is because of the union's utter failure to unionize any of the transplants. What has the UAW been doing all these years? Isn't it the responsibility of any good union to protect union employers from competitive labor disadvantages by organizing wall to wall, throughout the industry? How could it have left these transplants unorganized?

"As is now clear, when the UAW exposed the Big Three to insurmountable competitive disadvantages, it cut its own throat."

Thanks to Jim Holbel for passing this along.

State of the Unions

Are unions dead? Lawyer, policy analyst and longtime labor activist Nathan Newman doesn't think so.

200,000 union members were added in California alone last year. And this is based on a labor vision that had ten-year horizons for organizing, a level of long-term investment that few American institutions have been willing to make.

Turn Out the Lights?

And now for something completely negative. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy has a sobering take on the overall Michigan economy using United Van Lines info along with census data to track the outward migration of Michiganders. It's nothing you haven't heard before — people are leaving Michigan, no duh — but the details are interesting. For example, in 2006 Michigan was tied with North Dakota for the number one departure state in the country.

North Dakota! Is it really that bad? Apparently, yes.

And where do most people go when they leave the Wolverine State? Florida, which gathered more than 19,300 people from Michigan.

Warning: After the article lays out the numbers, it devolves into the usual dubious argument that high taxes and unions are the cause of all this woe. No mention of GM and Ford management decisions.