Today’s guest post was written by my new friend Sally Tyler. Sally lives in Washington, DC. and is a public policy analyst for a national labor union, who spent time in Wisconsin in 2011, and who occasionally reads poetry. She writes today about Philip Levine, a U.S. Poet Laureate who died last month. Levine is best known for his poems […]

A new study by professors from Baylor University and the University of Arkansas shows that, despite a 10% decline in union membership over the past 30 years, union members are happier and have greater satisfaction in their lives than non-union members. In a New York Times article titled “Want to Be Happy? Join a Union”, the two professors talk about […]

The American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), a Koch brothers-funded group that churns out pro-business model legislation for state legislators, has been incredibly effective at impacting policy at the state level. A recent study shows just how effective they have been: Building on research I am conducting with Konstantin Kashin, I used text analysis of ALEC’s model legislation, along with all […]

The American Dream, according to dictionary.com, is defined as: the ideals of freedom, equality, and opportunity traditionally held to be available to every American, or, a life of personal happiness and material comfort as traditionally sought by individuals in the U.S. I might suggest that, based on generational differences, the definition of the American Dream might be different from generation […]

After losing in court countless times, the corporatist front group Mackinac Center has finally won a round. This week, an administrative law judge ruled that the Michigan Education Association (MEA) teachers union must end its decades-old policy of having an “opt-out month” and allow its members to leave at any time. The judge’s ruling is essentially a recommendation to the […]

Despite the success of groups like the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), the State Policy Network (SPN) and their affiliates, and other related anti-union corporate front groups in making states like Michigan so-called “Right to Work” states, these same groups are having far less success in actually getting people to leave their unions. In Michigan, for example, only around 1% […]

The UAW is vilified on a regular basis by anti-union corporatists, including their Republican shills in our state legislatures and the federal government. Our domestic vehicle manufacturers are being hobbled and strangled by the “union bosses” and “union thugs” who have the audacity to collectively bargain for good wages and benefits. Now that the Great Recession is largely in our […]

It’s not going too far to say that American workers everywhere benefit on an ongoing basis from the hard work labor unions have done over the past several decades. I work at a non-union company that treats its employees very well. They compete for talent with other companies, including union shops, and this encourages them to do right by us, […]

Republican House Jase Bolger is on what appears to be a one-man effort to extort money from Detroit labor unions. He recently laid down a new condition for state support of the so-called “grand bargain” in Detroit, a carefully-crafted and complex agreement that would protect the priceless art collection held by the Detroit Institute of Arts and dramatically minimize the […]

It never ends… Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Higher Education included language in an appropriations bill they voted out of committee last week which will strip Michigan State University of a half million dollars in annual funding if they continue to offer a training program for members of a variety of building trades unions. The legislation strips the […]

Michigan anti-union Republicans: Solving non-existent problems since 2011 Photo credit: Anne C. Savage, special to Eclectablog During the 2011-2012 legislative session, House Republican Tom McMillin introduced House Bill 5024 which would impose $1,000/day fines on individuals engaging in illegal picketing in our state and $10,000/day fines for unions that sponsor or promote illegal picketing events. In other words, the picketing […]