Busting unions and looking good doing it

The state of Michigan has joined other Republican-led states in the union-busting business. They didn’t go the hard head-up route taken by states like Wisconsin, they did it in the name of saving cities from bankruptcy. They appointed what the Republican governor calls emergency managers for smaller cities that were targets — Flint, Pontiac, Saginaw and Benton Harbor — but for the Detroit with a history of riots dating back a hundreds and as recent as 1967, they used a different approach.

A board of the most talented people in the state will do the union busting in Detroit. They will cancel all contracts the unions have and force lower wages and fewer benefits in the name of saving the city from bankruptcy. There will be no outrage because the people making the cuts look just like the people being cut, so it is not racism.

Detroiters have all been beat down so bad that they are now willing for anything that looks like it will last longer than the last price per gallon of gasoline. People are so beat down since 9/11 that they just want three months that look like the last three months and they don’t have to keep planning their lifestyle and retirement over every other day.

But this union busting will soon bring people out onto the streets like our sister and brothers in Spain and Greece. And it will be painful for the rule makers and the ones the rulers were made to rule over. The unions will rise again.