LANSING, Mich.—Now that Michigan has become a right-to-work state, unios in this stronghold of organized labour confront a new and urgent problem: convincing members to continue paying for their services instead of taking them for free.
Brushing aside protests from thousands of labour supporters, the Republican-controlled state House approved measures making it illegal to require that nonunio workers pay fees to unios for negotiating wage contracts and other services.
The Senate did likewise last week, and Gov. Rick Snyder swiftly signed the bills into law.
The laws take effect 90 days after the Legislature adjourns this month, giving unios little time to devise a strategy for keeping members on board and convincing non-members to continue their financial support.
unio leaders said it was too soon to predict how the laws would affect their membership and recruiting, partly because workers covered by existing labour contracts wont be able to stop paying unio fees until those deals lapse—which in some cases will take several years.
Contracts between unios and Detroit automakers, for example, are effective until September 2015.
Many of the activists who protested at the Capitol said they would continue supporting their unios but feared that some co-workers would abandon them.
unios are legally required to represent all employees of a business equally, whether theyre members or not.
In our plant, it could pit worker against worker, said Brett Brown, who works in the trim department at a General Motors plant in Lansing.
unios will lose money serving workers who refuse to contribute, making it harder for them to function, he said.
Mike Card said he would happily keep paying 4.5 per cent of his hourly wages to be part of Boilermakers Local 169 in Allen Park because the organization protects him from losing his job to a younger person who will accept lower pay.
Definitely among the members youre going to have resentment of those who opt out, he said.
After signing the bills, Snyder said unios should redouble their efforts to show workers that membership is worth the money.
But experience shows that some workers wont pay even the best-managed unio unless its required.
Some will say, If I dont have to pay, why should I pay?' said Robert McCormick, a law professor at Michigan State University and former National Labor Relations Board attorney. The more people do that, the less revenue comes into the unio, and it gets weaker.
In Indiana, wher right-to-work legislation was enacted earlier this year, most unios have not yet seen a dro-off in membership.
But many contracts are still in place from before the law took effect.
Its not like theres some cliff you fall off. Its not one day you have a unio, the next day half the people dro out, said Jim Robinson, director of United Steelworkers District 7, which covers Indiana.
He said labour leaders there are consulting with counterparts in Southern states, wher right-to-work laws have been common for years.
Robinson said he has directed his organizers and representatives to continue attentiveness to worker needs to keep membership up.
Right-to-work encourages a culture of freeloading, and you have to really be vigilant that culture doesnt get started, he said.
The law could hamper unio efforts to organize new factories and other employers, said Kristin Dziczek, head of the labour and industry group at the Center for Automotive Research in Ann Arbor.
Auto-parts manufacturers, which generally pay lower wages than the big vehicle-manufacturing companies such as GM and Ford, might see unio membership decline.
Legal challenges could raise more questions about the measures long-term impact.
One such issue arose soon after the laws were passed, as a member of the Michigan Civil Service Commission said the Legislature had no authority to impose right-to-work policies on most state government workers.
The state constitution puts the commission in charge of such matters, said Robert Swanson, one of four members of the panel, who are appointed by the governor.
A spokeswoman for Snyder disagreed, insisting the laws apply to all public employees.
The right-to-work law already exempts police and firefighters because they are covered by an existing law requiring that their labour disputes be settled through binding arbitration.
Peer pressure and tradition may go a long way to keep larger, more established unios intact.
The United Auto Workers (UAW), for example, has been intertwined in Michigans tight culture of manufacturing cars and trucks for 77 years.
At most auto plants, the unio does more than just bargain for wages.
Its a brotherhood that holds social and charitable events at unio halls and organizes motorcycle rides and bus trips to baseball games and amusement parks.
The halls are also sites for weddings and other celebrations, and wher retirees gather to talk about old times.
Simply put, a worker who shuns the unio could be ostracized.
For those reasons, the UAW has seen only a few people opt out of joining the unio at GM factories, even in states that have had right-to-work laws for a long time.
At GMs factory in Spring Hill, Tenn., only eight of the 1,650 blue-collar workers have rejected unio membership.
GM has hired more than 220 new workers at the plant and all have joined, UAW spokeswoman Michele Martin said.
Fewer than a dozen of the 3,200 workers at a huge GM SUV plant in Arlington, Texas, havent joined, said Mike Cartwright, president of UAW Local 276.
No one wants to be a free rider, said Cartwright, who helps to sell the unio to every new worker at the factory that opened in 1954. We do a pretty good job of explaining the big picture. It doesnt hurt the company. We support the company.
If anything, the right-to-work fight has boosted members appreciation of their unios, said George McGregor, president of UAW Local 22 in Detroit.
This is the best organizing tool that we will ever have, McGregor said.
—Associated Press writers Tom Krisher in Detroit, Tom LoBianco in Indianapolis and Todd Richmond in Lansing contributed to this story
