Monday, November 5, 2012

Michigan Proposal 2 - News Flashback: Gov Romney Supports Michigan Public Employees Right to Collectively Bargain

A little known fact: Gov. George W. Romney signed into law PERA – The Public Employees Rights Act in 1965 – that protected the right of collective bargaining in Michigan.

Michigan Govenor George W. Romney Signs the PERA Act in 1965 - Michigan Teachers Stand at His Side


The critical question for today on the eve of the 2012 Presidential election is: If you, Mitt Romney, are so committed a Moderate Republican like your father George, and as wife Ann has touted in these last weeks throughout Michigan and Ohio: Why are you not fully in support of your father’s legacy as a Collective Bargaining Rights statesman?
Young Teachers watch Gov. George Romney signs PERA into law (1965)
Representative s of Public Employee Unions look on as Gov. George Romney signs PERA (1965)
For more depth on George W. Romney “an example of ethical leadership” look up: DOCUMENTARY on George W. Romney by BYU-TV October 1, 2008.
PROVO, Utah – Oct 1, 2008 – "The Romney Code: The Life and Ethics of George W. Romney" will premiere on BYU Television Monday, Oct. 6, at 8 p.m. MDT. The premiere will include the 30-minute documentary followed by a special 30-minute discussion with Romney family members. An advanced preview of the documentary will air on Saturday, Oct. 4, at 12:30 p.m. between sessions of general conference.

Airing as part of "LDS Lives", a series on influential Mormons, "The Romney Code: The Life and Ethics of George W. Romney" takes viewers from Romney's childhood through his business and political careers to the volunteerism efforts that capped his life.

Director Ethan Vincent
weaves interviews with Romney's children, colleagues and historians with photographs, video and voice recordings of the man to tell a visually compelling story. Vincent says the documentary will help audiences see Romney's diverse influence and unique approach to politics as three-term Michigan Governor.

"What he did supersedes the way politics are done today," Vincent says. "Now you are either a republican or a democrat, but he was able to collaborate effectively on both sides."

Brigham Young University's Romney Institute of Public Management, was named for George W. Romney in 1998. The Romney Institute offers a master's degree in public administration and seeks to prepare young people for careers in public service. (Emphasis added)
Source: “BYU-TV to Premiere George Romney Documentary” Brigham Young University - Marriott School (October 2008)


Reed Larson of the John Birch Society: Long History of Working with the LDS on "Right to Work (for Less)" Laws
   

Church of Latter Day Saints or Mormon Church and the John Birch Society A Perspective: Radical Counterpoint to George Romney: Mormon’s & the Rise of the John Birch Society in America Excerpted from "How Mormon Leaders Built the John Birch Society":
“The Mormon Church has always staked out positions among the political far right. In the 1920's Reed Smoot, the first Mormon senator and the most powerful LDS leader in politics at the time, was good friends with Calvin Coolidge and Herbert Hoover. By passing the Smoot-Hawley tariff bill, Hoover sent America into the Great Depression. The Mormon hierarchy sided with the most reactionary conservatives to oppose FDR and Democrats trying to pull America out of the economic abyss. Mormon president/prophet Heber J. Grant, "detested the Democrat's New Deal policies." (The Mormon Corporate Empire, p.37)”

(Break)

“When Joseph McCarthy went on his anti-communist crusade claiming communists had infested the State Department, his first stop was Salt Lake City, where he flew in and "participated in a Lincoln Day banquet held at the Newhouse Hotel." Presumably McCarthy met with First Counselor J. Reuben Clark Jr., the staunch anti-communist "whose many years of service in the State Department gave him a broad exposure to world politics." It was (during) his visit to Utah that McCarthy settled on the number 57 as the number of communists in the State Department.”
READ original posting “How Mormon Leaders Built the John Birch Society” by Baracks Backers (DailyKos October 2012)

In 1984 Reed Larson gave an exclusive interview to the John Birch Society publication, Review of the News. The interviewer was John Rees, who had been an editor for Western Goals Foundation publications.

Described as a “Fighter for Worker Rights,” Larson was asked about the power of labor unions. This additional anti-union information from the Mormon backed John Birch radicalism. From the interview of right-winger Reed Larson:
JBS: You are talking about political power.

[Reed] Larson
: I think union officials should enjoy the same rights and freedoms as everyone else, but no more. That’s the problem. Today they are specially privileged individuals. In fact, as Nobel-laureate Friedrich Hayek has put it: “We have now reached a state where unions have become uniquely privileged institutions…. It cannot be stressed enough that the coercion that the unions have been permitted to exercise contrary to all principles of freedom under the law is primarily the coercion of fellow workers.” That’s the problem which our National Right to Work Committee is out to solve.

Tremendous political power has been put in the hands of union officials; and that power, almost without exception, is used on the side of collectivism, more government, less individual freedom, and greater control of the individual.

A look at the current positions of the nation’s largest union the National Education Association - shows that the union position in the philosophical spectrum has changed little.
(Emphasis added)
There you have it, a little history.

Related Slates:
George W. Romney’s Franken-Son: Mitt & His ‘Noble’ Lies (October 2012) - Middling Mitt Romney Not of His Fathers'Sterling Civic Michigan Mettle (Gaskell & George Romney) (June 2012) - For Mitt Romney, Billy Graham ‘Sells Out’ His Faith &Jesus for Political Advantage (October 2012) - The Crushing Blow to Mitt’s Quix-Toxic Quest: ‘Good Samaritan’or ‘Corporate Bandit’ (October 2012) or all posts on Mitt Romney or George Romney.

Cross-posted to Kos.

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