Trying to Kill Right to Work in MI, Breathes New Life

[media-credit name=”| The National Right to Work Committee®” align=”alignright” width=”300″][/media-credit]Big Labor’s coffers of forced union dues money was unable to permanently kill Right to Work in Michigan.  Frank Beckman outlines who the union bosses picked a fight and lost despite spending $50 million.  Their brazen efforts have set the stage for moving forward with Right to Work legislation in the state:

Michigan voters issued a stinging rejection of state labor unions during Tuesday’s elections, refusing to approve a single one of the ballot initiatives to which the big unions committed about $50 million dollars in support.

The votes weren’t even close, especially on labor’s biggest target, Proposal 2, a constitutional amendment that would have given public sector labor unions unprecedented power and prohibited the future adoption of Right-to-Work legislation in Michigan.

Reviews of labor strategy, crafted by Bob King’s United Auto Workers union, will analyze whether the investment of about $50 million to push the proposals could have been used to focus on candidates instead.

The non-combative Snyder was betrayed by King and his union pals. Snyder had warned an aggressive state House that he would not sign any Right-to-Work legislation that made its way to him for approval.

“I don’t want to see that on my desk,” Snyder warned numerous times when I quizzed him about Right-to-Work on my radio show.

The governor and labor enjoyed a silent truce, and the UAW-led union movement knew they had a Michigan firewall against the despised Right-to-Work laws that are in effect in 23 other states.

All that appears to have changed since King took the gamble on Proposal 2, a duplicitous act, which has now alienated Snyder and enraged a state business community that felt the amendment so threatened Michigan’s economic future that they amassed their own $25 million advertising campaign to defeat the initiative.

Those same business leaders are now ready to throw their weight behind the RTW legislation that has been stalled in the Legislature thanks to Snyder’s protection.

Snyder no longer sounds stern in telling the Legislature not to send RTW legislation to his desk. Rather than an outright warning for the Legislature to back off, Snyder now says, “My goal is not to have it arrive on my desk. I’m not taking a position on it.”

State Republican Party chairman Bobby Schostak went even further. “I think he feels let down, perhaps betrayed,” he said about Snyder.

Schostak says he believes the RTW issue will arise within weeks, a projection that doesn’t seem out of the question since one source told me King has already sought to meet next week with several state business leaders in the wake Proposal 2’s defeat.

State Chamber of Commerce President and CEO Rich Studley told me, “Actions have consequences. We … think it’s important to refocus on how we move forward with more and better jobs.”

While Studley said it’s up to the Legislature to decide whether to pursue Right-to-Work, he points out that labor tried to ban it before it was ever officially introduced, and he interprets Prop 2’s defeat as a statement that voters want the Legislature to have the right to discuss the need for such laws.

House Speaker Jase Bolger has called for a conversation over Right-to-Work since he first took on his job and believes that will now move forward.

They’re not the ones who started this fight but no one should be surprised that they’re the ones who will try to finish it.