Shock Doctrine Comes to Michigan
As Rachel noted tonight, what's going on across the country with these Republican governors in states like Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio, Florida and Michigan is not about their budget crisis. It's about taking advantage of a situation to enact policies you'd never otherwise get through in the name of an emergency or in other words, Shock Doctrine.
From the MaddowBlog -- #Michigan goes #Wisconsin, too:
Spend a little time looking at the union-busting legislation in Michigan, and it immediately becomes clear why the unions have been packing the Capitol in Lansing. The language is dry, but it's not all that hard to figure. From Senate Bill 158 (pdf):
Each collective bargaining agreement entered into between a public employer and public employees under this act after the effective date of the amendatory act that added this subsection shall include a provision that allows an emergency manager appointed under the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability act to reject, modify, or terminate the collective bargaining agreement as provided in the Local Government and School District Fiscal Accountability Act.
If your city or school district got put under emergency management -- see Detroit Public Schools -- then that emergency manger could throw out whatever deal your union negotiated. "We didn't create financial crisis, we've given up wages and concessions in benefits over the years," retired teacher Mike Kelly told the Detroit Free-Press. "This is about power."
The Nation's Naomi Klein talked to Rachel about how the Shock Doctrine methods being used by the states are just part of a larger plan by the Republicans to enact policies they've wanted to get passed for ages now.
And Think Progress has more on what Michigan and other states have been doing.
