Death to Unions

Indiana passes Right to Work Bill
1/25/2012

INDIANAPOLIS — Mackinac Center Senior Investigative Analyst Anne Schieber reports that the Indiana House passed House Bill 1001 today by a 54-44 margin. The legislation would make it illegal to force a worker to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment.
The House was considered the main stumbling block to passage of a right-to-work law. While remaining in Indianapolis, Indiana's House Democrats had been avoiding House sessions, but returned to the chamber today for what turned out to be a raucous debate and vote.
The Senate passed a similar bill earlier this week. HB 1001 will need Senate approval, but with passage by the House the enactment of an Indiana right-to-work law is all but guaranteed.
YES!

Mafinism

Trust Us, We Won

Why are contract ratification vote totals such a big secret?

By Paul Kersey | 1/16/2012 10:23 AM

Interesting item in Monday's Midland Daily News: faculty members at Central Michigan University want to know what the totals were after a vote to ratify a new contract, but the union isn't saying.
Negotiations had been contentious, with the university taking a firm line in negotiations and staff at CMU briefly going on strike. The Central Michigan University Faculty Association announced that a contract had been agreed to and ratified last week. The union announced that three-quarters of its membership had voted in the election, but is refusing to release the actual vote totals.
Some CMU faculty find the secretiveness disconcerting. "This is the kind of sneakiness and secrecy that we expect from the administration, not from our union leaders," journalism Professor John Hartman wrote on a Facebook page dedicated to CMU faculty.
But these sorts of shenanigans are not unheard of in union elections, and Michigan labor law does not provide for any remedies when union officials refuse to hold proper votes on things like contract ratifications. Union officials may claim that their organizations are democratic, but they don't always follow through by holding fair, open elections.
That's something to keep in mind as the union establishment gears up for a campaign to try to repeal the state's emergency financial manager law, in which it will drone on and on about the sanctity of democracy.
I think unions are truly the result of mating the Mafia with Communism.

Why?

Absolutely insane that this left-wing liberal is the Michigan Senate Majority leader.
http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16325

Unions, Mafia, same thing

Right-to-Work Repeats Itself;
Indiana Democrats Manufacture a Filibuster
INDIANAPOLIS — In the ongoing battle over right-to-work legislation in Indiana, the state House is still out, although not as far as Illinois this year.
An anticipated joint committee hearing of the House and the Senate is scheduled to occur Friday morning over a proposed right-to-work bill, but for the second consecutive day the Indiana House Democrats have refused to form a quorum — obstructing the legislation from receiving due debate and formal process. House Democrats fled to Illinois last February to protest similar legislation that would have provided right-to-work protections to public-sector employees.
Senate Bill 269 would make it a Class A misdemeanor to require an individual to join or remain in a union or to pay any dues, fees or other charges to that same labor organization. This is commonly referred to as "right-to-work" legislation. In non-right-to-work states, including Michigan, collective bargaining agreements typically require workers to pay a fee in lieu of regular dues if they do not wish to formally join the union.
Republicans hold a 60-40 majority in the 100-member Indiana House, but a two-thirds majority is required on the floor for session to occur. The Democrats' absence can force business to shut down, such as the five-week shutdown of the Indiana House in 2011 over a similar right-to-work bill.
Gov. Mitch Daniels has said he supports the bill, which would make Indiana the 23rd state to adopt right-to-work legislation. Other states that have adopted it include mostly western and southern states like Virginia and Oklahoma; Indiana would be the first in the so-called “Manufacturing Belt.”
Gov. Daniels said in a formal statement, “Seven years of experience at our Indiana Economic Development Corporation have confirmed what every economic development expert tells us: despite our top-ranked business climate, Indiana gets dealt out of hundreds of new job opportunities because we have no right-to-work law.”
Anybody who refuses to see the extortion aspect of forcing an individual to pay money to a Union so he can have a job is an idiot. I mean, look at it any way you want and it's still ridiculous.
A company wants you as an employee, you are qualified for the job and want to work there, but if you refuse to give part of your paycheck to the local Union they can prevent that company from hiring you. Amazing.

Billionaire's need a hand out

University of Michigan:
More Staff, Higher Revenue, Higher Pay ... Wants More Money From Taxpayers
U-M president blames rising costs on 'declining
state support'

In a letter to President Barack Obama, University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman blamed the rising costs at state colleges on “declining state support.”
“Higher education is a public good currently lacking public support,” Coleman wrote in her Dec. 16 letter. “There is no stronger trigger for rising costs at public universities and colleges than declining state support. The University of Michigan and our state’s 14 other public institutions have been ground zero for funding cuts.”
The state is scheduled to give the University of Michigan and its two satellite campuses about $54 million less in 2011-2012 than the previous year, a 15 percent cut. But one fiscal policy expert questions the logic in Coleman’s linking a reduction in state dollars to rising costs.
Michigan’s average compensation for full-time faculty, for example, increased from $122,943 per full-time position in 2005-2006 to $141,753 in 2009-2010, a 15 percent increase over four years.
“To say that higher education costs are increasing because of declining state appropriations confuses revenue with expenses,” said James Hohman, assistant director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiativefor the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “It would be like arguing that losing $20 in the lottery makes groceries cost more. Universities have control over their expenses and can’t blame stalling state appropriations for their ever-increasing costs.”
According to the University of Michigan budget, the college’s operating expenses increased 24 percent from 2006 to 2010. U-M’s operating expenses increased from $4.25 billion in 2006 to $5.28 billion in 2010. At the same time, student tuition and fees and scholarship allowances increased 28 percent, from $675 million in 2006 to $863 million in 2010.
Some scholars believe there are other causes to tuition hikes than government appropriations.
The Mackinac Center reported in 2010 that the number of administrators and service staff at Michigan’s 15 state universities increased 15 percent while their average compensation grew 13 percent from 2005 to 2009.
As an example, the University of Michigan-Flint campus now has more full time administrators (278) than full time faculty (275).
Just a note here.
University of Michigan has $7.8 billion in the bank, but they want more money from you and I.

The state’s flagship corporate welfare scheme — the Michigan Economic Growth Authority — will end Jan. 1, according to The Flint Journal.
“It created job announcements but no jobs,” Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, told The Journal. “That’s the only way to facilitate ribbon-cutting ceremonies.
Michigan’s film subsidy program is also being reduced.
“These are effectively job announcement programs for the beautiful people so the political elite can take credit for bringing Hollywood elite to their state,” LaFaive said. “This doesn’t create jobs, just pretty stories.”
One down and one to go. the Michigan Economic Growth Authority and the Michigan Economic Development Corporation are/were virtually identical state agencies that  produced nothing but expense for Michigan taxpayers. Now we need to get rid of the MEDC.

Whole story please

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Shirley Burnell, a community activist from Oakland, California, has been trying to get her subprime loan restructured since 2007.

She never missed a payment, but the adjustable rate mortgage she got in 2004 shot up to a monthly payment she could no longer afford.

The first thing I want to know is who held the gun to her head in 2004 and made her sign on to a mortgage she obviously couldn't afford in the first place.

Nobody was more stupid than I about home loans when we bought our first house on an adjustable rate mortgage over 25 years ago, but we knew enough to ask what the worst case scenerio on house payments could be. Before we signed we knew our income could survive that scenario; which of course happened within about 18 months. I have no sympathy for these people who signed up for more than they could afford.