WILL: Michigan's watershed moment on unions




Nationwide, resentment of union power has been accumulating like steam in a boiler. The Wall Street Journal reports that in the last four years <WC>"<WC1>nearly every state <WC>.<TH>.<TH>.<WC1> has enacted some form of pension changes<WC>"<WC1> clawing back unsustainable benefits promised to unionized government employees. The most conspicuous battle was in Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker survived organized labor's attempt to recall him as punishment for restricting collective bargaining by unionized government workers. After Walker's reforms, Indiana under Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels became the 23rd right-to-work state, and the first in the industrial Midwest.



Indiana noticed Wisconsin's competitive advantage in attracting businesses from Illinois and elsewhere. Michigan also has noticed. Yet unions call what Michigan, Indiana and Wisconsin have done a <WC>"<WC1>race to the bottom.<WC>"<WC1> This flapdoodle and folderol come from unions that have contributed mightily to Michigan's painful acquaintance with the bottom.


The Wall Street Journal reports that because some government workers with defined-benefit pensions can retire in their 40s, <WC>"<WC1>many retirees living into their 80s are drawing benefits for nearly twice as long as they work.<WC>"<WC1> Many liberals who, with solemn self-congratulation, call themselves <WC>"<WC1>pro-choice<WC>"<WC1> become testy when the right to choose is not confined to choosing to kill unborn babies. They say the right to choose is not progressive when it enables parents to choose their children's schools, or permits workers to choose not to fund unions' political advocacy.

Democrats who soon will celebrate two of their party's saints at Jefferson-Jackson Day dinners should jettison either their opposition to right-to-work laws or their reverence for Jefferson, who said: <WC>"<WC1>To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.<WC>"


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