This presidential election year means the spotlight falls on Michigan again. In 2020, Joe Biden won the state election with a little over 50 percent of the vote. In 2016, the state went to Donald Trump by a razor-thin plurality. The polls were notoriously inaccurate, with Biden and Hillary Clinton holding large leads that significantly understated Trump’s election-day support. With polls in the current contest even closer, election 2024 is high drama in Michigan.
However, another factor adds a unique layer of drama: The politics surrounding unions. Michigan Teamsters elites, for instance, planted their loafers directly into the political mess this month, declaring they were “enthusiastically” endorsing the Harris-Walz campaign “and all down-ballot Democratic candidates” in the state “on behalf of 245,000 active and retired Teamsters.” This came on Sept. 18, before the ink was dry on the results of a Teamsters poll of its 1.3 million national members showing that 60 percent wanted the union to endorse Trump, with a mere 34 percent for Harris.
This serves as a reminder of where the union elites place their devotions: In their political cronies and in their own power. Union members and Michigan employees are means to an end. Union leadership and its allies in the Michigan legislature hold this contempt-filled viewpoint.
How else to explain the demise of right-to-work in Michigan?
Twelve years ago, Michigan passed a law prohibiting mandatory union membership in unionized shops. Ultimately, it allowed workers to choose whether to join and pay dues to a labor union or opt out of union membership and dues altogether.
Under right-to-work, Michigan employees in a unionized shop had the choice. They had the right to keep their paycheck intact as they prioritized their finances. Michigan employees also had the right to vote with their paycheck for or against a union based on the quality of its services. They also had the right to withhold their money if they thought a union engaged in political advocacy or other operations that opposed their beliefs. In light of the mission creep besetting many unions, the likelihood of that happening has been increasing.
Unfortunately, as of February, all those benefits have disappeared due to a 2023 party-line repeal of right-to-work by Michigan’s legislature.
The legislature did the unions’ bidding even though poll after poll showed that less than one-third of Michiganders supported repeal. Even union members opposed repeal.
However, voters be damned. The hegemony of Big Labor could not be more obvious.
There is hope. The union elites’ apparent victory has created an Achilles’ heel. Previously, employees in a unionized shop could opt out of paying for a union they didn’t respect. Now that they will be forced to part with a portion of their paychecks, their only recourse will be to throw the union out altogether. And that is on the cusp of happening on a massive scale. These employees need a hand.
That’s why the Center for Independent Employees exists. Whereas businesses and labor unions have the resources to financially support legal work to bolster their respective positions, individual employees are on their own. CIE levels the playing field in independent-minded employees’ resistance to unions. With a presence in all 50 states, we have worked with employees of private and public entities nationwide and dealt with most of the major unions, including UAW, Steelworkers, Teamsters, SEIU, NEA and others for more than 20 years. For those employees who want union interlopers out of their workplaces, CIE will rush troops to their aid — free.
Union elites could have respected rank-and-file individual choice and focused on providing value to members. Instead, they used the iron fist of the government to force Michigan employees to dip into their pockets and forfeit a portion of their paychecks. This is just plain wrong. It’s time for independent-minded employees to stand up and show unwanted unions the door.
On October 2, 2024, CIE will host a live-stream panel discussion about the real-life impacts, data, and employee solutions surrounding Michigan’s right-to-work law repeal. The session will be shared on CIE’s website at www.centerforindependentemployees.org.
