by Tom Gantert and Brett Rowland
With control of the state legislature and Governor’s office for the first time since 1983, the Democrats will likely try to repeal the state’s right-to-work law, the signature accomplishment of Michigan’s Republican party.
In January 2019, the Michigan House Dems introduced two bills to repeal the right-to-work law. If a current effort is successful, it would only impact union members in the private sector. That’s because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2018 in the Janus decision that public sector unions can’t require non-members to pay agency fees. The Supreme Court ruled the Constitution prohibits it.
“They can change the law for auto workers, they can’t change the Constitution for teachers,” said Patrick Wright, the vice president of legal affairs for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.
Democrats vowed to repeal right-to-work when it was passed and introduced two bills to repeal it in 2019.
“For years, Republicans have systematically attacked working people’s power to join together to negotiate for a fair return on their work,” Rep. John Chirkun, D-Roseville, who introduced House Bill 4033, said in a January 2019 news release. “It is time for us to unrig the rules against working families once and for all to protect their freedoms as Michiganders to stand together in a union.”
The two bills never made it out of committee because the GOP controlled both the House and the Senate. But no longer.
Right-to-work in Michigan was passed in December 2012 and took effect in March 2013.
It is rare for right-to-work to be repealed once it has been passed in a state. Indiana passed right-to-work in 1957 and it was repealed in 1967. Then in 2012, the state passed it again. After a legal battle, that state’s Supreme Court ruled it was allowed.
The Michigan House Democrats, Democratic State Rep. Yousef Rabhi and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
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Tom Gantert worked at many daily newspapers including the Ann Arbor News, Lansing State Journal and USA Today. Gantert was the managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential for five years before joining The Center Square. Brett Rowland is an award-winning journalist who has worked as an editor and reporter in newsrooms in Illinois and Wisconsin. He is an investigative reporter for The Center Square.
Photo “Labor Rally at the Michigan Capitol” by LGBT Free Media Collective. CC BY-SA 3.0.
