Response to an article by Charles Krauthammer

Here is the article: "The Right-To-Work Dilemma"

Here is my response which I sent to him in an email:

Mr. Krauthammer,

In your first sentence you miss-state the over-all issue, an accommodation to reality. What happened in Michigan was a ham-handed execution of a lame-duck session of state government, to impart their will and not the will of the people. To do this, the legislature suspended rules, rammed through legislation without the normal processes and procedures normally put in place to allow input from all points of view. This speaks to a suspension of reality not an accommodation to it.

You speak of Globalization, however you did not include the fact that hordes of lobbyist worked to get tax breaks for American companies to essentially get paid for moving jobs out of America. Those same companies are now losing on their balance sheets because by under-cutting the American workforce, there are fewer Americans buying the company's foreign made goods. Globalization works when there is value placed on the worker and the worker is able to participate in the economic circle by having enough to buy the products. You cut that part out, as current corporate thinking goes, and you will destroy not only the American market, but the world market. The current corporate-think of cheap labor is a short-sighted one that even the staunch conservative Henry Ford didn't share. He believed you had to pay your workers enough to be able to buy the product. So much for cheap labor.

You stated "Angry protesters return" to a norm that doesn't exist today and hasn't existed for over twenty years, or more. What they were protesting about is being able to be at the negotiating table to see that the workers are a part of the decision-making process. Over the last twenty years, unions have given concessions in order to help keep businesses operating. There are many examples where management has taken advantage of this, Hostess comes to mind. They squandered the pension fund, money worker contributed, and even had the hubris to ask the bankruptcy court for payment on management bonuses.

When you compare the northern car companies to those of the south, you're comparing apples to oranges. The only reason there is a car manufacturing boon in the south is because foreign car manufacturers didn't want to pay the additional tax for vehicles not made in America. So, they researched where they could open the cheapest manufacturing here and the south won, oh not for it's level of intellect, but the amount of breaks the southern states gave these foreign manufacturers. These breaks, which the local people have to absorb by paying higher taxes to cover the taxes not being paid by these companies. The northern states, already having a manufacturing base felt they didn't need to lower their standards, and their tax base, in an attempt to lure these foreign companies. The right to work issue was just a bonus.

The reason Detroit went bankrupt was because of management deciding to not listen to market forces and stop building SUV's and gigantic gas-guzzlers when Americans were asking for higher fuel economy. Unions were not in the boardrooms, they were on the factory floors building whatever the company decided to put out for that year. Seems rather intriguing how management and republicans are afflicted with the same disease, an inability to listen to the people of America.

Next, you state "There is a principle at stake: A free country should allow its workers to choose whether or not to join a union. " Sir, I direct you to the Taft-Hartley Labor Act passed in 1947, yes you read that correctly, 1947. This act was passed and it outlawed the "closed shop". This means that joining a union was not a condition of employment. So, your assertion is false and is factually wrong, 65 years wrong. You can confirm this fact by reading up on it at this informational site: http://www.infoplease.com/encyclopedia/business/taft-hartley-labor-act.html As the rest of your blather, since it's based on a false premise, the rest of your statement carries the same validity.

You speak of right to work states having lower unemployment, there may be some validity to that, but they also have higher usage of food stamps and higher welfare numbers as well. In an article about which states use more federal money than they contribute, Mother Jones took a look at 2010 census data and found states that voted republican tended to get more federal dollars than they provide ("Most Red States Take More Money From Washington Than They Put In" Feb 16, 2012). It would seem to me if you have lower unemployment, you would have a higher influx of money going from the state to federal government. However, since the wages are markedly lower, they are not contributing more. Lower wages means less money to put back into the local economy, which means less of a tax base for the state to operate.

Free trade is the straw man of your argument. Trade by its very nature is not free. The word itself belies your argument. From Merriam-Webster.com, "The business of buying or selling or bartering commodities." You go to any business person and say "I want to Trade for Free" and you'll be laughed out of the room. There is no such animal, nothing is for free, period. There is an exchange of value, there is a price, there is an agreed contract, period. What you are talking about is devaluing labor until it is almost free. That is the process we are the victims of here in America and it most certainly is a head-long tumble to the bottom. Fair trade is the mantra we must spread across the globe.

The recalibration you speak of is one of devaluation of the one thing this country was founded on and that is the might of the American worker, We The People, that is the value we put into the products we generate, that the world prizes when they see the label "Made In America" because it stands for quality and strength. No lame ducks will destroy that, no matter how hard and how craftily they try. We must work towards Fair Trade, a fair day's pay for a fair day's work.