Right To Work: Outrage In Michigan, Chapter Three By Rod Kackley

Right To Work: Outrage in Michigan

By Rod Kackley

Chapter Three: Battle Lines Drawn

(Author’s note: This is an excerpt from Right To Work: Outrage in Michigan, one of the ebook essays in the Restore The Roar: Manufacturing Renaissance series.)

Michigan AFL-CIO President Karla Swift bet her ranch that Governor Rick Snyder would be the final blockade against the GOP-Chamber of Commerce tsunami that Right to Work had become. She and other labor leaders believed that Snyder, the Republican that Big Labor worked so hard—and failed—to defeat in November 2010, would be the union’s best hope of turning the heat down under the Right to Work stew.


 “You know, (Rick) Snyder has said it is not on his agenda and he wants to move forward with what he calls his ‘relentless positive action items,’” Michigan AFL-CIO President Karla Swift explained without a hint of irony in her voice. “We agree with him and we have made that clear multiple times over the last year and a half.”
Color her mistaken.
Snyder was pushed to the right on this issue by conservative Republicans — bankrolled by conservative billionaires like Dick DeVos — who vowed to mount a 2014 reelection campaign against him if the “Tough Nerd” in the Governor’s office disappointed them.
Conservative Republicans promised to hold it against the second-term Governor if he vetoed or ignored the legislation. They had the money.They had the votes. They had the energy. Most importantly, they had the anger to make good on that threat.
The Michigan business community had been standing with its fists clenched, shoulders tensed, leaning forward, ready for a fight over right-to-work for years. They were pushed to the brink by the November 2012 elections. Their emotions were running white hot because of the ballot proposals that were pushed by Big Labor. The state’s business leaders were outraged.
Several business organization leaders, along with top-level Republicans, told me that they had promised to block the right-to-work movement as long as the state’s union bosses agreed to not ask voters to constitutionally protect the right to bargain and organize.
If that was the deal, Labor broke it. Big Business had been blind-sided by Big Labor and Big Labor lost.
Their pro-union proposals that would have guaranteed the right of collective bargaining in Michigan were crushed by voters.
Now it was time for retribution. Or as Michigan Chamber of Commerce President Rich Studley said, “Actions have consequences.”
State Sen. Patrick Colbeck and Rep. Mike Shirkey had been waiting not very patiently in their corners, gloves laced up, legislation ready, just waiting for the bell to begin that fight. They both want to make Right to Work happen.
It was time for the bell to sound. Round Two was beginning.

Restore The Roar: Outrage in Michigan tells the story of how Right To Work became the law in Michigan. It is available for immediate download by clicking here.

Last Chance Mile: The Reinvention of an American Community tells the story of how the people of Grand Rapids have changed the way the world sees their community and the way they see the world is available wherever books are sold online including Abbott Press.

Autographed editions are available by clicking here and on the shelves of Barnes & Noble-Woodland Mall, Schuler Books & Music-28th Street and West Coast Coffee-Monroe Center, Grand Rapids.