In a surprise move the Republican dominated state government in Michigan has passed a right to work law. What is a right to work law? It means that unions in Michigan will no longer be able to force employees to pay union dues. Workers are still free to choose to join the union and pay dues, but they will no longer be forced to do so.
Obamacare represents another front in that battle. Thus far just 13 states have formally declared their intention to set up insurance exchanges (the "deadline" for doing so is December 14 which is in two days). Interestingly, if a lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma is successful, Obamacare may be largely nullified in states that do not set up an insurance exchange:
Michigan enacted far-reaching legislation Tuesday that threatens to cripple the power of organized labor in a state that was a hub of union might during the heyday of the nation’s industrial dominance.
The “right to work” effort illustrates the power of Republicans to use state legislative majorities won in 2010 to pursue their policy preferences, even after losing a bitter presidential election.
The defeat is devastating for organized labor, which for decades has been waging an uphill battle against declining membership and dwindling influence.
But it also strikes at the roots of a Democratic Party that relied on unions for financial support and to marshal voters for President Obama’s reelection.
Proponents call their win in Michigan especially significant because the state is the birthplace of one of the country’s most powerful labor groups, the United Auto Workers. Founded in 1935, the union organized auto workers, winning wages and benefits that transformed assembly-line work into solid middle-class jobs.
“This is really a message to every other state that is a closed union shop, that if you do it here you can do it everywhere else,” said Scott Hagerstrom, Michigan director of Americans for Prosperity.
The Michigan vote ended a swift change of fortune for the forces of organized labor there. Unions and their supporters spent more than $22 million to back a ballot measure last month that would have guaranteed collective bargaining rights in the state Constitution, only to see it resoundingly defeated.
The rejection emboldened the other side. Sensing an opening, supporters pushed to have the legislature pass the right-to-work measure. Then Snyder, who had previously expressed ambivalence, came out in favor of it.
Greg McNeilly, who heads the Michigan Freedom Fund, a group backed by multimillionaire conservative activist Dick DeVos that spent millions pressing for passage of the legislation, called their success a potentially decisive hit against organized labor.
“I think today is their Waterloo,” McNeilly said. “To see the birthplace of forced unionization do a turnabout is a very monumental achievement, and it is historic.”
How did this happen in Michigan of all places? The state that gave birth to the UAW? A state that Obama carried by 10 points?Michigan is the birthplace and stronghold of the United Auto Workers and a state steeped in union history. In Michigan they still remember 1937’s “Battle of the Overpass,” where Ford guards beat UAW officials near Dearborn’s Rouge plant in a pyrrhic victory that led to the union’s rise.
President Obama beat Mitt Romney in Michigan by 10 percentage points despite the fact that Mr. Romney grew up there. If Republicans can enact laws limiting union power in Michigan, where might they turn next?
“In political terms this really does seem like the tipping point ... if right-to-work can pass in Michigan, then why shouldn’t Republicans press for it in Wisconsin or Ohio or Pennsylvania?” writes Slate’s Moneybox columnist Matthew Yglesias.
Some liberals are bitter about this looming defeat. They say that while 24 states currently have right-to-work laws, the right’s push to spread such legislation had stalled – until now.
“If their win in Michigan sticks, the hoary, Dixie-fried Right-To-Work cause will shake off the dust of the political graveyard and become the hot new thing across the industrial Midwest. It’s sad but true,” writes Ed Kilgore in the Washington Monthly’s Political Animal blog.
I think we are seeing the beginning of the Republican strategy for the next four years. After absorbing a crushing defeat at the national level, they will take the battle to the states. Republicans currently have complete control of 24 state governments (control of both houses and the governorship) whereas the Democrates control only 13. (the rest have divided government).the Democratic vote is concentrated in Detroit, Ann Arbor, and a few other cities, while Republicans are spread out in a large geographic area. The GOP controls both Michigan’s House and Senate, after all.
Michigan has 15 congressional districts. Nine of them lean Republican, according to the partisan voting index of Charlie Cook’s Political Report. Six are Democratic, some by huge margins.
Second, labor recently made a large tactical error. It pushed for a proposed amendment to the Michigan constitution that would enshrine collective bargaining rights. The point was to head off the changes pushed through by the Republicans across Lake Michigan in Wisconsin. That measure was on the ballot in November and lost badly. It ended up as an advertisement for labor’s weakness instead of its strength.
Obamacare represents another front in that battle. Thus far just 13 states have formally declared their intention to set up insurance exchanges (the "deadline" for doing so is December 14 which is in two days). Interestingly, if a lawsuit filed by the state of Oklahoma is successful, Obamacare may be largely nullified in states that do not set up an insurance exchange:
Point one: The ACA offers tax credits and subsidies to individuals and companies that buy insurance through a state-run exchange — if their state has set up such an exchange. Point two: The federal government establishes exchanges for states that do not set up their own. Point three: The section of the ACA that establishes these credits and subsidies says they are authorized only for exchanges “established by a state.” (Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute and Jonathan Adler of Case Western Reserve University Law School first noticed this provision of the ACA; the law’s defenders say it is a minor drafting error that courts will and should overlook.) Point four: The ACA also imposes fines and penalties on individuals who do not buy health insurance, and on businesses that do not buy it for their employees. (Insurance under Obamacare will be significantly more expensive than regular insurance, which is why they have to pay you to buy it and fine you if you don’t.)Now we get to point five, which is the real crux of the argument: The ACA specifies that these fines or penalties apply only to individuals or companies that are eligible to receive the tax credits and subsidies. Conclusion: If a state chooses not to set up an exchange of its own, residents of that state are not eligible to receive tax credits or subsidies for buying insurance, so there can also be no fines or penalties for not buying insurance, even if there is a federally run exchange in the state. In other words, the individual and employer mandates are nullified in that state.