As John Fund reflects on Michigan’s new right-to-work legislation, he tells National Review Online readers it’s unlikely to be replicated any time soon.
Unions have enough support for now from moderate Republicans in GOP-controlled states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania to block right-to-work legislation. States such as Missouri and Montana, which have legislatures friendly to right-to-work, have Democratic governors who pledge to veto any such law. All of those states are likely prospects for reform at some point in the future, but not now.
Michigan turns out to have had a unique set of circumstances. Unions overplayed their hand earlier this year when they put an initiative on the ballot that would have put prohibitions on making any changes in collective bargaining into the state’s constitution. Voters turned down the proposal in November by 58 percent to 42 percent, giving GOP legislators and Governor Rick Snyder reason to believe that the electorate would now accept right-to-work. Evidence that neighboring Indiana had won new manufacturing jobs by passing right-to-work in early 2012 was another big boost.
But in Ohio, which borders both Michigan and Indiana, the story is different. Governor John Kasich said this week that his state is already competing well with its neighbors and he has higher priorities than right-to-work. GOP legislators are also still smarting from their failed attempt to pass Wisconsin-style collective bargaining reform in 2011. The reform law, known as Senate Bill 5, was poorly conceived and badly defended. It was rejected in a citizen’s referendum by a stunning 61 percent to 39 percent landslide.
