But airlines do have another problem that’s special to them: their unions, which are both powerful, and plentiful.

Whatever you think about the United Autoworkers, at least there’s only one of them. The union doesn’t want to kill the company any more than management does. In theory, at least, you should be able to work something out.

But when there are three or four unions–pilots, flight attendants, mechanics, and baggage handlers–things get complicated. All of those groups are completely necessary to make sure that the plane gets in the air. If one of them doesn’t show up, you lose all the money on every seat.

… But when times aren’t so flush, this dynamic becomes a problem. The company’s past labor agreements don’t leave much margin for error–particularly when there were sizeable pensions, as there have been at most of these legacy airlines.

It’s not clear what will happen to American’s $8 billion worth of pension obligations, which are underfunded by billions, but I’d expect that the company will push hard to shed them. It will also want the judge to rewrite its labor contracts.

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They are a cornerstone of Chrysler’s unlikely comeback: 900 employees turning out a Jeep Grand Cherokee sport utility vehicle every 48 seconds of the working day at an assembly plant here. Working for Less

Nothing distinguishes them from other workers at the Jefferson North plant, except their paychecks. The newest workers earn about $14 an hour; longtime employees earn double that.

With the economy slumping and job creation once again a pressing issue in the White House and Congress, the advent of a two-tier wage system in Detroit is spiking employment for one of the country’s most important manufacturing industries.

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As changes to collective bargaining powers for public workers take effect today, the Kaukauna Area School District is poised to swing from a projected $400,000 budget shortfall next year to a $1.5 million surplus due to health care and retirement savings.

“These impacts will allow the district to hire additional teachers (and) reduce projected class sizes,” School Board President Todd Arnoldussen wrote in a statement Monday. “In addition, time will be available for staff to identify and support students needing individual assistance through individual and small group experiences.”

The district anticipates that elementary class size projections for next year will shrink from 26 students to 23 students. Class sizes for River View Middle School are expected to fall from 28 students to 26 students.

Kaukauna High School classes could be reduced from 31 students to 25 students.

Huh. That’s certainly … unexpected.

(Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds, Ann Althouse, and the Milwaukee Journal Sentinal.)

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At the time, I thought that their case was exceedingly weak and more in the vein of a stupid Hail Mary attempt than a serious effort at practicing law. Today, I saw that the United States Court for the Western District of Wisconsin appears to agree with me. They denied the unions’ request for a temporary restraining order and/or preliminary injuction in quite plain terms. Check out the ruling [PDF].

If you don’t read the ruling, the breakdown of their argument shows you pretty clearly what they think. It’s not a final ruling yet but, if this is representative of what the court is thinking, the final ruling could be even more fun.

• “There Is A Rational Basis For The Differing Treatment Of General Employees And Public Safety Employees”
• “Plaintiffs’ Attempt To Reduce Act 10 To Crass Political Payback Fail”
• “Plaintiffs Have No Probability Of Success On The Merits Of Their First Amendment Claim, As That Claim Is Without Merit”
• “Plaintiffs Misstate The Nature Of Their Alleged Irreparable Harm”
• “The State And The Public Interest Will Suffer Great Irreparable Harm By The Issuance Of A Preliminary Injunction”
• “Plaintiffs Seek To Alter The Status Quo, Not Maintain It, By Asking For A Remedy That Will Result In A Completely New Set Of Collective Bargaining Statute”

The ruling is all kinds of good fun.

This reminds me of a White House state dinner in February 1979, when I was governor of Tennessee. President Jimmy Carter said, “Governors, go to Japan. Persuade them to make here what they sell here.”

“Make here what they sell here” was then the union battle cry, part of an effort to slow the tide of Japanese cars and trucks entering the U.S. market.

Off I flew to Tokyo to meet with Nissan executives who were deciding where to put their first U.S. manufacturing plant.

… In 1980 Nissan chose Tennessee, a state with almost no auto jobs. Today auto assembly plants and suppliers provide one-third of our state’s manufacturing jobs. Tennessee is the home for production of the Leaf, Nissan’s all-electric vehicle, and the batteries that power it. Recently Nissan announced that 85% of the cars and trucks it sells in the U.S. will be made in the U.S.— making it one of the largest “American” auto companies and nearly fulfilling Mr. Carter’s request of 30 years ago.

This is directly applicable to today’s battle between the NLRB and Boeing, over whether or not Boeing can open a production line in a right-to-work state.

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Senator Taylor requested an absentee ballot for the April 5 spring election.

Republican senators were convinced that the Democrat 14 weren’t interested in true negotiations, only in posturing and obstruction. So they voted to pass the bill anyway, after making sure that the slightly altered bill was legal.

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Spoiler: it doesn’t.
Further spoiler: Wisconsin is not doing well, at all, in educating minority students.

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Well, they’ve been busy signing new 2-year contracts that either don’t include the cuts or (in some cases) actually have pay and benefit increases. Guess they haven’t been quite honest with people of Wisconsin after all.

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It turns out that, once you control for the ethnicity of the overall population, Texas students out perform Wisconsin students, ethnicity by ethnicity.

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That’s five unions to two businesses and three other groups. Five out of ten is half, by my always-suspect English-major math. And who are those other groups? ActBlue is a Democratic clearinghouse, the trial lawyers are super-lopsidedly Democratic, and four out of five of the Realtors’ top campaign-cash recipients are Democrats.

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