UAW-Ford Master Contract

Below are the five volumes of the current Master Contract between the United Auto Workers and Ford Motor Company, which we found on a UAW local Web site. The contract's 2,211 pages cover a wide range of issues, from the operation of apprenticeship programs in the skilled trades, to the provision of health care for retirees, to the procedures for resolving grievances.
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Fearless Forecasters

The same University of Michigan "Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics" personnel who participate in the official revenue estimating conferences that cue the governor and Legislature about how much they can spend each year are predicting a "moderately severe" recession, prevented from being worse by an expected federal "stimulus package" consisting of more government handouts, bailouts and deficit spending.
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Can The UAW Be Taken Seriously?

It would be easy, but wrong, to lay the entire blame for the current state of the Detroit Three at the feet of the UAW. A number of factors contributed to the crisis: mediocre vehicle designs, a reputation for poorly-built cars, an excess of dealerships and needlessly strict environmental and fuel economy regulations all played a part. Even in the area where the UAW has the most influence — labor costs — Detroit Three executives have to share some of the blame; they agreed to the contracts after all.
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How to Save Detroit

What a sad spectacle! There on the witness stands in Congress sat the CEOs of GM, Ford and Chrysler, soliciting taxpayer money to avert their own bankruptcy. Their pleadings spoke of urgency for their firms and, if unheeded, catastrophe for the U.S. economy.
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Never Give Up

(Editor's note: The following are the edited remarks of President Emeritus Lawrence W. Reed given at the Mackinac Center's 20th anniversary gala held Nov. 11, 2008, in East Lansing, Mich.)

Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, and good evening. I'm tempted to say that seeing so many good friends and old friends gathered here this evening so moves me as to leave me speechless. But I don't think my successor, Joe Lehman, would appreciate it if I just said that and sat down. So I will speak!
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Lashing Out

In a recent Mackinac Center Current Comment, Us vs. Them: The People and the Political Class, I argued that true representative government has been supplanted by a self-serving, self-perpetuating political/government class and that as a result, the government has escaped the control of the people.

Alarmist? Extreme? Consider this news item: The Michigan Education Association teachers union is involved in a recall campaign against two members of the Wayne-Westland school board following an illegal MEA-inspired strike against the district in October. Among other things, the union held a recall training session at its local headquarters.
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Tough Choices Ahead for Workers

The following general principle should be fairly uncontroversial: Where workers genuinely want union representation, they ought to have it. When they don't, a union ought not to be imposed on them.

It also seems pretty reasonable to say that when there is a question about what workers want, the best way to settle the question is a secret ballot vote.
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Carry On

(Editor's note: The following is an edited version of the text from the closing address given by Mackinac Center President Joseph G. Lehman at the Center's 20th anniversary gala held Nov. 11, 2008, in East Lansing.)

Thank you, John (Stossel). And I think everyone here appreciates the work you do at ABC and throughout the country. You're more than a breath of fresh air on the airwaves, you're an antidote to a lot of what's on the airwaves.

But friends, as good as John's talk was, this speech, from me, is truly the one you've been waiting for all evening! This is the last speech of the evening.
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Science Substance Over Style

The Nov. 4 death of Michael Crichton marked the passing of not only a bestselling author, but also a crusader for real science over overheated speculation. Whether writing such bestselling fiction as "The Andromeda Strain," "Jurassic Park" and "State of Fear" or authoring speeches and essays on global warming, Crichton did his homework, often conducting months, if not years, of research before putting pen to paper. The result is a body of work that integrated hard science into ripping good yarns featuring compelling messages. In fact, perhaps no writer since the late Carl Sagan has done as much to popularize science for the masses.
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Not Easy Being Green

Politicians and self-proclaimed environmentalist groups tell us that the salvation of our moribund economy is green jobs. We are being asked to believe in the bold new economy that will replace current forms of energy such as coal-fired power plants and gasoline-powered cars with alternative energy such as wind-powered utilities and cars that run on bio-fuels or electricity. But, are these green jobs our economic salvation or just another ill-advised attempt by politicians to steer the economy in a new direction?
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Us vs. Them

The fundamental problem facing our nation is that true representative government has been supplanted by an inbred, self-serving, self-perpetuating political class that does not represent the people. As a result, the government has escaped the control of the people.
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Union Transparency

In a move that deserved more attention than it received, the Department of Labor released its final rules for financial disclosure by union-controlled trusts. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao and her staff deserve congratulations for completing the first round of reforms to make unions more transparent and accountable to the men and women they represent. While much work remains to be done in this area, Chao has moved into a long-neglected area and laid a solid foundation. What remains to be seen is what a new administration will do with this legacy: will they build on Chao's handiwork, or tear it all down?
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Revolutionary Cure

Michigan’s economy is terribly ill. A few examples:
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