New York Times: Why Unions Matter So Much
Many Republican officials treat organized labor as their political enemy. When Republicans gain power in a state capital, they often try to pass “right to work” laws meant to shrink unions. And these laws have their intended effect: They reduce the number of workers who belong to unions, reduce Democrats’ share of the vote in elections and reduce the number of working-class candidates who run for office, academic research has found.
Jamelle Bouie, a Times Opinion columnist, captured this asymmetry when he wrote: “Republicans and other conservatives know who their enemies are — they know that organized labor is a key obstacle to dismantling the social safety net. The question is whether Democrats understand that their fortunes are also bound up in the fate of workers.”
But events in Michigan this week (repealing Right To Work (Is Wrong) raise the question of whether Democrats are starting to change their approach and devote more attention to strengthening organized labor.
Last week, Democrats in the Michigan House of Representatives passed a bill repealing the right-to-work law that Republicans enacted in 2012. For the new bill to become law, the State Senate, which Democrats also control, would need to pass it and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer would need to sign it, as she has signaled she will. Democrats gained control of the Michigan House and Senate in last year’s elections.
If the bill did become law, it would be one of only a handful of repeals of any statewide right-to-work laws. “It’s a huge deal,” Jake Grumbach, a political scientist at the University of Washington who has studied the issue, told me.