Three Virginia news items, quite possibly unrelated:

• First, Lieutenant Governor Bill Bolling today played his role as lieutenant governor to break a tie in the Senate -- but in a surprising way. Bolling sided with Democrats in the Virginia Senate to delay a bill that would make voting harder. The bill takes away common documents like utility bills and paycheck stubs as means of complying with voter ID rules at the polls. Barring more changes in the legislature, Bolling's vote means the earliest the bill could come into effect would be 2014. Bolling reportedly voted for the delay because there's no money for teaching voters about the change in time for this year's election.
• Second, the Virginia Senate has approved a bill that would let the state's governor serve consecutive terms. Only in Virginia is a governor one-and-done. The measure passed with bipartisan support, 25-15. For now, the Republican Party's pick to replace current Governor Bob McDonnell is Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli. Having conceded the GOP nomination, Bolling seems to be considering a run as an independent.
• Third, just for kicks: The Northern Virginia Tea Party tonight takes up the Obama-UN-mind-control plot known as Agenda 21. The meeting includes James Parmalee, chair of Northern Virginia GOP PAC, among other speakers not yet announced.

Wonder if they'll show the same movie that worked out so well for Republicans in Georgia....

Bonus stuff from Virginia: The long list of failed election measures, including one to shorten lines to vote; and hey, a bill [adding: to amend the state Constitution with] for union-stripping "Right to Work."

Now that Michigan's anti-union laws are on their way to the books, organized labor faces a couple of questions. First, locally in Michigan, whether to take on a statewide initiative to get union rights back, or whether to focus instead of trying to win back control of the legislature and the governorship, or both. Any one of those items would be a challenge. Second, at the national level, there's the question of whether any states might try to follow Michigan in stripping union rights, the way Michigan followed Indiana. Wisconsin, maybe? Kentucky? Or Ohio?

Reporters in Ohio asked Republican Governor John Kasich this week whether he had been following the developments in Michigan. I'll put the transcript after the jump. You can decide for yourself whether this is a "no" as in "no," or as in Rick Snyder. The video's from Ohio Capital Blog:

Transcript from the video:

REPORTER: Governor, have you been what's been going on up in Michigan with the right of work debate over the last few days?

KASICH: Not real closely. Look, you know, I have a very aggressive agenda for '13 and '14 that includes things like education reform, both at the university level, community college level, K through 12. We have a big change coming with our infrastructure program, tax reform, managing a lot of these businesses including fracking. And that's the agenda that I'm focused on and what I'm going to continue to be focused on.

REPORTER: If there should be a constitutional --

KASICH: That's all I've got to say.

SECOND REPORTER: Would what happens in Michigan affect Ohio competitively, if Michigan and Indiana both have Right to Work?

KASICH: I have an agenda that I think is going to benefit the state of Ohio. We are doing very well, vis-a-vis the rest of the country now, and I think if we continue to pursue the agenda I have, and the legislature has, I think we'll continue to be successful.

You might remember Governor Kasich in January warning his party off Right to Work, fresh from a citizens' repeal of bill to take union rights away from public workers. "Once in a while the shark eats you, OK?" Kasich said.

If Kasich sounds a tad cautious still, that might be because his governorship is one of six that the AFL-CIO intends to contest over the next couple of years. The list is: Florida, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin -- all states won by President Obama in 2012, but, except for Nevada, with Republican governance. At stake is whether labor claws back some power, or whether Republicans have a broad mandate in the states for anti-union economic policy designed to weaken their main political opponents. (H/t Tricia McKinney)

TRMS viewer Joel Meredith

Calling it "a major day in Michigan's history," Republican Gov. Rick Snyder (R) signed a brutal anti-union bill -- a so-called "right-to-work" proposal -- into law this evening, just hours after GOP lawmakers jammed the bill through the legislature's lame-duck session.

Michigan became the 24th right-to-work state in the blink of an eye Tuesday after the state House rushed through legislation and Gov. Rick Snyder immediately signed it, capping a day of charged emotions, huge crowds and mostly peaceful demonstrations.

The speed with which the controversial legislation became law left organized labor and Democrats reeling. There is talk of legal challenges and recall efforts or opponents could try to mount a drive to put a constitutional amendment on the 2014 ballot aimed at overturning right-to-work. But Democrats and labor leaders say they are mostly focused on 2014, when they hope to regain control of the Legislature and the governor's office in the face of what they see as a Republican over-reach.

Today's move comes less than a year after Snyder assured the public that he saw the anti-union proposal as "divisive" and "not appropriate in Michigan during 2012." With a stroke of a pen -- Snyder signed the bill into law behind closed doors, away from public view -- the governor broke that promise earlier this evening.

For more background on the larger issue, I'd recommend Laura Conaway's terrific Maddow Blog coverage, and the segment Rachel aired last night.

If you're politi-geeky enough to watch along with us, you can watch the Michigan House debate the anti-union bill live online. You never know what you'll see. For instance, when Republican House member Greg MacMaster rose a few moments to support taking away union rights, a certainly apolitical Mr. Potato Head found his way into the frame. If I spot the plastic guy again, I'll grab a pic. UPDATE: I think you can see the critter in this view from the balcony, along with some other toy. NEWS UPDATE: The House agreed to the Senate version affecting public workers, 58-51, and the bill affecting private-sector workers by 58-52. They sent the bills to Governor Snyder for signing.

After the jump, Kermit with a Democrat.

Anne Savage/Eclectablog

Outside the Capitol in Lansing, Michigan.

With Republicans in the state legislature set to finish hustling through legislation that takes away union rights, this is not a usual day in Michigan. The Detroit News reports that three school districts opted to close because so many teachers are going to the Capitol in Lansing for protests.

The state's largest district, Detroit Public Schools, will remain open, but Detroit Federation of Teachers President Keith Johnson urged members to attend the protest.

"We're encouraging our members to stand in solidarity as a show of anger, defiance and frustration for this whole Legislature," he said. "It's only designed to break unions and has nothing to do with workers."

The scene at the Capitol seems to be crazy, loud and, so far, peaceful. The Michigan legislature is set to go into session at 10 A.M. Once the two chambers finish voting on the so-called Right to Work bill, Governor Snyder has said he will sign it.

Thanks to Anne Savage of Eclectablog for the picture. They're liveblogging the events today. (On the show last night: A Michigan Republican registers his objection to what his party's doing.)

Over the past few days, the Michigan Freedom Fund has been running this ad for the state's anti-union Right to Work bill.

Right in the beginning, you can see the kid below waving a flag.

The same kid shows up in a Republican Super PAC ad, below, against Congressman Pete Defazio (D-Oregon).

We're wondering who the other folks in the Right to Work ad might be. Anyone recognize them from other ads, stock footage or actual real life? Please include links.

Update from Julia: The intrepid Laura Neitzel found our friend above ("Young Boy Waving Flag, Slow Motion") on sale over at iStockphoto. 

We also found our teacher friend (seen below at :14 in the MFF video) here on iStockphoto. 

Keep us posted if you recognize anyone else in the ad, stock footage or not. 

When the protests start this week over anti-union legislation at the Michigan state Capitol, union workers from Wisconsin will be there. The so-called Right to Work bills would weaken labor unions in Michigan, except for those belonging to police and firefighters. An organizer from Ironworkers Local 8 tells the Wisconsin State Journal that after what Wisconsin has been through, it's easy to get people to cross state lines to stand up for union rights:

"A lot of things are eerily similar to parts of what happened here in Wisconsin," said [Randy] Bryce, who expects 40 to 50 people from his union to travel to Lansing, Mich., by Tuesday when lawmakers reconvene and Snyder plans to sign the bills into law. "I would say what’s under attack there is even bigger because they decided to go after the public- and private-sector unions."

The image up top comes from the Overpass Light Brigade in Wisconsin, who write: "We Wisconsinites understand exactly what’s going on in Michigan. Right to work is deceptively named. It kills wages and destroys the middle class."

Training in how to "protest peacefully, get noticed and stay safe" at a UAW hall in Dearborn, Michigan, today.

With sudden support from Republican Governor Rick Snyder, Republicans in the Michigan legislature have been speeding through a package to severely weaken unions in that state. The pace at which the bills are moving through the lame-duck session is almost unbelievable. That it's happening in the birthplace of the modern American labor union is almost unfathomable.

The legislature next takes up the so-called Right to Work measures, which essentially ban union shops, on Tuesday. Today opponents of Right to Work gathered at the UAW hall, picture above, for training in how to "protest peacefully and stand together" -- a long tradition in Michigan labor. State officials are expecting a crowd of thousands next week at the Capitol in Lansing. Eclectablog reports that the union supporters will find that conservative groups have already reserved the Capitol steps for Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, after which the chambers adjourn.

Activists are also making calls from a phone-bank against the bills at the AFL/CIO office in Lansing. Meanwhile, a judge has urged state police to keep the Capitol building open to protesters if at all possible. The closure of the building last Thursday, during the first votes, has prompted suits over the state's Open Meetings law.

Right to Work legislation has moved through so quickly that one Republican lawmaker voter against it because, he said, "We literally weren't given the legislation to read until minutes before voting." From experience with Right to Work in other states, conservatives and liberals agree that the rule is catastrophic for unions, with significant cuts in membership, and lower wages and benefits. As Stephen Henderson writes in the Detroit Free Press:

[O]f the 11 states with the fastest-growing economies as measured by gross domestic product, only three were right-to-work states in 2011. (Michigan was on that list in 2011, too, which Snyder spent all year this year bragging about. Now, suddenly, he claims our economy is being hobbled by an oppressive union environment.)

As a result, right-to-work states also suffer much worse poverty than union states, by several important measures.

Eight of the 10 states with the lowest overall per-capita incomes are right-to-work. And among the states with the highest rates of people without medical insurance (a sign of the quality of jobs available), seven of 10 are right-to-work. Eight of the 10 states with the highest poverty rates are right-to-work.

If Right to Work, leads to job growth, it appears be because of a successful race to the bottom. (H/t Ed Gilgore at Washington Monthly, Alec MacGillis at The New Republic.) (And P.S. Michigan Republicans have also been racing through new restrictions on abortion, sweeping changes to the education that several superintendents call undemocratic, and a revised emergency manager law, while Detroit talks big layoffs to avoid a state takeover.)

Occupying the GM plant in Flint, 1936-37

In Michigan's battle over union rights, it's almost over but the shouting. Yesterday, in a matter of hours, Republican Governor Rick Snyder and both chambers of the Republican-controlled legislature managed to jam through bills that ban union shops. Final passage hasn't happened yet, but there's not much standing in the way.

The so-called Right to Work law makes it so that you don't have to pay union dues, basically, even though you benefit from union employment. Right to Work decimates union membership; what follows is lower wages.

The UAW's Women's Emergency Brigade.

That this happened in Michigan of all places, cradle of the modern labor movement, is stunning. Why the hurry? The New York Times today picks up on one reason: Republicans lost seats in the last election, and yesterday's House vote was close enough to suggest that they might have had trouble passing it when the new session starts next year.

I think it's worth considering for a moment the far deeper roots here. The United Auto Workers union was born in a courageous 44-day sitdown strike in Flint, back in the winter of 1936 and 1937.

Geraldine Blankship tells MLive that before workers stood up for themselves, her father came home too tired to eat supper:

"It was just one hard struggle and when the strike was on, we worried for my dad's life for a long time," she said. "He was beat up by the company goons. We didn't know if they were going to send him home in a box."

But with help from their families, the Flint sitdown strikers stuck it and won recognition from General Motors as a bargaining unit. Blankinship's son worked there for more than 30 years, happily. When people say strong unions created the middle class, that's what they're talking about.

Walter P. Reuther Library, Wayne State University

Flint, 1937

In getting rid of strong unions, Republicans crafted the legislation to contain spending provisions, so it's technically appropriations legislation and can't be repealed by citizen veto. Our guest last night on the show, Rick Pluta of Michigan Public Radio, says he has heard talk of drives to pass new referendums that would reinstate the rights, and also of attempts to recall some of the officials involved.

Back in February, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder looked out across the Midwest and said he didn't want to be like those governors pushing anti-union legislation in places like Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. From FOX News:

"I think it's unfortunate that they've gotten to that, I don't want to see that happen," Snyder said of the high profile fights and protests in neighboring states like Indiana, Ohio and Wisconsin. "If you want to draw it as a contrast, you look at now that they've had those things happen, do they have a productive environment to solve problems? Not necessarily. They're still overcoming the divisiveness, the hard feelings from all of that."

That was so then. Governor Snyder announced today that he will sign an anti-union "Right to Work" law, and the legislature has gone into overtime to get one on his desk. Right to Work laws ban union shops, and they tend to lead to lower wages. MLive reports that the bill would not affect police and firefighters, and that it would be written in a way that it could not be put up for repeal by voters.

As you can see in the video above from Eclectablog, things are getting heated at the Michigan state Capitol. A Democratic lawmaker has written to say that the Capitol has been locked down to keep protesters out. After the jump, a chart and some numbers.

Governor Snyder explains in a YouTube clip why he has had the change of heart. Earlier in the week, he connected it to unions asking to have collective bargaining rights enshrined in the state constitution, over Snyder's wishes.

Now he says that he has looked over at Indiana, which passed a Right to Work law in January, and where jobs have been growing rapidly. It might too soon to know whether weakening the unions made jobs grow in Indiana. The state had already begun to recover from the Great Recession when the legislature banned union shops. For what it's worth, Michigan's workforce has been bouncing back about as quickly as Indiana's.

Indiana Department of Workforce Development

More charts on Right to Work in a post yesterday; economist Gordon Lafer's deep dive into Indiana, Right to Work and the regional economy here.

The idea of anti-labor laws at the state level is to make belonging to unions less attractive. In Wisconsin, for example, the anti-union law that passed there in 2011 took away the rights of unions to collectively bargain for better pay and benefits for their members, while also eliminating automatic deductions for union dues. As a result, union members each month had to decide whether to write a check for a union that was no longer allowed to do much for members' bottom lines.

Since that law passed, membership in Wisconsin's two main teachers unions has fallen by a third. Over the weekend, the members of one union voted to consider merging with its rival. From the Wisconsin State Journal:

"It's about building local union power," Kenosha teacher Michael Orth said. "That's what we need to do."

You can see the unions' lost power is a few ways: declining membership, requirements that teachers pay more for their benefits, and the decimation of their ability to give money to candidates. The last part comes with direct political gain for Republicans, which helps to explain why Republicans like anti-union laws. Consider the biggest contributors nationwide in this cycle. The money from labor doesn't start to keep up with the money from business (read: Sheldon Adelson), but without it, the Democrats almost get shut out of the top 10.

(Image: The Overpass Light Brigade/Milwaukee)

Postscript: In September, a Dane County judge ruled that much of Wisconsin's anti-union law is unconstitutional. The decision affected teachers and Milwaukee public workers. Last month a law enforcement group with some members affected also sued.

Associated Press

For conservatives, the demise of Hostess Brands, perhaps best known for making Twinkies, is a story about union workers going on strike and forcing a business to close its doors forever.

For those concerned with the facts, a very different picture emerges. Forbes' Helaine Olen had a good piece on this the other day.

Hostess has been sold at least three times since the 1980s, racking up debt and shedding profitable assets along the way with each successive merger. The company filed for bankruptcy in 2004, and again in 2011. Little thought was given to the line of products, which, frankly, began to seem a bit dated in the age of the gourmet cupcake. (100 calorie Twinkie Bites? When was the last time you entered Magnolia Bakery and asked about the calorie count?)

As if all this were not enough, Hostess Brands' management gave themselves several raises, all the while complaining that the workers who actually produced the products that made the firm what money it did earn were grossly overpaid relative to the company's increasingly dismal financial position.

By all accounts, Hostess just wasn't a well-run company. After its executives made a series of poor decisions, then rewarded themselves with generous raises, Hostess demanded that its workforce accept far less pay and fewer retirement benefits. Not surprisingly, the workers weren't fond of the idea -- why should they alone feel brunt of the executives' mismanagement? -- and Hostess collapsed.

But to hold the union responsible for this series of events is absurd.

Matt Yglesias flagged this story from July about Brian Driscoll, the Hostess CEO who led the company into bankruptcy in the first place.

Even as it played the numbers game, Hostess had to face chaos in the corner office at the worst possible time. Driscoll, the CEO, departed suddenly and without explanation in March. It may have been that the Teamsters no longer felt it could trust him. In early February, Hostess had asked the bankruptcy judge to approve a sweet new employment deal for Driscoll. Its terms guaranteed him a base annual salary of $1.5 million, plus cash incentives and "long-term incentive" compensation of up to $2 million. If Hostess liquidated or Driscoll were fired without cause, he'd still get severance pay of $1.95 million as long as he honored a noncompete agreement.

To blame the union, which had already accepted compensation concessions, is to overlook what actually happened.

Update: James Suroweicki has more on this, including noting the steps that led to the strike: Hostess planned to use the bankruptcy process to undercut workers' compensation even more. The piece added, "[W]hile the strike may well have sent Hostess over the edge, the hard truth is that it probably should have gone out of business a long time ago. The company has been steadily losing money, and market share, for years. And its core problem has not been excessively high compensation costs or pension contributions. Its core problem has been that the market for its products changed, but it did not."