This AP report on the passage of Michigan’s right-to-work law reads like a union activist screed lambasting Republicans for tampering with venerated laws of nature:
LANSING, Mich. – For generations, Michigan was the ultimate labor stronghold – a state built by factory workers for whom a high school diploma and a union card were the ticket to a middle-class life.
Yet it took only hours for Republicans to tear down a key part of that tradition, the requirement that all employees in a union workplace pay dues.
The Detroit Free Press is even more hardcore. On Sunday, front page featured a huge headline calling the debate over right-to-work “the battle for Michigan’s soul.”
If being forced to join a union and pay union dues against a citizen’s will constitutes the “soul” of Michigan, little wonder the place has been going to Hell.
The article featured the martyred woman in the picture, one Chreda Troutman:
At the same time, not too far away, Chreda Troutman stood inside the Capitol, wearing gray jogging pants, a white T-shirt and a union jacket. She is a home health care provider, a 58-year-old blue-collar worker from Detroit, who is emotional and passionate, a grassroots activist who believes deep in her soul that this legislation is going to devastate Michigan. That this is an attempt to hammer the unions and wipe away the middle class. That this will do nothing but hurt her children and their children.
And that is why she pulled three of her teenage grandchildren out of school and brought them along on the bus from Detroit. So they could fight together in Lansing. So they could witness history in this state, the birthplace of the American organized labor movement. So they could be heard.
It is certainly understandable that people who have been living off others would want to continue to live off them. But there is just something about being paid by taxpayers to take care of an immediate family member that bothers me:
Troutman is a member of SEIU Healthcare Michigan — the state’s largest union of health care workers with about 43,000 members.
Troutman started out working in a nursing home in 1977-2002. Now, she works full-time caring for her husband, Michael, 55, who had a kidney transplant.
According to corporationwiki, Troutman is more than a member; she’s a Principal Officer. Out of curiosity, I went to the SEIU Healthcare Michigan website. It’s all about care for immediate family members being a taxpayer-funded union job. Two examples:
I’m Judy Bullis, and I’m a Home Help provider in Clinton Township. I’ve been caring for my son since birth.
This home job that I have is my living. If I didn’t have it I couldn’t live. I pay my car payment and food with it. It means the world to me to have it. For my son, if this program is discontinued or cut, it would mean that I would have to put him in a group home. I don’t want that and neither does he.
I decided to get involved in the union because it’s the only way to get people in Lansing to pay attention to us. I’m tired of them acting like home care isn’t a real job. Taking care of my son is a real job and we should be respected.
And,
I’m Connie Katt, and I’m a Home Help provider in Bay City.
I’ve been caring for daughter for 44 years. My daughter is very active socially so it’s better I can keep her at home where she can thrive. If she was in a group home somewhere she’d just be sitting there and she’d just be a number. Home care is better because we give one-on-one care and that improves longevity.
I got involved with the union because it’s like a support system for us. When there’s a strong base behind you, you can get more done. The union is there for all of us to make sure we get a fair chance. It’s up to us to get inolved.
Bad as it is to force taxpayers to pay mothers to take care of their kids, what’s worse is that the SEIU wants to force the paid mothers to join the SEIU and then have union dues automatically deducted from their government paychecks, and transferred directly to SEIU! It’s the sort of outrage that has made unions deeply unpopular even with people who were once staunch union supporters.
Naturally, one of the largest groups of unionized government workers consists of teachers. So many of them took today off to demonstrate that schools have had to be closed.
At least 26,000 children will miss school today because their teachers called in sick or took a vacation day to protest proposed right-to-work legislation, which is expected to pass today.
Warren Consolidated Schools, Taylor School District and Fitzgerald Public Schools are confirmed to be closed. It is also suggested that schools in Detroit and St. Johns may be missing a significant number of teachers.
“We’ve had an excessive number of teachers call in,” Warren district spokesperson Robert Freehan said Monday afternoon. “We’re concerned about the safety and security of the students, so we’re treating it as a snow day.”
Demonstrating on the taxpayers’ dime? Nothing new about taxpayer-funded union demonstrators although I guess that’s not as bad as threatening violence on the taxpayers’ dime.
Sheesh. Next they’ll be making taxpayers pay union thugs who hit people over the head because they didn’t want to be forced to join a union.
Well? Isn’t it hard work hitting people over the head? If we pay moms to take care of their children, the least we can do is pay those who are standing up for their rights as they do battle over the “soul” of Michigan.
MORE: Some links from Glenn Reynolds led me to this video of a union thug attacking PJM’s Steven Crowder:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_F3oev06i0&feature=player_embedded
If such behavior constitutes Michigan’s “soul,” this state needs to do some serious soul searching.
And if you don’t like it, by all means DONATE.
I was of course being sarcastic in my post. Forcing people to join unions against their will is an outrage in itself, but hitting people over the head for disagreeing the practice is beyond outrageous.
What we are seeing is raw Fascism. Or Communism, take your pick.
MORE: Here’s Ann Althouse:
Union thugs… in broad daylight, on camera. Are they stupid… or do they know something about the willingness of the authorities to enforce the law?
I’m telling you, they are being paid. PAID to beat people up.
Government money (meaning other people’s money) is what it’s all about.
MORE: I’m no expert on identification, but the men shown in the video seem to have been tentatively identified as Chris Opalewski of Boilermakers Local 169, and Tony Camargo of IBEW 176.
Comments
5 responses to “If you can’t be forced to join a union, you have no soul!”
I’ve been “represented” by a union before. They waltzed in and:
1) “negotiated” a pay cut;
2) forced me to buy a higher-priced “health insurance” plan that got me exactly the same coverage I already had but was administered by…wait for it…the union itself;
3) started deducting union dues from my now-reduced pay, 90 percent of which went to either the national political action committee or to Nader’s PIRG.
An awful lot of people have had this same experience, I suspect.
I thought Democrats were pro-choice?
And what the hell is going on in that Detroit Free Press picture? Is that a man with the goldie-locks? Is that a female cop? What the hell kind of hat is that?
I took care of my special needs daughter for 19 years without pay and I worked full-time outside the home. At age 18, she was eligible for SSI payments, which I administered. She passed away at age 19. I would do it all over again. Neither one of these women identified what was wrong with their child that they required home care. Being taxpayer-paid to take care of your immediate relative is nuts!
Even bigger is the scam SEIU and AFSCME have with home preschool (babysitting) in many states. In this instance, people (mostly women) who had started their own businesses, were forced to join a union.
That’s right-independent business people paying protection to a union.
Hmmmmm. Union dues. Obamacare. I’m starting to see the connection.