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Right-to-work effort heats up in Michigan

Date Posted: July 11 2008

The ugly effort to introduce a right-to-work law in Michigan now has a formally named sponsor, a big-pocketed, notorious advocate, and perhaps a new strategy.

Last year, speculation was rampant in organized labor about the intentions of right-to-work (RTW) proponents in Michigan, who appeared poised to begin a ballot effort to get a RTW law instituted via petition signatures and then a vote of the people.

Labor went to work, and proactively used radio and TV ads and volunteers to foil any petition effort during January's primary election to get RTW on the ballot. Now, petitions under the name of Steve Forbes (remember him? - the magazine magnate and Republican presidential candidate from a few years ago who ran on the flat tax platform) are being circulated to some voters, with a place for a recipient's signature under an appeal to our state's U.S. senators and local U.S. Representatives to support a RTW law.

A postage-paid envelope would send the petitions to Forbes at the National Right to Work Committee in Virginia, no doubt for use as a political weapon.

And that's not all. The "Michigan Right to Work Committee" has come out of its shell with a street address on its letterhead (that's still a post office box) and a new anti-union survey of its own signed by an executive director, Dimitri Kesari. One of the survey letters we got our hands on was sent to the residence of a retired trade union official and staunch Democrat.

Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney acknowledged that "right to work zealots are flooding mailboxes" with pro-right-to-work materials.

"Organized labor continues to fight back with our efforts to educate members and candidates, and extending this issue into our campaign efforts," Gaffney said. While Michigan labor leaders had thought that a petition drive might be the avenue of choice to get a right-to-work law adopted in Michigan, Gaffney said he now suspects the strategy will be to lobby present and future lawmakers - and these surveys are among the first salvos.

Forwarded to us was a letter dated June 17 to a Democratic state house candidate, from the Michigan Right to Work Committee's Kesari. With it was a "2008 Candidate Survey" with five questions, which were obviously worded to plant seeds of an anti-union, pro-right-to-work sentiment.

"Your views on the forced unionism issue are very important," Kesari wrote in the cover letter, although he didn't make it clear how the "survey" will be used.

Question No. 5 directly impacts the unionized construction industry: "If elected will you support a ban on all 'Project Labor Agreements,' which would allow contractors to bid on state construction projects regardless of whether or not their employees pay dues to a union official?"

In between slanted, anti-union explanations of the issues below, other questions on the survey ask: "Will you support legislation ensuring employers can hire permanent replacement workers during economic strikes?"

"Will you support legislation terminating forced-dues privileges for public sector union officials?" "Will you support legislation that ends monopoly bargaining over public employees by union officials?"

The coming out of the Michigan Right to Work Committee comes on the heels of a "personal opinion survey" letter written this spring by state Rep. Jacob Hoogendyk (R-Kalamazoo County) to Michigan businesses.

"You see, what Michigan's economy needs more than anything else is to pass a Right to Work law that would end forced unionism in the Wolverine State," Hoogendyk wrote in the letter. Hoogendyk is expected to be the Republican challenger to Carl Levin for his U.S. Senate seat.

Hoogendyk added that he hopes to "work with Right-to-Work allies to: "Rollback union boss power grabs in the Michigan state legislature;" and "Guarantee freedom from union violence and compulsion for every Michigan worker," as well as "provide the jobs, economic growth and tax relief that Right to Work will help bring about."

Todd Tennis, of Capitol Services, a lobbyist for the IBEW and the Mid-Michigan Construction Alliance, said: "It wasn't this year, but they're going to go after getting a right-to-work law passed in Michigan at some point. The worse the economy gets, the more they're going to blame it on unions with this kind of misinformation."

Under right-to-work laws, workers in a union shop can choose not to pay union dues - yet they still enjoy the benefits of union membership. Such a two-tiered set-up usually guts the clout of unions and eventually leads to their demise. There are currently 22 right-to-work states in the U.S. Oklahoma was the most recent state to adopt a RTW law, in 2001. The vast majority of state RTW laws were adopted in the 1960s and 1970s.

According to the Michigan AFL-CIO, Michigan workers are paid an average of $7,601 a year more than workers in right-to-work states.

"This provides another opportunity to remind your readers that Barack Obama opposes right to work and John McCain is a right-to-work supporter," Gaffney added.