Michigan Senate votes to repeal ‘right-to-work’ law

BY DAVID EGGERT

LANSING — Democrats on Tuesday approved bills to rescind Michigan’s 2012 “right-to-work” law, voting to again allow labor contracts that require workers to pay union fees as a condition of employment.

e Senate passed the legislation 20-17 on party lines, as union members cheered and clapped from the gallery. It also voted 20-17 to restore a law mandating “prevailing,” usually union-scale wages and bene ts, on construction projects funded partly or wholly with state money.

e move followed House approval of bills this month. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer will sign the measures after the House takes nal votes on some of the Senate-passed measures this week. e bills would take e ect in March 2024 because Senate Republicans in opposition refused to let them go into e ect immediately.

e “right-to-work” repeal, which is opposed by business groups, would a ect private-sector workplaces. e U.S. Supreme Court in 2018 ruled that government employees who are represented by unions but do not pay dues cannot be required to pay agency fees to cover unions’ costs to negotiate contracts.

Sen. Roger Hauck, a Mount Pleasant Republican, voted no. He said he was a member of the United Steelworkers Local 2-585 for 28 years and was elected as steward and chief steward to negotiate with management. He said he did not “bat an eye” when the law took e ect a decade ago because “I knew the value of our union.”

“I didn’t believe then that those men and women should be forced into joining our union just to work alongside me, and I don’t believe it now,” he said. “Right-to-work shouldn’t a ect any union in the state that’s doing it the right way. Make your case, prove your worth and the members will follow.”

Sen. John Cherry, a Flint Democrat,