If I were a good blogger, I’d be standing in the cold tonight with those folks singing Christmas carols outside of the Governor’s Superior Township residence, but, instead, I’m here at home, where I’ve been all day, tending to the needs of my sick family… making chicken soup, fluffing pillows, and doing all of the other stuff that people with sick kids are expected to do, regardless of whether revolutions are brewing outside.
I know it’s unlikely that the carolers, who are, at this very moment, singing Joy to the World outside the locked gates of Rick Snyder’s exclusive private community, will have much luck in convincing him to veto the right-to-work legislation which will likely be put on his desk tomorrow, but I feel as though I should be there, if for no other reason than to record the fact that some folks took the evening away from their families and tried to remind the Governor what this season is all about. Like I said, I’m doubtful that they’ll make much headway, but, if animated Christmas specials have taught me anything, it’s that miracles can happen at this time of year, and that even the most cold and miserly of hearts have the capacity to swell with love and compassion. Who can forget, for instance, when the old Grinch, looking down on Whoville, after having done his best to ruin Christmas for them, heard the voices of the people rise up together, not in anger, but in joyous song? Remember how his heart, when he heard their beautiful voices, swelled to an alarming size? I know that it’s unlikely, but isn’t there a chance that the same thing could be playing out at this very moment, just five miles outside of Ypsilanti, at the intersection of Geddes and Valleyview? Might not Rick Snyder’s heart, right this minute, be swelling three sizes? Isn’t it possible that he could be calling the Koch brothers and Dick DeVos at this very moment, telling them he can’t be bought?
Assuming that doesn’t happen, and Snyder doesn’t call a a press conference first thing tomorrow morning, announcing his change of heart, people will be massing in Lansing, to demonstrate just how incredibly unpopular this legislation is.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I’ll make it to Lansing tomorrow, either. As much as I’d like to participate in what promises to be a historic protest at the Capitol, I just can’t find a way to make it happen. Between work obligations, other commitments, and the possibility that the kids could be sick again tomorrow, I just don’t see how it’s possible. For what it’s worth, though, my thoughts will be with you… Here’s hoping the weather is good, the cops show restraint, and that Snyder, assuming the Christmas carols didn’t work, caves in the face of overwhelming public outrage.
Speaking of this growing sense of outrage, I’m sure you’ve seen it by now, but the Detroit Free Press – a paper that endorsed Snyder for Governor – came out with a scathing editorial this weekend, blasting Snyder for having “betrayed” the people of Michigan, who had taken him at his word when he said that right-to-work legislation was “not on (his) agenda.” As the editorial board at the Free Press rightly points out, this is nothing more than “an attempt to institutionalize Republicans’ current political advantage.” Furthermore, as they poitn out, the talking points which Snyder has offered to explain why, in his opinion, this needs to be done now, are both “diversionary” and “demonstrably false.” This, as they conclude, has nothing to do with creating good paying jobs in Michigan, and everything to do with the Republican compulsion, “to emasculate, once and for all, the Democratic Party’s most reliable source of financial and organizational support.”
This is something that President Obama reiterated earlier today, when speaking at the Daimler Detroit Diesel Plant in Redford, Michigan. (The company was announcing a significant expansion to the plant.) “These so-called right-to-work laws don’t have anything to do with economics,” the President said. “They have to do with politics. What they are really doing is giving you the right to work for less money.” Here’s a clip.
[The entire speech can be seen here.]
Those of you who are planning to go to Lansing tomorrow, I’m told that you should aim to be Lansing Center (333 East Michigan Ave) at 8:00 AM. From there, folks will be marching to the Capitol at 9:00, in hopes of pressuring Snyder to either veto the bill, postpone it until the next legislative session, when it can be debated further, or put it to a referendum, so that the voters of Michigan can vote on it… Before you go, please do me a favor and read over this document prepared by the Michigan ACLU, which explains your rights as a protester, and tells you who to call if things, god forbid, take an ugly turn. (The police, it would seem are preparing for the worst, and judging by what’s already happened, arrests will be made.)
Be safe, friends, and keep your cellphones handy. When it comes down to your word, against that of a cop, having good documentary evidence is critical.
[note: For those of you who aren’t up to speed on what’s going on in Lansing, and why right-to-work is wrong for Michigan, you’ll find my somewhat comprehensive post on the subject here.]
41 Comments
Best of luck to all of those heading to Lansing this morning. My thoughts are with you.
A scene from the march.
http://imgur.com/qkGl3
I’m pretty pessimistic. It’s clear that the legislature is voting with their constituencies, as exemplified by the disastrous failure of proposition 2.
The truth is that non union rural voters are driving the makeup of state legislatures. They have no interest in unions, and work in industries that depend on extremely cheap, temporary labor. It should be no surprise that these bills are passing in states like Indiana and Michigan.
What disappointing, however, is that the governor has chosen to adopt this position. Here’s hoping that he changes his mind, but I’m doubtful that he will.
Follow the money.
From Salon:
Read more:
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/11/koch_brothers_tea_party_cash_drives_michigan_right_to_work_bill/
Video of Weiser:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DChq01XfG5c
snyder’s office just sent out email spam outlining why right-to-work is wonderful.
Photos of the carolers last night.
http://www.therepublic.com/view/story/303fe223e18c4f5ead9995fe86056f86/MI–Right-to-Work-Governors-House
Another scene from the protest.
http://imgur.com/uFsk6
Salon has been nailing it. Did you see the article a few days ago entitled Michissisppi?
“What does this have to do with the right-to-work law? Michigan has lost so many educated workers that the state’s leadership seems to feel it has no choice but to become a low-wage haven. The kind of place that attracts chicken processors, not software engineers. (There is a Google office in Ann Arbor. It was set up there by Google founder and University of Michigan graduate Larry Page, as a sop to the state he abandoned for Silicon Valley, which is to the 21st century economy what Detroit was to the 20th.) Unable to adjust to the 21st century, Michigan is going back to the 19th.”
http://www.salon.com/2012/12/10/right_to_work_bill_michigan_just_gives_up/
Has anyone been able to find actual text of the bill? When the bullshit machines of the Koch bros and HuffPo are at full scream, I want to read the text for myself.
One more. This one is from Gretchen Whitmer.
http://imgur.com/NpFI3
S-Motion, here are the bill numbers, so that you can Google them.
“Republicans used existing pieces of labor legislation – House Bill 4054 in the House and House Bill 4003 and Senate Billl 116 in the Senate – to move through the right-to-work provisions without having to introduce fresh bills.”
Perhaps those of us disgusted by the Greff family and your loyalty to the corner should gather outside during your event. We can sing union songs while you are busy drinking flat beer and raping gingerbread men.
Thank you Meta.
In the past year, I’ve seen the Greffs at the Brewery a total of zero times. I can understand your dislike of them for having supported Snyder, but, the truth is, they’re absentee owners. The space is clean, big, and, from what I understand, essentially free. And the staff is friendly. Some, myself included, would even argue that the beer is good. If I were you, Bob, I’d call the Greffs in India and take it up with them, and stop shitting on people who are trying to do interesting things in one of the few semi-public spaces available in Ypsilanti.
Ron Weiser, who helped mastermind this right-to-work legislation, owns McKinley Properties. Perhaps you’ve seen their signs.
If you’re unhappy about right-to-work—or unhappy about corporate influence in local politics—, you might say so to the McKinley CEO directly. You can encourage him to keep on doing honest work in the real estate field, but that he ought to encourage others in the McKinley hierarchy to keep their influence out of local politics:
Albert Berriz
aberriz@mckinley.com
However, given that McKinley executives, Ron Weiser, Governor Snyder, and other influence-wielding multimillionaires have become multimillionaires because of political cunning, throat-cutting, and backroom wheeling-and-dealing, perhaps our only recourse is to encourage those local institutions who actively benefit from McKinley’s resources, to sever relations with McKinley, lest we begin to politicize their relationships.
The following are local instutions that McKinley Properties, Inc., actively supports (if someone else can take a moment to provide contacts phone numbers and emails for these institutions, I’d be thankful, as I’m about to walk back over to the capitol):
Michigan Theater – Capital Campaign Leadership and Operational Support
American Red Cross Washtenaw County Chapter – Capital Campaign
The Shelter Association of Washtenaw County
The Neutral Zone: Ann Arbor’s Teen Center
Carrot Way Project – Support
Big Brothers Big Sisters of Washtenaw County – Leadership
Alzheimer’s Association in Washtenaw County and Oklahoma City
Dawn Farms – Leadership
Artrain USA – Leadership and Operational Support
Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village – Leadership and Operational Support
Purple Rose Theater – Support
Firehouse Friends – Leadership and Support
National Kidney Foundation – Support
Food Gatherer’s – Support
NEW Center – Leadership and Operational Support
Spectrum (A program of HelpSource) Honors Community Spirit – Support
Ann Arbor Public Schools Foundation (Superball Tournament) -Support
McKinley Foundation – Support
The Villages of Taylor Special Events
United Way of Washtenaw County
I think the beer is pretty lousy but that is irrelevant. So we should give them a pass because they are absentee owners? Continuing to defend them and their space is the only shitting happening here. And there is no such thing as essentially free.
As I write this the news is breaking that the legislation just passed. I’m not sure Snyder even had the balls to go onto the house floor to do it. He’s probably hiding in the men’s room with state troopers guarding the door.
The hell with anyone unwilling to even use their real name in this discussion as well.
I find it hard not to be disgusted with the ownership of the Corner Brewery, for a number of reasons.
I sincerely wish I knew less about them.
That’s completely off topic, though, and not worthy of discussion.
My apologies.
Hi all! I’m on my union guaranteed lunch break. (It’s kind of sad that we have to bargain for these things but trust me–when I was in the legal field, you did not get lunch breaks). Just wanted to send support & love up to my brethern in Lansing.
Don’t forget about the other bullshit that went through Lansing, including the law that makes it illegal for insurance companies to cover abortion (I hope I am understanding that correctly…I just read it quickly on someone’s Facebook). I’d also like to mention that I’m now reading about how special education might be the next thing to go if we fall off the fiscal cliff. Keep paying attention, friends!!
Do you know of any good ways to contribute to the Right to Work protest since I cannot make it to Lansing? I am planning on using the official contact form on Snyder’s website but I am not at all confident that will actually go anywhere. Are there other internet campaigns or ways to get my voice out there?
Bette O’Conner-Rogers, RN treats a protester at the MNA first aid tent who was maced.
http://imgur.com/t7Hpj
From House Democrat Jeff Irwin:
“When the House passed HB 4003, the Republicans and their clerk, Gary Randall, illegally refused to hear our motion for reconsideration. This is all part of a pattern of lousy and lazy parliamentary process in the Michigan House.
Michigan House Republicans regularly violate Article 4, Section 18 of the Constitution when they deny properly supported requests for roll call votes and now they’re ignoring the other rules of the House.”
Call the Office of the Governor: (517) 335-7858
From the Detroit Free Press.
Read more:
http://www.freep.com/article/20121211/NEWS15/121211011/Early-crowd-hundreds-arrive-Michigan-Capitol-our-house-chanting-begins-inside
The Americans for Prosperity counter-protestors “just escaped in the nick of time without being trapped under the tent when it collapsed.”
The horror!
Our families can’t afford food and rent, but they just barely managed to escape from a collapsing tent.
From Eclectablog.
Read more:
http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/12/liveblog-michigan-anti-right-to-work-for-less-rally-in-lansing.html
“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as ‘right to work.’ It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights.
Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone…Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.”
—Martin Luther King Jr., (1961)
I’m going to speculate that the Republicans hold a much better political hand here than most people think.
Between now and the 2014 midterms, the City of Detroit is going bankrupt, either de factor or de jure, and as part of that bankruptcy process, most social services are going to be extinguished. I think that a good part of the Democratic vote in Detroit is going to be either too depressed, or too pre-occupied with basic survival, to mount much of a GOTV operation in 2014. “Vote Democratic, even though we can’t fix Detroit either” is going to be a hard sell.
(Who knows how much resources the EFM will choose to allocate for polling in 2014?)
I saw your mention of the Free Press editorial, and, then, a few minutes later, happened across the following comment on Facebook.
“F the Free Press. They encouraged the killing of prop 2 and now they want to act surprised by this situation.”
McKinley Properties, I don’t think I quite understand what you’re getting at. Are you asking people to contact Big Brothers and Big Sisters, and all of these other organizations, and ask them not to accept the money of Weiser and Co? Or are you suggesting that we ask them to intervene on behalf of working class Michiganders and place calls to Weiser, asking him to grow a heart?
Both would be a fair start.
facebook stalker, they are Shills for the way higher ups and McKinley and right wing money line their the Big Players pockets.
,,,,,,,get it?
It’s been going on for decade after decade, even centuries.
Care to Audit them?
I don’t have a problem with hitting McKinley in the pocketbook by not doing business with them, but it doesn’t make sense to me to go to The Shelter Association of Washtenaw County, for instance, and tell them to turn down Weiser’s money. How does that help anyone? If anything, it keeps some portion of his money out of politics, while feeding and sheltering the poor. You’re arguing, I suppose, that it legitimizes him. I’d counter that there are more effective ways to deal with him. Does anyone remember the anti-Dahlmann posters that were floating around town for a while, drawing attention to the fact that he was allowing Ypsi’s depot to languish, while investing into his properties in Ann Arbor and elsewhere? Why not start with something like that? Why not launch a website that connects the dots between Weiser and far-right agenda bringing Michigan down?
It looks like Americans for Prosperity could have pulled the tent in on themselves to make it loos as though they were attacked.
http://www.eclectablog.com/2012/12/breaking-americans-for-prosperity-stages-phony-altercation-at-michigan-right-to-work-rally.html
The “Americans for Prosperity” tent was large, heated, fully-stocked with food and drinks, and even decorated with decorative chandeliers for the 20-some obviously well-heeled guests inside.
Occasionally, an AFP member would step outside to taunt the a few of 20,000-some protesters nearby — or to wave an anti-union placard or two. (One read “Stop Feeding the Union Pig.)
I didn’t witness the tent actually being pulled down, but in the aftermath … their were broken folding tables, smashed chandeliers … and globs of chili-and-cheese dip strewn across the the capitol lawn.
Today, Michigan Republicans, led by their faux-moderate governor, voted to have our state join the ranks of places like Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina in a rapidly escalating “race to the bottom” in terms of wages, benefits, and working conditions — including worker safety and job security.
In doing so, they figuratively pissed on the graves of all those brave factory workers who literally fought and died at factory gates, and on highway overpasses, so that their children, and their children’s children, would have the dignity of being able to work in a safer workplace, earn a decent wage, receive modest benefits, and earn overtime after 40 hours.
As someone on Facebook said, “with a lie and one swipe of the pen, these fuckers pissed it all away”. I may have added the thing about fuckers pissing it all away. Pox on all of them. I hope they rot in hell and on earth.
There’s certainly a lot to be pissed off about, but the thing that bothers me most is the fact that Republicans tucked an appropriation into the legislation — which, under the Michigan Constitution, permanently prevents the voters from mounting any campaign to overturn it.
This was one of the most important and far-reaching decisions made in our state in recent decades. Yet – Republicans were so afraid that it might eventually be overturned in a popular vote that they deliberately included a “poison pill” in a cynical attempt to stymie the right of Michigan voters to decide this important issue.
Remember THAT the next time some Republican starts yammering about “freedom,” and “democracy” and “local control.”
I am completely disgusted.
How am I to provide a life for my family here with this place so hostile to basic rights? How am I to provide any quality of life, let alone basic, as now every single industry is encouraged to slip into the same cesspool as every other right to be poor state?
Aside from family and my spiritual community there is exceptionally little keeping me here. How am I to survive, let alone thrive, in such a state?
Perhaps this will provide a rallying cry for Unions throughout the Nation, as well as an opportunity for introspection. It’s pretty damning PR that less than a quarter (24.1 percent) of expenditures by Michigan’s 25 largest private sector (or public/private hybrid) union locals go toward actually representing workers, according to those unions’ latest LM-2 filings. The rest goes toward other expenditures, including benefits, political activity, and general overhead. (http://kcerds.dol-esa.gov/query/getOrgQry.do).
I feel like a great campaign for labor unions at this point would be to align themselves with the Affordable Care Act, and commit to spending at least 80% of their revenue on fighting for workers’ rights, with the rest going toward overhead, political donations, &c. The publicity would be amazing, and workers would feel electrified once more by unions that devoted the lion’s share of their dues toward representing them. I’m bummed this legislation passed, but don’t count the unions out just yet!
At last, we’re starting to get some good press for our political work here at McKinley.
http://www.freep.com/article/20121216/NEWS15/312160307/Top-Republican-official-Ron-Weiser-s-comments-about-Detroit-on-videotape-are-causing-a-stir?odyssey=tab|topnews|img|FRONTPAGE