Bills would allow employees to vote on right-to-work
LANSING – A Detroit-area Democrat has introduced a pair of bills that would let employees vote to undo right-to-work policies in their workplace.
The bills would change Michigan’s controversial right-to-work laws to allow public and private employers to agree to all-union contracts if such contracts are supported by the employees. All employees in the bargaining group would then be compelled to pay union dues or so-called “fair-share fees,” a requirement made illegal by the 2012 right-to-work policies.
The proposed legislation — House Bills 5398 and 5399, sponsored by state Rep. Robert Kosowski, D-Westland — would require a majority of all employees in the bargaining group, or three-fourths of the employees actually voting, to support the changes for them to take effect.
“If the employees are upset that they have to pay, then they can vote no,” Kosowski said Monday. “It gives full authority to the union people.”
It isn't clear how the bills would affect the state government workforce, where rules passed by the Michigan Civil Service Commission prohibit mandatory union fees.
"We are still in the process of reviewing the bills to determine if they are in compliance with current civil service rules and regulations," said Kurt Weiss, a spokesman for both the commission and the state employer. "Leadership at both the Office of State Employer and Civil Service are taking a closer look at the bills to determine their position on the legislation.”
The Republican controlled Legislature has been unwilling to consider right-to-work changes from either side of the aisle. Both a Democrat-backed proposal to repeal the laws and a Republican-backed proposal to expand them have stalled in committee.
But Kosowski thinks his legislation offers a compromise because it “doesn’t abolish right-to-work, but it sure does soften the blow.”
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Kosowski’s bills, introduced on Wednesday, were referred to the House Commerce & Trade Committee, chaired by state Rep. Joseph Graves, R- Argentine Township. Richard Adams, a state House spokesman, said Monday it was still early in the process and no decisions had yet been made on Kosowski’s bills.
Michigan’s right-to-work policies were challenged and upheld in court multiple times, most recently in July, when the Michigan Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that the Civil Service Commission lacked the authority to require state employees to pay union dues or fair-share fees.
Kosowski said his bills wouldn’t conflict with those court opinions because employers couldn’t mandate the charges without the support of their workers.
Thus far, right-to-work seems to have had little impact on unions.
Union membership in the public and private sector across Michigan dipped from 2013 to 2014, after the first full year of the law, but climbed again in 2015 as the economy continued to rebound and jobs were added, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
After falling out of the top 10 most unionized states in 2014, Michigan tied with Illinois for eighth place last year. Michigan reported 621,000 employees, or more than 15% of the workforce, who were union members. About 92% of Michigan employees covered by union contracts were members of their union, the BLS said.
Among state government workers, union participation has fallen since the law went into effect, but as of September stood at a still-strong 88% of employees covered by collective bargaining contracts who paid union dues, according to Civil Service Commission data. Participation fell and climbed in years before right-to-work, but has only fallen since the law went into effect.
Contact Justin A. Hinkley at (517) 377-1195 or jhinkley@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter @JustinHinkley. Sign up for his email newsletter, SoM Weekly, at on.lsj.com/somsignup.