LANSING - With a Democratic governor and a Democratic majority in the state House of Representatives, a right-to-work law wouldn't have a chance of passage these days in Michigan - right?

Wrong - because if right-to-work is going to be adopted in Michigan, the process is probably going to bypass state lawmakers. In the not-so-distant future, right-to-work proponents may intensify their efforts to point to unions as a culprit for Michigan's lousy economy, and put a pro- right-to-work measure on a statewide ballot, in an effort to severely weaken union influence in Michigan.

An article published last month by MIRS - Michigan's oldest daily capitol newsletter - said "internal polls" by a pro-RTW group show a strong 60-61 percent support for right-to-work in our state. Furthermore, the director of the limited government advocacy group called Americans for Prosperity (AFP) described the chances of moving a right-to-work bill forward as "50-50" for the 2008 ballot.

That article came a week after Republican Senate Minority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) called for "someone" to put a right-to-work question on the ballot.

A right-to-work bill has already been introduced in the state legislature.

And articles by various newspaper columnists around the state and the arch-conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy this year have been stepping up calls for instituting a right-to-work law in Michigan. On top of that, a corporate-funded group called Union Facts has undertaken an effort to publicize union spending in an effort to sow discord among union members.

"There's no doubt about it, there's a conservative, anti-union crowd that's very serious about getting a right-to-work law passed in Michigan," said Ken Fletcher, legislative director for the Michigan AFL-CIO. "Clearly they don't have the votes in the legislature - but a strongly bankrolled effort to get petition signatures could get it on the ballot. If that happens, unions will have to do a good job of educating their members and getting them out to vote."

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.

According to the AFL-CIO, the average worker in a right to work state makes about $5,333 a year less than workers in other states ($35,500 compared with $30,167). Weekly wages are $72 greater in free-bargaining states than in right to work states ($621 versus $549).

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, and it was the first state to adopt the anti-union measure since 1985. Nearly every other state that adopted right-to-work laws did so in the 1940s, 50s and 60s.

The MIRS article said "presentations have been made to deep-pocketed donors" about collecting about $1.2 million that it would cost to hire the petition circulators to collect the 475,000 signatures needed to put the right-to- work question before the Michigan legislature in the form of a citizens initiative. If both chambers failed to adopt the measure, MIRS said, the issue would go before the voters.

Fletcher said while he knows of no specific polling about right to work in Michigan, he said wouldn't be surprised if a majority of our state's voters would support RTW. He said he doubted if the measure would appear on the 2008 ballot, when Democrats are expected to have a strong presence at the polls.

Americans for Prosperity Michigan Director Amy Hagerstrom told MIRS that if the right-to-work initiative were successful in Michigan - a cradle of the labor movement - it would deal unions nationwide an enormous setback.

Fletcher said that's where education becomes vital. "If right to work gets on the ballot, it's going to be enormously expensive to fight," he said. "That's why unions have to start the member education process now, explaining that the problem in Michigan isn't unions, it's the loss of the state's manufacturing base. Lowering wages and benefits is not a panacea."