We Are The People

Here are today’s top Michi­gan news stories…

CRAIN’S: What biz thinks: Execs favor right-to-work state, Snyder-backed bridge – Jim Reb, owner of Reb Con­struc­tion Ser­vices Inc. in Auburn Hills, said he sup­ports Snyder’s posi­tion. “It would suck all the wind out of push­ing the state for­ward,” Reb said, and “dis­rupt our Steady Eddie gov­er­nor.” While Reb said he sup­ports right-to-work in the­ory, he doesn’t think that such a law would have much impact on Michigan’s econ­omy. He cites sur­veys that show right to work ranks in the mid­dle of the pack in terms of fac­tors com­pa­nies con­sider when mak­ing loca­tion deci­sions. “Prob­a­bly the unions’ most per­sua­sive argu­ment is that nonunion work­ers get the same ben­e­fits as union work­ers with­out hav­ing to pay the freight,” said Cameron Evans, a part­ner with Honig­man who spe­cial­izes in labor and employ­ment law. “There’s some com­mon sense to what unions have to say,” he said. “Implicit in that is that then there is going to be dis­sen­sion on the shop floor.”

MLIVE: Is Mitt Rom­ney the evil twin of Gov. Rick Sny­der? (Rick Haglund col­umn) – But Rom­ney also could be Snyder’s evil polit­i­cal twin. Snyder’s endorse­ment of Rom­ney is curi­ous when you con­sider the major areas in which the two men have sig­nif­i­cant dif­fer­ences. If elected pres­i­dent, Rom­ney says he will take on the “union bosses” and push for a national right-to-work law. Sny­der calls right to work divi­sive and has warned Repub­li­cans in the Leg­is­la­ture who are push­ing for it not to send a bill to his desk. He plays nice with United Auto Work­ers Pres­i­dent Bob King and other labor leaders.

WILX: Rom­ney Takes Aim at “Union Bosses” in WILX Inter­view – Recently UAW Local 652 Pres­i­dent Mike Green said this about Rom­ney: “He’s attack­ing work­ing peo­ple, some­thing i don’t think he knows any­thing about.” Rom­ney responded. “The peo­ple that have dif­fi­culty with me are the union bosses,” he said. “They don’t want me to be talk­ing to union work­ers about get­ting good jobs with ris­ing incomes.” But union work­ers aren’t happy with Rom­ney either– protest­ing his event Fri­day in Detroit with signs spelling out “Let Rom­ney Go Bank­rupt.” “I made it real clear that the auto bailout, the way it was orig­i­nally con­sid­ered, where exec­u­tives went to Wash­ing­ton to ask for $50 bil­lion dol­lars– that was a bad idea,” said Rom­ney. “The com­pa­nies needed to go through a man­aged bankruptcy.”

FREE PRESS: GSRA union­iza­tion: U-M regents, admin­is­tra­tion in rare split – The board has been split across party lines for nine months over whether grad­u­ate stu­dent research assis­tants should be allowed to union­ize. The Demo­c­ra­tic major­ity on the board sup­ports GSRA union­iza­tion, against the advice of U-M Pres­i­dent Mary Sue Cole­man, Provost Phil Han­lon and hun­dreds of fac­ulty mem­bers — a rare pub­lic dis­agree­ment between regents and Coleman.

DETNEWS: New pen­sion tax sur­prises retirees, cre­ates con­fu­sion – “I was furi­ous,” says the Wood­haven retiree. “It really irked me.” If they’re not irked or furi­ous, Michi­gan retirees are likely con­fused or unaware that the state now gets a cut of their nest eggs. Nearly 400,000 retirees face the new tax, and they’ll need to make sure they’re hav­ing the right amount with­held, or they could face tax penal­ties. And those who don’t have to pay the tax — such as Jack Vas­sallo — need to file a form with their pen­sion plan or invest­ment com­pany if they want their retire­ment checks to keep com­ing untouched.

Posted on Monday, February 27th, 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.