GRAND RAPIDS - The call to make Michigan a right-to-work state pops its ugly head up now and then, and its latest sighting was at the 2008 West Michigan Regional Policy Conference held Sept. 18-19 in Grand Rapids.

Hosted by the Grand Rapids Area Chamber of Commerce, the get-together offered participants "the opportunity to engage in regional and state policy discussions and participate in moving the West Michigan pro-business agenda forward by developing and strengthening regional policy goals and initiatives."

It turned out some of that was business-speak for "Michigan needs a right-to-work law," as the anti-union proposition was front and center on the agenda of the sold-out inaugural conference, which attracted 600 business leaders, lobbyists, politicians - and a tiny union contingent. Many indicated their support for a right-to-work-law in Michigan.

There were three labor representatives at the conference, not including this reporter, but including Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council Business Rep. Walt Christopherson, and Bill Black, government affairs director for Michigan Teamsters Joint Council 43. Black likened their presence at the conference of Republican conservatives to being like "a skunk at a garden party."

"We thought we would go and get labor's message out, but we didn't think we would go and get people like Dick Devos to come over to our cause," Black said. "I don't think they were too impressed with us, but I don't think they realize that the middle class was built by unions, that union wages are supporting our ability to buy their businesses' products, or how union wages are supporting our state's finances."

With our state's weak economy and high unemployment, many of Michigan's big business leaders - in all areas of the state - are pursuing the passage of a right to work law in Michigan. They're working in concert with the state Republican Party, which endorsed a statewide right-to-work law earlier this year. With a Democratic governor and a Democratic-led state House, RTW proponents realize they can't get a law passed legislatively, but are expected to undertake an effort next year to put a right-to-work measure on a statewide ballot and lobby voters.

Republican Senate Minority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) has called for "someone" to put a right-to-work question on the ballot, even though a RTW ballot measure this year in Colorado has been very divisive.

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. In states with 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.

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. Right-to-work states like Mississippi and Arkansas are also known for the poor public schools, higher worker death rates and reduced access to good health care.

The conference in Grand Rapids received quite a bit of news coverage. Conservative Detroit News Editorial Page Editor Nolan Finley wrote in a column Sept. 20: "You get the feeling that there are times when the folks in west Michigan would like to draw a line down the middle of the state and say, 'Stay on your side and we'll take care of business over here.' "

Finley added, "Here, the opening session featured an economist who declared Michigan must become a right-to-work state NOW…."

A Michigan Business Review article about the conference quoted Birgit Klohs, president and CEO of The Right Place, Inc., a Grand Rapids economic development organization as saying: "when we are recruiting, the perception of Michigan as a union state is not a positive one."

Amway co-founder Rich DeVos told the Grand Rapids Press that the climate on the west side of the state "is very different. The people around here are productive and getting things done. People don't spend their time arguing and fighting. Detroit, because of its union mentality, always spends its time arguing and fighting."

Patrick Devlin, CEO of the Michigan Building and Construction Trades Council, said the comments had a familiar ring. "Sure sounds a lot like divide and conquer to me," he said. "This stuff isn't confined to west Michigan, many big business leaders and business organizations and most of their friends in the Republican Party share his philosophy, no matter what part of the state they're in.

"They think if they keep telling us that unions are the bad guy as we struggle through Michigan's poor economic position, then it's going to become accepted and a right-to-work law is going to be easier to pass. We in organized labor have to keep working to set the record straight."

At a conference in Lansing last year that partially highlighted the effect of introducing a right-to-work law in Michigan, Paula Voos, a professor in the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said right to work laws:

• Reduce revenues for government at all levels.
• Increase low-wage jobs.
• Result in governments being less likely to pay for new schools and roads.
• Are an ineffective job creation policy.

Low-wage policies work - "for a while," Voos said.

"These are known as footloose jobs," Voos added "If jobs move to an area because that area offers low wages and exploits the labor force, is that really a development strategy today in a global economy? I would contend no, it's not. Because there are many other places no matter what you do to lower the wage scale, there are many other places, like in China, that have lower wages."