Michigan Dems and Obama Hit Rick Snyder on Right to Work

      I know there's a lot of Obama skeptics out there. While some are now admitting that Obama may have actually learnt something the last 4 years, their admissions are often slow and grudging. Many think he's going to go off the reservation any day now in a futile attempt at GOP approval.

      This misses the point  totally. He's not a dumb man and he has learnt something over these 4 years. I was glad to see Laurence O'Donnell on "Meet the Press" this Sunday-though I wasn't so happy to see Bob Woodward and hear his VSP talk about how the President must "lead" which means, basically cave to GOP demands.

      http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2012/12/david-gregory-and-bob-woodward-when.html

       What I like about Laurence is he gets it. He's never been an Obama basher. He was on the Clinton budget team so he knows how it works. Even at the worst point for Obama when everyone had turned on him-he had few fans back during the debt ceiling mess in 2011, O'Donnell called it: that Obama had actually played the GOP. The proof is that now the Dems have turned out to have most of the leverage during the "fiscal cliff."

        I expect the President won't budge on taxes going up on the 2% and he won't allow the GOP to use the debt ceiling as a monthly hostage. I expect the Dems led by Harry Reid-and support by the Obama Administration will insist on meaningful filibuster reform.

       However, we've got another good sign that the Democrats get it now, that they are not going to fritter away their mandate is how they're standing tall in Michigan in the face of GOP Governor Rick Snyder's attempt to impose Right to Work legalisation through parliamentary fiat. The Michigan Democrats are having none of it:

      "Democrats from Michigan’s congressional delegation returned home Monday to meet with Gov. Rick Snyder (R) and pressure him not to make good on his promise to sign so-called right-to-work legislation into law.

      That signature, they warned, would send Michigan spinning off into chaos."

       “This is something that’s going to set this state in a course for one of the longest, most bitter and angry battles that we have seen over the rights of working men and women to belong to unions and bargain collectively,” Rep. John Dingell (D) the longest-serving current member of House, told reporters during a news conference. “It will upset almost everything that we’re trying to do in terms of jobs, economic recovery.”

     "Dingell was joined by other Democrats in the delegation, who like other Democrats across Michigan, said they scrambled to put together a response to Snyder’s about-face on right-to-work legislation, which would allow people to work at union shops without paying dues. The first term governor had told the Republican majority in the state legislature to hold off on curbing unions in the home of the Big Three, before changing his mind last week and getting behind the effort."

      "Since then, right-to-work legislation written specifically to prevent pro-labor forces from challenging it at the ballot box the way they did in Ohio last year. The Democratic lawmakers called on Snyder to drop this clause and to delay the vote to allow more public hearings on it. Vocal protests have hit the state capital of Lansing since the right-to-work bill picked up steam."

       "Democrats met with Synder for about an hour on Monday morning and later told reporters the governor pledged to consider their concerns. But most observers expect Snyder will sign the bill into law, setting off a long legal and political fight with labor and Democrats. The AFL-CIO joined with Democrats saying the law will create chaos in Michigan."

     http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/12/democrats-pressure-snyder-labor.php?ref=fpnewsfeed

      Yesterday the President joined the fight against the right to work cramdown on his visit to Michigan:

       "If anyone had doubts that President Obama would speak out against Michigan’s new “right to work” initiative, he set them to rest during an event in that state today. Here’s what he said:

        “What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages. These so-called right to work laws — they don’t have anything to do with economics. They have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is, giving you the right to work for less money. You only have to look to Michigan, where workers were instrumental in reviving the auto industry, to see how unions have helped build not just a stronger middle class but a stronger America. [...]

        "We don’t want a race to the bottom. We want a race to the top. America’s not going to compete based on low skills, low wage, no workers rights. That’s not our competitive advantage. There’s always going to be some other country that can treat its workers even worse.”

         "Obama hit all the right notes. He pointed out that “right to work” laws are not about boosting the economy, but about crippling the political opposition; that they are not about freedom, but about weakening workers’ ability to organize for better pay; that unions have long played a critical role in providing a path to the middle class; and that investing in a trained, well represented work force is the way to produce a broadly shared prosperity — rather than a “race to the bottom” — that is better for the country as a whole."

         "It’s unclear how much of an impact this will have on the ongoing battle in Michigan. There were already signs that Governor Rick Snyder didn’t fully understand how unions work and what the “right to work” laws speeding towards his desk actually do. In a private meeting today, top Michigan Democrats reiterated to him that labor and Dems simply want to ensure that unions have the right to collect fees from non-union members who benefit from their collective bargaining along with union members. And word is that Governor Snyder prides himself on being a pragmatic problem solving type, rather than an ideologue. So it can’t hurt to have the President come into his state and tell the truth about these laws in such a high profile way, arguing that “right to work” isn’t really about budgeting and won’t help us innovate, compete, or move the country forward."

     http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2012/12/10/obama-drops-the-hammer-on-michigan-right-to-work-push/

     So all the signs point to the Dems from Obama down fighting very hard for the American people going forward. As for Snyder, if he does force this through going around the normal course for getting such legalisation passed-at the ballot box-it will cost him whatever credibility he has as a "pragmatic problem solver."