LANSING, Mich.—Five years after Michigan outlawed the union shop, three state Senate Democrats 
introduced two bills to repeal the so-called “right to work” law. “Michigan workers deserve the freedom and liberty to make decisions that suit their career ambitions without government mandating how they can and cannot associate,” Senate Minority Leader Jim Ananich (D–Flint) said in a statement Dec. 12. “They deserve the right to work for more, and that’s what this legislation will do.” One of the two bills would delete the portion of the law that prohibits employees from being required to pay fees to a union “as a condition of employment”; the other declares that public employers can agree to contracts in which all employees must pay a “service fee” to the “exclusive bargaining representative.” The bills are unlikely to get a hearing, Senate Majority Leader Arlan Meekhof, who sponsored the 2012 law, told the Detroit Free Press. They have been assigned to the Government Operations Committee, which he chairs. While all 11 Democrats in the Senate are cosponsoring the bills, they are outnumbered 27-11 by Republicans. Read more
