• Repealing Michigan’s Right-to-Work law is up first, but Democrats say to expect more worker-focused changes
• Expanding union protections, increasing minimum wage, two-week scheduling notice among possible options
• Business groups, conservatives have concerns but see some room for common ground

LANSING — In their first week in power, legislative Democrats are queuing up two major policy changes that would impact hundreds of thousands of Michigan workers — repealing the state’s “Right-to-Work” law and expanding the state’s Earned Income Tax Credit.

Don’t expect labor policy discussions to stop there.

In past legislative sessions, Democrats have backed dozens of labor-related bills that proposed, among other things:

• Expanding bargaining rights and union protections in education and other sectors
• Increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour
• Requiring employers to give two-week scheduling notice, a concept known as “predictive scheduling”
• Requiring 30-minute breaks for every five hours worked
• Creating a tax credit to offset costs of child or dependent care
• Giving temporary workers the first opportunity to apply for open permanent positions
• Requiring severance pay for employees affected by company shutdowns or mass layoffs
• Reinstating prevailing wage, a law repealed in 2018 that required non-union employers pay union rates for construction projects. Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer restored the requirement on state construction contracts last year

Those ideas were nonstarters...

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