All workers deserve a say in their wages, benefits and working conditions. Without a strong voice in the workplace, nurses and other employees can be taken advantage of by corporations that care only about increasing their profits.

One way that CEOs and their political supporters are trying to silence workers is by pushing so-called “Right to Work” legislation in Michigan and around the country.

Despite the misleading name, “Right to Work” laws do not provide rights to a job. They also do not have anything to do with people being forced to join a union or required to pay union dues that fund political causes they disagree with (federal law already prohibits both of these).

Instead, the laws are aimed at destroying unions’ ability to effectively represent workers and bargain for fair wages and benefits. They do this by interfering with the relationship between employees and employers, banning them from negotiating a contract that requires all members of a union who benefit from representation to pay their fair share.

Pulling the financial rug out from under unions takes bargaining power away from workers, resulting in a “race to the bottom” in states like Arkansas and Mississippi. 

“Right to Work” laws are often referred to as “Right to Work (For Less)” laws because of their destructive impact. Research shows that for both union and non-union workers, “Right to Work” laws: 

• Lower wages, by an average of $1,500 per year
• Decrease the likelihood that employees receive health insurance
• Decrease the likelihood that employees receive a pension

“Right to Work” laws have no impact on job growth and economic development. By lowering wages, “Right to Work” can actually hurt job creation: When consumers don’t have money to spend, businesses suffer. 

It’s clear that if “Right to Work” legislation passes, Michigan workers would suffer and economic recovery for the 99 percent would be even further away. It’s also clear that this is part of a national campaign to take power away from middle-class workers – a campaign committed by greedy corporations and the politicians they control with their money. 

MNA is standing up against these attacks to silence working men and women. 

Through successful contracts at the University of Michigan and elsewhere, we’ve shown that unions are essential to providing a check against employers’ unreasonable demands. 

And through our Main Street Contract campaign, we’re working to change our nation’s priorities so that jobs at living wages are available for all. 

By uniting and putting power where it belongs – in the hands of those who do the work, not those who merely profit from it – workers can make Michigan a state where everyone has the opportunity to prosper.

“In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as ‘right to work.’ It provides no ‘rights’ and no ‘works.’ Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining. We demand this fraud be stopped.”  Martin Luther King Jr., 1961

America’s workers have been fighting so-called “Right to Work” legislation for decades. As the fight emerges here in Michigan, we must see this threat clearly for what it is – big corporations’ attempt to silence workers’ voices so they can pay them less and give them fewer benefits.

Those who are driving this back-door effort to destroy collective bargaining should see reality clearly, too, and that reality is this: Their power grab is backfiring. Corporate attacks on the 99 percent have inspired a long-overdue power shift instead.

The workers who built the middle class and whose blood, sweat and tears create the profits hoarded by greedy corporations are taking their power back in:

• New Hampshire, where the Republican-controlled House failed to overturn the Governor’s veto of “Right to Work” legislation recently and kept that domino from falling in New England;
• Wisconsin, where more than half the 540,000 signatures needed to recall Governor Scott Walker for his attacks on collective bargaining were collected in just 12 days;
• Ohio, where voters overwhelmingly repealed the union-busting SB 5;
• And right here in Michigan, where the effort to repeal the emergency manager law – yet another tool to break collectively bargained contracts – is well on its way to success. 

The Michigan Nurses Association is proud to be working with nurses around the country to fuel a power shift away from greedy corporations and the politicians they control. The Occupy movement has accelerated this. Together, we're putting the spotlight on rebuilding our country through solutions that support the 99 percent, including a tax on financial transactions. 

It’s time for Wall Street to pay. It’s time for workers to take their power back. 

And it’s time for us, the people, to face another reality: While undoing destructive laws and removing anti-worker politicians from office are important actions, it’s more important to stop them in the first place. That's why it’s time to show our power at the ballot box.

So every time you see “RTW,” remember. Remember how the people who are dead set on destroying workers’ basic rights took the power away from the rest of us last year.

Remember. And get ready. Because the people are rising up to reclaim their power in November.

From now on, “RTW” stands for “Rising up To Win.” 

It’s impossible to know what the supercommittee is thinking as they approach the Nov. 23 deadline to recommend cuts of $1.5 trillion or more. They generally meet behind closed doors, and Michigan’s two supercommittee members have refused to hold public town halls to listen to citizens’ input and answer their questions.  

So, we at the Michigan Nurses Association held citizens town halls last night ourselves in their districts – in Midland for Congressman Dave Camp and Kalamazoo for Congressman Fred Upton. 

Folks shared their personal stories and talked about the need for jobs and other issues.  In essence, though, they talked, often emotionally, about wanting to live in an America that reflects some basic values that most of us have in common: Everyone should pay their fair share. People who work hard and play by the rules should not suffer while cheaters thrive. We should take care of each other. Corporations that damaged our economy should be held accountable. And our elected officials should get their priorities straight and put people first. 

We’ve been told that “everything is on the table” when it comes to the supercommittee; that includes Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and other programs that we, the 99 percent, have invested in and depend on. 

Well, one thing we know is that Camp and Upton do not share the 99 percent’s belief in basic principles like paying your fair share. 

It’s more than being in the pocket of Wall Street and special interests, as we called them out for with our radio ads and billboards. Camp and Upton protect corporations that make billions of dollars in profit and yet don’t pay a dime in taxes. 

Big Camp and Upton donors were all over a report on corporate taxpayers and corporate tax dodgers, released this month. These are multi-billion companies that even though they made billions in profits, paid NO taxes in 2008, 2009 and 2010. If you paid any income tax at all, you paid more than Verizon, Boeing, General Electric, Honeywell and many other giant profitable corporations. 

Reps. Camp and Upton's Corporate Connections

These companies used fancy tricks to avoid paying their fair share, funneling their money instead into the campaign funds of Camp, Upton – and undoubtedly many more. No, corporations are not using their record profits to create jobs – they are using them to buy politicians, even as they complain about the lower and middle classes not paying our fair share. 

And they are using their profits, earned on the back of working men and women, to pay their CEOs obscene amounts. 

• Verizon paid CEO Ivan Seidenberg $18.1 million in 2010 
• Honeywell paid CEO David Cote $15.2 million in 2010 
• General Electric paid CEO Jeff Immelt $15.1 million in 2010 
• Boeing paid CEO Jim McNerney $13.7 million in 2010

Wall Street is doing better than ever, thanks in good part to the taxpayer bailouts they received from all of us. Meanwhile, Michigan’s unemployment rate is 11.1 percent as we struggle to pick up the pieces of an economy wrecked by greedy corporations.

There is a solution to this twisted cycle: a small fee on Wall Street trading that will raise billions of dollars and help avoid supercommittee cuts that hurt the 99 percent. Michigan nurses have been pushing for a financial transaction tax of less than one percent, which already exists in some form in more than 40 companies, for months because it is a fair and effective step that will help build an economy that works for the 99 percent. 

The money raised would be used for priorities supported by our Main Street Contract for the American People: jobs at living wages, quality schools, health care for all, good housing, secure retirement, and a clean and safe environment. 

Those are the kind of values and priorities that reflect the America that the 99 percent want. Together, we can create it.

Rep. Dave Camp Billboard & Radio Ad

Click here to download the Dave Camp Radio Ad.

Rep. Fred Upton Billboard & Radio Ad

Click here to download the Fred Upton Radio Ad.

Congressmen Dave Camp and Fred Upton, Michigan’s members of the supercommittee, are busy deciding what to cut and what to save in order to fix our country’s $1.2 trillion deficit. They’re doing it without having town halls to listen to their constituents. Wall Street is having its say loud and clear, though – in the form of hundreds of thousands of dollars from corporations and CEOs that the two millionaire politicians have accepted since being appointed to this powerful panel.

The rest of us – the 99 percent – shouldn’t have to hire a lobbyist or start our own PAC to be heard. We deserve the opportunity to tell our Congressmen about the damage that’s been done by the Wall Street special interests that have them firmly in their pocket. Demand that Camp and Upton hold town halls at home and listen to the people!

On Sept. 1, Nurses from the Michigan Nurses Association asked Rep. Camp to support the Main Street Contract for the American People. The seven principles behind the Main Street Contract are jobs at living wages; guaranteed health care for all; a secure retirement, with the ability to retire in dignity; equal access to a quality education; good housing and protection from hunger; and a just taxation system where corporations and the wealthy pay their fair share. A small tax on Wall Street transactions would fund investments in these priorities.

Rep. Camp has given no indication as to why he refuses to support these common-sense reforms to rebuild America and invest in Main Street, but it certainly comes as no surprise given his history in Congress. The facts speak for themselves:

• Rep. Camp has voted in multiple sessions of Congress to cut Medicare significantly, which roughly 125,000 of his constituents rely on for treatment and medication. 
• Rep. Camp voted for the “Cut, Cap and Balance” Act this year, citing the need to get government spending under control, but he voted for the $25 billion Wall Street bailout in 2008. 
• The night before the first super committee hearing, Pfizer hosted a fundraiser for him – continuing his pattern of lining his campaign coffers with more than $4 million in donations from the financial, insurance, health and real estate industries that have benefited directly from his votes for years.
• Rep. Camp has not held a town hall in his own district for months, although he had time over the summer to meet with constituents in Utah. Sen. Orrin Hatch hosted an economic forum at Utah Valley University on August 31 that Rep. Camp found time to attend.
• Worried about his support for cuts to Medicaid, 54 constituents and disability rights advocates in wheelchairs visited his office on September 19, and were promptly handcuffed, arrested, and forcibly removed from the building.
• At a time when corporations are sitting on billions in cash and using political donations to purchase large tax breaks, Rep. Camp supports decreasing the federal maximum tax rate for corporations by 10 percent.
• Rep. Camp is worth about $6.75 million – meanwhile life for his constituents gets harder and harder. In Michigan’s 4th District, nearly 80,000 people live without health insurance, 25 percent of families deal with hunger daily, and about 20 percent of residents live in poverty. Michigan’s unemployment rate has increased four months in a row and now sits at 11.2 percent.

This morning, nurses from the Michigan Nurses Association are holding a rally in the rain at Rep. Camp’s office in Midland to demand that he give his own constituents the same courtesy he gave citizens in Utah and hold a town hall meeting in his district. If Rep. Camp refuses to put Main Street before Wall Street, he owes his constituents an explanation.