VICTORY: Union Workers Celebrate End Of ‘Right To Work’ Laws In Michigan

Organized labor secured a victory on Tuesday as the Michigan Senate narrowly passed a bill, along party lines, to repeal the state's right-to-work law that enables employees in unionized jobs to opt out of membership and paying dues. The bill now goes to the state House and, if passed, would eliminate language in the Employment Relations Commission Act that permits individuals at unionized workplaces to decline union membership and not pay dues or fees.

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Elections have consequences. Sometimes they're good. Sometimes they're bad. In Michigan where the Republican Party deployed I think it was 50 million dollars worth of anti-trans advertisements they got really wiped out to the extent that you can get wiped out in a state like Michigan which is really for all intents and purposes a purple State. And I guess it was about 10 years ago I think it was maybe in 2011 under the Republican-controlled House and Senate in Michigan and Snyder the Republican Governor saw the repeal or I should say the institution of a right-to-work law in Michigan. Which of course is not a right to work. It is a right to work without the protection of a union and the bargaining power that unions provide. We know that not only do unions raise the wages of people working in Union shops but they raise the wages industry-wide in an industry where there is a certain density of union membership. anywhere from like eight to ten percent. Michigan has lost 40 000 union members in that decade under the right-to-right-to-work laws. However, because of the 2022 election, Democrats took control of the House and Senate and they have obviously the governorship. And Yesterday in the Michigan State Capitol in the Senate and it's you know you got to be signed but the three bills like this passed the house last week the Michigan house. Here are union members in Michigan watching the Senate vote that made union membership optional and essentially a disadvantage to folks in unionized workplaces here's this vote. and you can watch the reaction. That's awesome. so Whitmer said she intends to sign that bill. And because of what the Republicans did in 2012 they authored the right-to-work law they contained an appropriation that made it immune to a Ballot Box referendum the Democrats did the same thing this time so that right-to-work law is in there as long as there are Democrats to protect it. There's also there were also on that same day Democratic bills to restore the prevailing wage standard which basically says that a union scale prevailing wage for State construction worker projects so if you are bidding on a state construction you must show that you're doing a prevailing wage that's going to raise the wages for everybody in that industry.