[regulusgeek]

Originally Posted by darstar

You do not know what you are talking about. Depressed area? You could not be anymore wrong. Before running off with your words, do some fact checking. Marquette County is not depressed, that's common knowledge , what rock did you crawl out from anyway. ?

Most of the UP has been losing population for years. Lots of threads about the welfare mentality and lack of jobs up there for many if not most counties. Marquette is just one of 15 so stop cherry picking the only area up there that's doing ok, in large part because of NMU. Most are not doing ok.

[boner]

Agreed, Marqutte county and the city cannot be compared to the rest of the UP which is remote and depressed economically, always has been. There are good unions and bad unions, the teamsters ran the Machine shop where I worked in the ground but the Paper workers and railroads have unions that work with management and ownership. The UAW and the corrupt pigs down state have no bearing on the union and ownership relationships above the bridge which is more like the rest of the country than the dysfunctional environment of the downstate auto industry

Originally Posted by regulusgeek

Most of the UP has been losing population for years. Lots of threads about the welfare mentality and lack of jobs up there for many if not most counties. Marquette is just one of 15 so stop cherry picking the only area up there that's doing ok, in large part because of NMU. Most are not doing ok.

[merit1sje]

Well said Coldjensens; well said.......

[darstar]

Originally Posted by regulusgeek

Most of the UP has been losing population for years. Lots of threads about the welfare mentality and lack of jobs up there for many if not most counties. Marquette is just one of 15 so stop cherry picking the only area up there that's doing ok, in large part because of NMU. Most are not doing ok.

Not true, Marquette County is the largest in the State. We have about 80,000 people in our trade area. What this means is we are a large part of UP economy. Almost everything leads back to Marquette. Our population has grown over 10 percent since the last measure. We did not have a down turn during the recession.Building Never stops, real estate did not loose value. I know what's going on, I live here, built a home here, invested here, all in the last 5 years.
We are not alone, the Marionette area is booming with ship building contracts. There are greater needs in that area for skilled worker than any other, except Marquette. Things are looking up in the Copper Country too. Tourist continues to provide income along with MT. More and more people have chosen to retire up here, that alone is starting to change the UP as the word gets out from around the Country. We continue to win many awards as best places to live, retire, invest. The future looks bright up here, new mining interest are also in the works. We now have a nickel mine, only one in the US. Production starts next year.
Yes, there are counties that have not changed, some , like Baraga with unemployment over 20 per cent.Things are improving, as the economy grows again.

[Huckleberry3911948]

unions are a good thing
strangling industry unto death as a form of pay back for past minority grievances (AA dominated unions) is not beneficial to michigan.
signed a former steel worker

[detwahDJ]

Originally Posted by actinic

I read it, democratic stupidity was the perfect catalyst. You should try living in Michigan some time, you might actually learn some things.

Why discount the outsider opinion since other posters who do live in Michigan don't share your views either?

[michigan83]

Originally Posted by magellan

Please refrain from personal attacks and baiting each other. Most of you are long-time posters here so keep it clean. Thanks.

The Grand Rapids Press (now MLive) came out with an editorial yesterday slamming everybody involved with the latest lame duck power mongering. Thoughts?

Right to work in Michigan: Gov. Snyder, unions and lawmakers all disappoint with their behavior this week | MLive.com

I think that's a very reasonable column. Even as a pro-right to work person, the more I think about the way this went down, the more uneasy I feel about it. Watching Snyder talk about the new law... something just didn't feel quite right. I am not so sure that he actually wanted anything to do with it. But it sounds like there was a LOT of pressure from a lot of different places.

Hopefully, when this all shakes out, Michigan will be better off. I think that's a possibility. But we need to get back to having a stable environment, one way or the other. I think Democrats and Republicans both share responsibility to make things stable again, but unfortunately I don't think either side has that on their "agenda" right now.

[darstar]

Respectfully disagree, the Democrates had nothing to do with what Synder and is cohorts in crime did. Very underhanded in my book.
The Republicans must take major blame for what is NOT happening, with their just say no policy. It's now all in their box they boxed themselves into.

[magellan]

Originally Posted by michigan83

I think that's a very reasonable column. Even as a pro-right to work person, the more I think about the way this went down, the more uneasy I feel about it. Watching Snyder talk about the new law... something just didn't feel quite right. I am not so sure that he actually wanted anything to do with it. But it sounds like there was a LOT of pressure from a lot of different places.

Hopefully, when this all shakes out, Michigan will be better off. I think that's a possibility. But we need to get back to having a stable environment, one way or the other. I think Democrats and Republicans both share responsibility to make things stable again, but unfortunately I don't think either side has that on their "agenda" right now.

Snyder is very pro-business, in good ways and bad. I too think he was put under a lot of pressure from conservative business owners (many from West Michigan too), and they laid out an entire plan earlier this year. Probably went something like: Snyder said he didn't want to support it because it was too divisive, Prop 2 was gathering petitions to get on the ballot in the Spring (?), but it wasn't expected to pass, but the momentum of voters coming out against Prop 2 would give the Republicans the upper hand on the streets of public opinion, they could even do it in lame duck session whether they retained power in the House and Senate or not, they lined up the votes in the House and Senate probably even before November's election, planning for a vote on both floors in lame duck, got Snyder to agree that we've got X, Y, and Z in place and it won't be as divisive, they lined up major business owners for support, put more pressure on Snyder, Snyder signed on when he felt like it was not political suicide...Boom, the rest is history. We now know he can be bought.

Of course, it's all conjecture. But I can't imagine how else he flipped on the issue in what appeared to be hasty fashion (but really only appeared that way).

For the media to portray this as something that was conjured up and voted on in a week is....haha....hilariously sad.

[YAZ]

I agree, Mag.

This has been in the works for quite a while, and long overdue.

For the record, I was a UAW member for some years in Michigan.

Y'all are much better off now.

I'm not sayin' that there will be a sudden influx of businesses moving to MI right now, but this law will be a factor in the decision making process.

When Michigan does well, the country does well.