In 1963, when Michigan’s state constitution was changed to regulate collective bargaining and conditions of employment, allowing for forced union dues (or fees), there were no public-sector unions.
That is the argument that was presented this week before Michigan’s Supreme Court when an attorney for the United Auto Workers claimed that Michigan’s Right-to-Work law does not apply to public-sector employees.
Republican-backed Supreme Court justices drilled a labor union attorney during a hearing Tuesday over whether Michigan’s two-year-old right-to-work law applies to state workers.
In challenging the landmark labor law, an attorney for the United Auto Workers argued before the high court Tuesday that the Michigan Civil Service Commission should still have the power to force state employees to pay a union a fee to maintain collective bargaining agreements.
“It’s pretty clear that the framers … thought that the commission would regulate collective bargaining,” UAW attorney Bill Wertheimer said.
It is ironic the UAW is spending dues money arguing for workers to be required to pay union dues/fees in one state, while the union’s #2 guy, Secretary-Treasurer Gary Casteel has said (with a, presumably, straight face) that Right-to-Work laws are okay:
“This is something I’ve never understood, that people think right to work hurts unions,” Casteel said in February. “To me, it helps them. You don’t have to belong if you don’t want to. So if I go to an organizing drive, I can tell these workers, ‘If you don’t like this arrangement, you don’t have to belong.’ Versus, ‘If we get 50 percent of you, then all of you have to belong, whether you like to or not.’ I don’t even like the way that sounds, because it’s a voluntary system, and if you don’t think the system’s earning its keep, then you don’t have to pay.” [Emphasis added.]
Read the more about the UAW’s fight to end Michigan’s Right to Work law at DetroitNews.com.
