Whoa! Mich. adding bureaucracy to administer No Rights At Work

Teamster Local 406 member Terry Hoogerhyde
at Wednesday's 'Walk of Shame' protest. Thanks AFT Michigan
for the photo. 

Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is looking to hire a "No Rights At Work" bureaucrat in the Licensing and Regulatory Affairs Department. His or her job will be to come up with propaganda justifying the state's new anti-worker laws.

No, we're not kidding.

We found the job description on Twitter for a "Freedom to Work Specialist." You can see it here. It would be funny if it weren't so disgusting.

One of the tasks of the "FTW Specialist" (a lawyer):

Draft proposed rules, regulations, policies, and guidelines to properly implement and administer FTW laws.

That doesn't sound like freedom to us.

We also learn from the job description that Snyder is actually looking for justification of No Rights At Work. Perhaps he should have thought of that before he rammed the bills through the Legislature at the behest of extremist billionaires. Here are some of the duties:

Perform legal research and analysis of FTW statutes in conjunction with other laws administered by MERC(Michigan Employment Relations Commission).

Review case law and decisions from other Right to Work states for future reference and use.

Analyze and summarize cases from RTW states involving issues arising or likely to arise in Michigan to be able to advise Commission and staff.

Study and compare wages in FTW/RTW states.

Compare and analyze employer sponsored health insurance in FTW/RTW states compared to non-FTW/RTW states.

Compare and analyze rate of employer sponsored pensions in FTW/RTW states compared to non-FTW/RTW states.

Compare and analyze unemployment rate in the FTW/RTW states compared to non FTW/RTW states.

Compare and analyze job creation levels in the FTW/RTW states compared to non FTW/RTW states.

They're even going to have a newsletter.

Let's be honest. No Rights At Work is about government interference in the relationship between employees and employer.

In all states, the government orders the employer to treat all employees equally, union and non-union alike. In all states, the government orders the union to represent all employees, member and non-member alike. And in No Rights At Work states, the government forbids the employer and the workers from entering into a contract where all workers must pay fees for the representation they union is required to provide.

It's no wonder No Rights At Work requires a new layer of bureaucracy.

"Freedom" is a word much loved by Michigan Republicans, the rapidly imploding FreedomWorks and its astroturf sibling, the Benedict Arnold Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity. "Worker freedom" were the words used to justify Michigan's No Rights At Work laws.

C'mon fellas. We all know "freedom" is all about "freedom" for CEOs and billionaires to extort more money from working men and women. No propagandist for the state is going to change that.