Corporate interests put full-court press on Michigan teacher union-busting effort

[My oft posted refrain - conservatives want you working for pennies. They want to own you and use you to make them profits. - Bozo]
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Rss@dailykos.com (steve Singiser)
Saturday, August 30, 2014, 10:08 pm
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Across America, it is back-to-school time for students ... and teachers.
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Within the next week or so, virtually all of the elementary and secondary schools on traditional schedules will be back into the classroom, and summer vacation gives way to a new school year for students and teachers around the nation.
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In Michigan, teacher unions are confronting a perilous new reality, as a recently passed "right to work" law now gives individual teachers the ability to opt out of their unions. Predictably, a coalition of right-wing ideological and business groups have put maximum effort into their drive to crush the teachers unions:
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With the teachers given a 31-day window in August to decide, representatives for the state's largest public-sector union are imploring them to stay or risk losing their clout in how schools are operated.
"If I don't stand up and stay in my union, then we don't have a voice," said Chandra Madafferi, a high school health teacher and president of a 400-member local in the Detroit suburb of Novi.
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Meanwhile, conservative groups are running ads and publicizing the chance for teachers to "grow your paycheck and workplace freedom."
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Americans for Prosperity, the right-wing front group bankrolled by the Koch brothers, are among the most active architects in driving the opt-out effort. They paid for a full page ad in the Detroit Free Press with a preprinted form for opting out of their local union. Other groups are running ads trying to goad teachers into leaving their unions.
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