Skip to main content

Budget crisis quickens drumbeat for anti-labor legislation

Date Posted: April 27 2007

LANSING - With Democrats in control of the state House and the governor's chair, passage of a right-to-work law and the outlawing of project labor agreements in Michigan are not imminent.

But bills in the state House have been introduced that would both make Michigan a right-to-work state and eliminate project labor agreements, which generally favor hiring union contractors on taxpayer-funded construction work.

In recent years such bills, as well as legislation to kill the Michigan Prevailing Wage Act, have languished in the state legislature for lack of votes. "And the bills aren't going anywhere this time, either," said Todd Tennis, a lobbyist for the Capitol Services who works with labor groups, to delegates at the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council Legislative Conference. "We're in a good situation with Democratic friends in control of the state House."

But Tennis cautioned delegates that Michigan's budget difficulties have the potential to change public opinion, "Republicans have their friends pounding the drum even louder, claiming that the state would be much more attractive to corporations if we were a right-to-work state. They're basically using economics to scapegoat unions, and we have our work cut out for us to show this is not the case."

As the Viewpoint column on Page 2 of this edition notes, no less than three opinion columns have appeared in local and national publications this month, calling to make Michigan a right-to-work state.

Michigan has its small share of Republican lawmakers who don't support that anti-labor legislation - which is why it never passed when our state was in complete control of the GOP during the Engler Administration.

State Sen. Randy Richardville, a Monroe Republican, flatly told delegates that he lost favor with his party a few years ago for supporting prevailing wage, and not supporting making Michigan as a right-to-work state. "I'm one of your best Republican friends," he told building trades delegates.

State Rep. Doug Bennett (D-Muskegon), former business manager of Plumbers, Pipe Fitters and Service Trades Local 174, told delegates that as long as their Democratic friends control the Michigan House, such legislation will continue to not move.

"Right to work won't get out of committee. Prevailing wage repeal won't get out of committee. Any legislation that would hurt our workforce is not going to get out of committee," Bennett said.