roughly maybe 350,000 workers. the united automobile workers, everybody can own a car in america. the history of unionism has been inextricably linked to the growth of the middle class, as you know, over the last 60 years of american history. the right-to-work legislation that has passed now in 24 states, i don t think you can dem demonstrably prove that it leads to higher wages, that it leads to marginally but what s wrong with giving people the freedom to work where they want to work? there s nothing wrong with it. if i want to work in a shop and not pay a union i disagree with, shouldn t that be my right? it is your right, joe. no, it s not my right if it s not a right-to-work state. i understand that. i understand that. if it s not a right-to-work state. but the problem is that the unions, having felt threatened over the last 20 or 25 years, have taken a stand against right-to-work legislation because why? they lose union dues. they have used the union dues
i m not sure they re going to appeal that way. governor, you had said before you weren t going to bring up this legislation because it was too divisive for the state. but you decided to bring it up anyway. what changed your mind? well, what happened, going back to 2009 when i started a campaign, i looked at it and said over 80% of the work force in michigan isn t unionized. so it s not a relevant issue to most michiganders and as a practical matter, we had much more pressing things to take care of. we ve done tax reform. we ve balanced our budget. we re paying down debt. education reform. a long list of important things that were higher priorities. what happened was this last summer. labor leaders decided to start a ballot initiative to put something on michigan s ballot regarding collective bargaining. and again, i believe in collective bargaining, but they went to a huge overreach to do something in michigan s constitution. and i asked them not to move ahead because i said if y
lonnie k.stevans of hofstra found that states that have enacted such laws reported no increase in start-ups or rates. wages and personal income are lower in those states than in those without such laws, he conclud concluded, though propry tors incomes are higher. that s the problem. that s the issue. that is the problem. and perhaps that was i d love to hear the governor answer that question because he argued, governor snyder, he argued in the clip that you showed that this is about increasing business start-ups, increasing economic development of business activity in michigan. and in the face of those numbers, and mike quoted some stats barnicle did how do you reconcile those comments? it would be interesting to hear him walk through that. that s exactly the problem. this is actually going to make mish misch a po michigan a poorer state, not a state without jobs. wouldn t that help make the process and the function of what
federal level and state level where republicans on the state level control 60% of the governors. they have a majority of state senators nationwide. they have a majority of state legislators nationwide. but you get to d.c., and republicans in d.c., richard wolffe, my god. it reminds me of the famous quote of churchill. when winston s right, winston s right. but when he s wrong, my god. one of his friends said that about him. it was true. churchill also said that, you know, the definition of success is going from failure to failure without lots of enthusiasm. i think by that measure, republicans are doing really well. we re doing great. it s not just a branding problem. it s a policy problem. right. until they start shifting on policies look, we re seeing some of this talk come out of some of these smarter republican governors, people like governor jindal talking about education disparities. right. there are some moves afoot. whether that will take hold, how that translat
debate with george w. bush. you re right. you re right. carl, do you have a question for the governor and not a statement? yes. sure. 15 seconds. i have a question. governor, let s see how this works. i have a loaded question. we re holding our no. my loaded question would be, how do you distinguish your position on this from a real question about the welfare of workers in a state that historically unions have had a huge role in and in making michigan a better place? that s a great question. governor. and political warfare. versus cultural and political warfare. if you go back, again, in the last century, in the middle of the century, the unions did a lot of great things. they helped with working conditions, wages, so many great things. but if you come to today, in many respects, unions are a declining percentage of the work force. michigan was just third in