Michigan is quickly becoming known as the Land of Union Mischief following last year’s passage of a state law making certain kinds of union contracts illegal.
Since Michigan passed its controversial Right-to-Work law late last year, which makes it unlawful for unions to require workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment, many unions have been able to skirt the law by negotiating new long-term contracts before the new law actually took effect on March 28.
In Michigan’s unionized construction industry, construction union bosses have been scrambling to negotiate new (or extended) long-term contracts that avoid the state’s new Right-to-Work law. In several cases, these contracts extend for as many as ten years–to 2023. More shockingly, in several cases, union bosses have agree to freeze their members’ wages in exchange for continued union dues…. Although unions are notoriously uncompetitive in the construction industry and union bosses negotiating wage freezes may make some sense in a bad economy, ten years’ worth of wage freezes seems extraordinarily long. At least is seems long until one realizes that Michigan union bosses got what they want out of the contracts–the ability to collect union dues in a Right-to-Work state for another ten years and to use a portion of those dues to subsidize union contractors......To Read More….
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