Good grief — because what Michigan needs is more of what Michigan already has:
Free collective bargaining states provide quality wages and benefits that all struggling Americans need to survive. Without these protections the standard of living is significantly decreased for the entire state.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the average annual pay in 2009 for right-to-work states was $4,476 less than the average in Michigan for all workers.
That’s from a Detroit News editorial today from Mark Gaffney. Are union wages higher? Perhaps. The problem is, there aren’t any union jobs.
The red lines show people leaving Detroit. The black lines — and if you squint just right you can see a few — show people moving to Detroit. There’s an interactive version of the map at Forbes, and you can use it to see that all of Michigan is becoming as hollowed-out as its once-great auto industry. You know, the industry the UAW helped to destroy.
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