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Michigan lawmakers repeal right-to-work, revive prevailing wage

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The Detroit News | March 21, 2023
Beth LeBlanc & Craig Mauger

Lansing — The Democratic-led Michigan Legislature voted along party lines Tuesday on landmark legislation to restore prevailing wages for state construction projects and repeal the right-to-work law that barred union contracts from requiring membership fees as a condition of employment.

The Michigan Senate took a final vote on the bill to repeal the right-to-work law for private employers and sent the measure to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s desk on Tuesday afternoon. The Senate passed the bill 20-16 along party lines after the legislation cleared the House in a 56-52 party-line vote.

The House on Tuesday also approved two other labor bills in the package, one House bill that helps to require union-rate wages for public construction jobs and another bill that would repeal right-to-work for public sector employees.

The votes Tuesday were significant for the labor movement nationally, said Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO).

“It’s a huge day for the working people of Michigan,” Bieber said.

Rep. Regina Weiss, the Oak Park Democrat who sponsored the public sector right-to-work repeal, said the final passage of the bills Tuesday delivered on changes promised by the new Democratic majorities when they took office in January. Weiss rejected arguments that the right-to-work repeal would hurt the state’s economy.

“To me, it’s not a choice,” Weiss said. “You don’t have to choose to support business and then also choose to screw over workers. You can support business, you can support workers at the same time.”

The legislation headed to Whitmer’s desk would allow union contracts to require workers to pay agency fees for the cost of representation at the bargaining table with their employer.

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Lujan Grisham signs bill invalidating counties’ right-to-work laws (NM)

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Author: Andy Lyman
March 29th, 2019

Supporters of right-to-work legislation in New Mexico were dealt a big blow Wednesday when Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law a bill to prohibit counties from passing their own right-to-work laws.

Compulsory union fees in the public sector was struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2018, but private sector unions can still require workers to pay union fees. It’s against the law for all unions to require workers to pay dues, but they can collect fees to pay for the wage and benefit bargaining.

With the governor’s signature, House Bill 85-sponsored by Democratic Reps. Daymon Ely of Albuquerque and Andrea Romero of Santa Fe-invalidates resolutions passed, over a span of about 14 months in 10 New Mexico counties and one village, that barred union membership as a condition of employment.

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The bill was a direct answer to a push by right-leaning organizations, led by Americans for Prosperity, to localize efforts that failed to pass the Legislature in 2015. That year, with a majority in the House, Republicans passed a bill that would have made it illegal for employers or labor unions to require workers to join a union as part of the job. That bill never made it past the Democratically controlled Senate.

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Pritzker signs ban on local government ‘right-to-work’ laws (IL)

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By Peter Hancock – Capitol News Illinois
04/12/2019, 04:52pm

SPRINGFIELD – Gov. J.B. Pritzker on Friday signed into law a bill that prohibits local governments from enacting so-called “right-to-work” laws that are aimed at weakening the power of labor unions.

“The Collective Bargaining Freedom Act makes it abundantly clear that we have turned the page here in Illinois,” Pritzker said during a bill-signing ceremony in his statehouse office. “From the start, right-to-work was an idea cooked up to lower wages, slash benefits and hurt our working families. Right-to-work has always meant right to work for less money, and it’s wrong for Illinois.”

The first right-to-work laws in the United States were enacted in the 1940s, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, when soldiers were returning home and the U.S. economy was shifting from war production to civilian manufacturing.

Marc Dixon, a sociologist at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, said during an August 2018 interview that different arguments have been used over the years to campaign for the laws.

The first states to adopt them were primarily in the South, he said, where the laws were used to weaken labor unions, especially the Congress of International Organizations, or CIO, which were actively supporting civil rights legislation for African-Americans.

Later, in the 1950s, he said, they were supported by people who claimed certain labor unions embraced communist sympathies or had ties to organized crime.

More recently, supporters have argued for right-to-work laws on the basis of free speech. As more and more blue-collar workers aligned with the Republican Party, supporters have argued that workers should not be forced to join unions that, broadly speaking, tend to support Democrats.

The bill that Pritzker signed Friday came in response to a local ordinance adopted in north suburban Lincolnshire in 2015. It provided that workers could not be compelled to join a labor organization as a condition of employment within the village.

A U.S. District Court judge struck down that law in 2017, ruling that federal law allows only states to regulate collective bargaining. And in March 2018, the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld that decision. But other federal circuits have ruled that local governments may enact local right-to-work laws, making the issue ripe for a U.S. Supreme Court review.

Asked about that during the bill-signing, Pritzker said he is confident the new Illinois law would be upheld.

“The law as it is does not allow a state to hand this responsibility down to local communities,” he said. “This bill actually just establishes what is the law today, so I believe that that would be moot, essentially, at the Supreme Court.”

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Sanders Vows to Ban ‘Disastrous’ Anti-Labor ‘Right-to-Work’ Laws

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“Treat your workers with the dignity and the respect they deserve,” Sanders said of powerful corporations

Published on Monday, April 08, 2019
by Julia Conley, staff writer

Sen. Bernie Sanders on Monday told a gathering of union machinists that as president he would keep states from undermining their rights by pushing for a federal ban on so-called “right-to-work” laws.

Calling the rules “disastrous,” Sanders told the International Association of Machinists that he would call on lawmakers to pass the Workplace Democracy Act, a proposal which he has regularly introduced in Congress since 1992 and which he plans to bring to the Senate floor once again in the coming days.

Under “the most significant labor legislation introduced in very, very long time…we will end once and for all the disastrous right-to-work laws in 28 states,” Sanders said to loud applause.

The senator and 2020 presidential candidate also said the law would keep companies from “ruthlessly exploiting their employees by misclassifying them as independent contractors and [denying] them overtime by calling them supervisors”-both common practices by corporations.

“Workers in the construction industry are particularly vulnerable to wage theft from dishonest contractors who cheat their workers,” said AG Healey. “As Massachusetts undergoes a historic construction boom, my office will continue to fight for exploited workers and ensure they are paid the wages they earn.”

Under right-to-work laws, unions are barred from requiring that all workers contribute dues if they benefit from the union’s contract. The laws have been aggressively pushed by Republican governors and lawmakers in recent years, with proponents claiming they protect workers from being forced to join a union.

“The reality is that federal law already makes it illegal to force someone to join a union,” the AFL-CIO says. “The real purpose of right to work laws is to tilt the balance toward big corporations and further rig the system at the expense of working families. These laws make it harder for working people to form unions and collectively bargain for better wages, benefits, and working conditions.”

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Illinois lawmakers again vote to criminalize local right-to-work measures (IL)

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POSTED 12:27 PM, MARCH 14, 2019
BY WQAD DIGITAL TEAM

SPRINGFIELD (Illinois News Network) – Illinois lawmakers have resurrected and are moving ahead with legislation that would make creating local right-to-work zones at the municipal level a criminal offense.

While reporters in the Capitol building were peppering Gov. J.B. Pritzker with questions about his newly-unveiled progressive tax rates, state Senators voted to send a measure to the House that would make it illegal for local governments to create right-to-work zones in their jurisdictions. Such zones allow employees to refuse union membership and still be employed.

Sponsor Ram Villivalam, D-Chicago, said the bill will support economic development, protect the quality of essential services and confirm a commitment to a highly-trained workforce.

“Local right-to-work zones have no place in the state of Illinois,” he said. “The regulation of collective bargaining should be the responsibility of state government.”

Some Republicans objected to the bill. They said the state shouldn’t take away local control.

“We ought to allow communities to make their own decision,” said state Sen. Jim Oberweis, R-Sugar Grove.

The bill, which is similar to one Gov. Bruce Rauner vetoed in 2017, says any local official who supports a right-to-work zone will be charged with a Class A misdemeanor. That carries a sentence of up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

The bill passed with bipartisan support and now sits in the House to be heard.

It would only affect private-sector workers because a U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer prohibited public workers from being required to pay into a union as a condition of employment.

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United States: Minnesota Legislative Update: Bills To Watch (MN)

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Last Updated: March 14 2019
Article by Bruce J. Douglas, Kathleen Hoffmann and Brian A. Moen

The Minnesota Legislature is in session through May 20, 2019. This session promises to be very active with numerous bills affecting employers and the workplace. Major bills include paid leaves of absence (including family and sick leave), restrictions on an employer’s ability to access social media accounts, right-to-work legislation, vaccination exemptions, wage theft, and the legal standard for sexual harassment, and making available to a complaining party more information regarding the employer’s investigation and corrective action.

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Wage Theft: H.F. No. 6 and S.F. No. 1933

A Minnesota bill, H.F. No. 6, seeks to provide that “[n]o employer shall commit wage theft.” Generally, “wage theft” refers to instances where an employer intentionally does not pay an employee all wages to which he or she is entitled. Common examples of wage theft include denying meal or rest breaks, paying a wage below the minimum wage, withholding tips, and not paying overtime. Minnesota state law currently addresses many of these specific scenarios (see Minn. Stat. § 181.03), but the proposed bill seeks to broadly define “wage theft” to include all situations where “an employer has failed to pay an employee all wages to which that employee is entitled.”

The bill also seeks to introduce stricter recordkeeping requirements for employers, increase the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry’s enforcement tools (e.g., granting it the ability to issue subpoenas), and impose stricter penalties on employers for certain violations. Specifically, the bill proposes increasing monetary penalties for certain recordkeeping violations from $1,000 to $10,000, and imposing harsher criminal penalties upon employers for violations. For example, under the bill, an employer would be guilty of a gross misdemeanor if it engaged in wage theft and the total of unpaid wages to all affected employees was $10,000 or more.

H.F. No. 6, as written, has 33 Democrat and 2 Republican sponsors, but it is opposed by the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce. Proponents argue the bill is necessary to protect not only Minnesota employees, but also businesses and the community, which are harmed by those engaging in wage theft. For example, supporters argue that businesses engaging in wage theft cause the state to lose revenue from unpaid taxes on employee income. Conversely, critics argue that the bill’s definition of “wage theft” would presumably include situations where an underpayment was unintentional, which would therefore criminalize honest mistakes (for example, an employer could be found guilty for an inadvertent payroll error that caused a shortage in an employee’s paycheck). The bill was referred to the House’s Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Division on February 14, 2019.

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Evers takes aim at right-to-work law, seeks prevailing-wage protections (WI)

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By Michael Carroll
3-7-2019

Gov. Tony Evers has called for the repeal of Wisconsin’s right-to-work law and the restoration of prevailing-wage guarantees in public-works projects, despite critics’ concerns that those proposals could become a drag on the state’s economy.

The governor’s February budget blueprint supports the elimination of the state’s right-to-work statute, which restricts private employers from entering into agreements that compel union membership as a condition of employment or mandating the payment of dues to a labor union.

Evers also supports the restoration of the prevailing wage on state and local public-works projects to ensure that workers are not underpaid in comparison to employees performing similar tasks in the region.

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Restoring the prevailing wage would be helpful to both the construction industry and the employees who work in it, according to Emspak. Allowing companies with public-works contracts to pay their workers less than their counterparts in a region means those firms are undercutting the competition by cutting labor costs, which in turn drives down wages and working conditions, he said.

Having the prevailing wage in place means the construction companies would be in a better position to focus on providing high-quality, skilled work at a competitive cost, according to Emspak.

Labor union officials generally support Evers’ proposals. Stephanie Bloomingdale, president of the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, said Evers’ budget blueprint strikes the right note for workers and the state’s economy.

“The repeal of right to work is a step towards a healthier middle class with strong union rights,” Bloomingdale said in a prepared statement. “Restoring prevailing wage and the right to a project labor agreement will grow our economy with family-supporting jobs while ensuring tour construction projects are completed safely on time and on budget.”

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W.Va. judge strikes down key portions of right-to-work law (WV)

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BY JOHN RABY – ASSOCIATED PRESS
FEBRUARY 27, 2019 11:07 PM

CHARLESTON, W.VA.
A judge on Wednesday sided with labor unions in striking down key portions of West Virginia’s so-called right-to-work law, including those that allowed workers to stop paying union dues.

Kanawha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Bailey made the ruling in a lawsuit filed by the state chapter of the AFL-CIO and other unions. The judge said some provisions of the 2016 law violated the state constitution.

Labor unions maintained the law illegally took their assets since they still have to represent all employees in a union shop, including those that the law would allow to stop paying union dues.

Bailey struck down provisions that would authorize union employees to stop paying dues and fees or, in lieu of that, make payments to a charity or third party.

The new law would have required unions and union officials “to work, to supply their valuable expertise, and to provide expensive services for nothing,” Bailey wrote.

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West Virginia AFL-CIO President Josh Sword said Bailey “was right-on with her ruling. We entered into this lengthy legal challenge nearly three years ago because we knew the law violated of the rights of West Virginia workers – and we simply won’t stand for that.”

Curtis Johnson, a spokesman for West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, said Morrisey’s office is reviewing the circuit court’s decision

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Lee Carter’s Campaign for Labor Rights in Virginia Is Important for All Working Americans

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His fight against “right-to-work” should inspire more Democrats to challenge the atrocious Taft-Hartley law.

By John Nichols
JANUARY 7, 2019

Congressman Mark Pocan and Senator Bernie Sanders sent an important-if, sadly, little noted-signal last year about how to stand up for worker rights. They introduced a national Workplace Democracy Act that proposed to knock down the barriers to union organizing and collective bargaining that have been erected by politicians who serve as errand boys for corporate power.

Decrying “a corporate-driven agenda that makes it harder for middle class families to get ahead,” Pocan, the Congressional Progressive Caucus co-chair who is a member of the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades union, announced that “The Workplace Democracy Act restores real bargaining rights to workers and repeals the right to work laws like those that [Wisconsin Governor Scott] Walker has used to undercut American workers.”

Rejecting the caution that many Democrats have displayed with regard to struggles for labor rights, Pocan and Sanders went to the heart of the matter. Their legislation proposed to “end right to work for less laws by repealing Section 14(b) of the Taft Hartley Act, which has allowed 28 states to pass legislation eliminating the ability of unions to collect fair share fees from those who benefit from union contracts and activities.”

So-called “right to work” laws were enacted more than 70 years ago in many Southern and border states, where segregationist politicians (most of them Democrats) sought to block the rise industrial unions that organized workers of all races. But, in recent years, these laws have moved north-to historic industrial states such as Wisconsin and Michigan. They’re not popular. Just last year, Missouri voters rejected a right-to-work proposal by a 2-1 margin.

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Missouri voters just blocked the right-to-work law Republicans passed to weaken labor unions (MO)

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By: Alexia Fernández Campbell
August 7, 2018

It’s the first time voters have overturned right-to-work laws through a ballot referendum in recent years.

Missouri voters made history on Tuesday, blocking the state’s Republican lawmakers from enacting right-to-work laws to cripple labor unions. The state’s primary voters rejected Proposition A, which would have made it illegal for unions to charge fees to workers they represent who don’t want to pay them, by a two-to-one margin when the vote was called by Decision Desk around 10 pm Eastern.

Missouri was on track to become the 28th state to enact such a law. Last year, the state’s then-governor, Republican Eric Greitens, signed the right-to-work bill, saying that it would encourage businesses to move to the state. Missouri would have followed Michigan, Wisconsin, and other Rust Belt states that have passed similar anti-union measures in recent years under pressure from business groups.

But workers and union leaders in Missouri put up a fight. They gathered about 300,000 signatures – more than double the number needed – to freeze the law and put it on the ballot for voters to decide. On Tuesday, voters rejected the bill.

Tuesday’s election marks the first time voters have overturned a right-to-work law through a ballot referendum since Ohio did something similar in 2011. No other state has even tried to in recent years. It’s also a major victory for the US labor movement at a time when Republican leaders, big businesses, and the courts have doubled down on their attempts to weaken the influence of labor unions and the workers they represent. And after the US Supreme Court’s June ruling in Janus v. AFSCME, which mandated right-to-work rules for all government unions, Missouri’s vote is a sign that unions are far from dead. They might even see a revival.

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