The Michigan Senate approved a bill to repeal the state’s right-to-work laws in a major victory for organized labor, setting the state up to become one of the first to overturn such laws, which allow workers to opt out of union membership and dues payments.
In a narrow 20-17 vote on Tuesday, along party lines, the Michigan Senate passed the bill to revoke the state’s right-to-work laws, sending it back to the state’s House for final approval.
The House voted to pass a similar law last week, but must sign off on final language. Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) has said she will sign the bill.
There are now right-to-work laws in 27 U.S. states, mostly in the South and Midwest. The laws have been credited with the dramatic decline in union membership and growing income inequality in the United States over the past several decades, as some workers choose to save money in the short-term by not paying for union dues when it’s optional. Union membership in the United States dropped to 10.1 percent in 2022, a historic low. A body of research has shown that union members tend to earn higher wages than their nonunion counterparts in similar roles.
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Hundreds of union members piled into the Michigan Capitol on Tuesday to cheer on the bill.
“This is what happens when we elect union members to halls of power,” Liz Shuler, president of the AFL-CIO, the nation’s largest labor federation, tweeted on Tuesday evening after news broke of the bill’s passage. “We fight and we...
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