Tagged: right to work

Governor Rick Snyder will deliver the commencement address at Michigan State University’s December graduation this morning.    

Some 23 hundred undergraduates and graduate students will receive their degrees during the mid-morning ceremony at the Breslin Center.

Thousands of family members and friends are expected to attend.   And maybe a few protesters as well.

Several groups unhappy with Governor Snyder’s quick signing this week of Right to Work legislation have talked about showing up at the M-S-U commencement which is open to the public.

The lawmakers who passed legislation this week making Michigan a right to work state wanted to make sure the voters couldn’t try to repeal it by collecting signatures and putting another referendum on the ballot. That‘s how unhappy citizens got rid of the governor’s first emergency manager law last month.

So the legislature included some money in the bill. Under Michigan’s constitution, appropriations bills are immune from the referendum process.  The idea was to make sure right to work could never be repealed unless by a vote of the legislature.

And since Democrats winning control of the State Senate any time in the next decade is seen as virtually impossible, those who want right to work figure they have made sure it is here to stay.

Yet believe it or not, there is a way those opposing right to work could collect signatures and get something on the ballot to repeal this. It won’t be easy, and it would take at least two years.

State Attorney General Bill Schuette says he expects Michigan’s new right-to-work law will be challenged in court, and he expects it will survive those lawsuits.

One possible challenge would focus on different treatment for different types of unions.         

The law will allow workers for unionized employers to opt out of paying dues or fees. But the law won’t apply to police and firefighter unions.

Schuette said that could create too much disharmony in public safety units that require order and discipline.

“Firefighters, first-responders, law enforcement – they’re on the front lines of public safety. They have a very important, unique responsibility, making sure our streets and our neighborhoods are safe and secure, so this is a very appropriate carve-out. It was a correct carve-out,” he said.

Schuette said the law does apply to the state’s 35,000 civil service employees.

Some interpretations of the state constitution say the law can’t touch civil service workers. That’s because they are governed by the Michigan Civil Service Commission.

This lame duck session of the Michigan legislature has been moving at very face pace.

In addition to the passage and signing of so-called right-to work legislation, the Republican majorities in the state House and Senate have a number of other bills on the agenda. They include a package of abortion related bills, a bill that would give health care providers the right to deny service due to religious or ethical objections, and a new emergency manager bill that would replace the one overturned by Michigan voters last month.

Michigan Radio's Jennifer White talks politics with Susan Demas, political analyst for Michigan Information and Research Service, and Ken Sikkema, former Senate Majority Leader and Senior Policy Fellow at Public Sector Consultants.