Michigan became the 24th right-to-work state on Tuesday night, when Gov. Rick Snyder signed the law after a day of angry protests from the state’s labor unions. Home to more than 700,000 union members, Michigan is the second state this year to adopt the legislation, which prohibits requiring workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment. 
 
 The measure was pushed quickly through the Michigan state Senate late last week, giving residents, liberal advocacy groups, and union members little time to mobilize in protest. The legislation, seen as the latest attempt to bust powerful unions, is likely to go into effect in March. 
 
 “For millions of Michigan workers, this is no ordinary debate,” Sen. Carl Levin said Tuesday. “It’s an assault on their right to have their elected bargaining agent negotiate their pay, benefits, and working conditions, and to have all who benefit from such negotiations share in some way in the cost of obtaining them.” 
 
 Snyder, a Republican, has come under heavy criticism for his sudden about-face on right to work, which he previously said he would not adopt in the state. State Republicans—under pressure from Grover Norquist, the Koch brothers, the DeVos family, and Americans for Prosperity—persuaded Snyder to change that stance, setting in motion the rapid passage of the legislation along party lines in a lame-duck session of the state Senate last Thursday. 
 
 “After spending years telling us that ‘right to work for less’ legislation was off the table, Gov. Snyder has created an embarrassing national spectacle by doing a full flip-flop on this issue,” U.S. Rep. Gary Peters, a Democrat, told the Detroit Free Press on Tuesday. “Perhaps most disturbing of all, Gov. Snyder and his right-wing allies used every trick in the book to prevent the people from being able to hold a referendum vote on this issue.” 
 
 “The timing of the introduction of this legislation makes it clear that there is a sinister, ideologically backward political agenda sweeping the nation,” said Rev. D. Alexander Bullock, president of the Detroit chapter of Rainbow-PUSH. “Michigan has now become ground zero for the fight against an anti-American worker agenda. We will not stand idly by while the conservative agenda that sweeps our nation seeks to destroy the middle class.” 
 
 Snyder told MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell on Tuesday, prior to signing the legislation, that right to work, or “freedom to work,” as he called it, is about creating better jobs and helping protect small businesses. 
 
 “It’s about giving freedom of choice to workers,” Snyder said. “This is to move Michigan forward, about more and better jobs and worker choice.” 
 
 In the last two years, Wisconsin and Ohio have attempted to adopt similar legislation restricting collective-bargaining rights, with the latter effort being defeated in a statewide vote earlier this year. Union members and supporters across Michigan saw the signing of the law Tuesday as a foregone conclusion, though that did not stop them from making their voices loudly heard inside the capitol and on the streets. 
 
 Protesters were briefly locked out of the capitol building last Thursday in a scene reminiscent of the Wisconsin protests in 2011. On Tuesday, with the House vote all but a formality, Michigan state police prepared for up to 2,500 protesters inside the capitol and another 10,000 protesters outside. 
 
 The protesters exceeded those projections, with estimates ranging between 13,000 and 18,000 protesters in Lansing, including members of the UAW and AFL-CIO, as well as the Rev. Jesse Jackson. More protests were held across the state, including one in downtown Detroit and another in front of Snyder’s home in Ann Arbor. 
 
 Michigan state police, clad in full riot gear, formed a line around the George W. Romney Building, where Snyder has an office, across the street from the capitol. Police and firefighters are exempt from right to work due to special collective-bargaining rights that prevent strikes. 
 
 Get The Beast In Your Inbox! Daily Digest Start and finish your day with the top stories from The Daily Beast. Cheat Sheet A speedy, smart summary of all the news you need to know (and nothing you don't). By clicking “Subscribe,” you agree to have read the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy Subscribe Thank You! You are now subscribed to the Daily Digest and Cheat Sheet. We will not share your email with anyone for any reason. 
 
 Early in the day, members of the SEIU staged a sit-in at the entrance and exits of the building, blocking Snyder’s motorcade. Some union members called the officers “traitors” and shouted other derisive insults as they were being kept away, while others commended the officers for doing their jobs. 
 
 Police arrested two protesters, including one who was pepper-sprayed after grabbing an officer. No serious injuries were reported. Supporters of right to work also made their presence felt, in much smaller numbers, during the protests. Minor confrontations and scuffles broke out in the early morning. 
 
 “We are really excited and energized, and we want to stand in solidarity with the courageous lawmakers,” said Annie Patnaude, deputy state director of the Michigan chapter of Americans for Prosperity, whose tent at the capitol was destroyed by union protesters. “I have an 8-month-old and a 2-year-old, and I want them to be able to grow up in Michigan and find a job.” 
 
 The main battle cry of the anti-right-to-work protesters, meanwhile, had a common theme: wait for 2014. Many of the GOP seats, including Snyder’s, will be up for grabs during the midterm elections. Rather than attempt to recall Republicans, as Wisconsin Democrats tried and failed to do to Gov. Scott Walker, the Michigan unions are set to mobilize behind Democrats and pro-union Republicans in two years. 
 
 “What you did today is going to happen over the next two years,” said David Hecker, president of the American Federation of Teachers’ Michigan chapter. Teachers made up a large number of the protesters on Tuesday, and three schools in suburban Detroit were closed as a result of a teacher-led protest. 
 
 “Those legislators who voted for right to work,” Hecker added, “will know where we’ll be; they will know when we’ll be there; they will know what we’re going to do, but they’re going to be sorry at what they have decided to put themselves through the next two years.” 
 
 Labor unions have long been a strong political force in Michigan, skewing heavily toward Democrats. President Obama, who visited Detroit on Monday, won Michigan in 2008 and 2012 due in large part to overwhelming support from labor unions. No Republican presidential candidate has carried the state since George H.W. Bush in 1988. 
 
 “We know that Governor Snyder said that he was just going to sign this thing and ‘put it behind us,’” said Karla Swift, president of the Michigan chapter of the AFL-CIO. “We came here today, and not just the 17,000 of us who came here but the millions of people we represent who couldn’t be here today, and we’re not moving on.” ||||| Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is expected to sign right-to-work legislation as early as today that will prevent employees in the state from having to pay dues to a union. Appearing at an event outside Detroit Monday, President Obama assailed the legislation as a political ploy designed to "take away your right to bargain for better wages"; he referred to the legislation as "right to work for less money." 
 
 
 
 Obama takes on union fight in Michigan 
 
 Unions are outraged that right-to-work legislation has come to the state that is, to some degree, the symbolic heart of the labor movement; conservatives say that it will give more freedom to workers and create "more and better jobs in Michigan," in Snyder's words. 
 
 Right-to-work is complicated, starting with that carefully-crafted name - who, you might wonder, would oppose the right to work? Below, we explore the debate around right-to-work laws and what the current fight means for Michigan and the rest of the nation. 
 
 What is right-to-work? 
 
 It's the name that proponents have given to legislation that prevents agreements in which employees are required to pay union dues. 
 
 Even without a right-to-work law in place, American workers can't be forced to join a union. But many unions and companies have arrangements in which workers are required to pay union dues as a condition for employment, even if they don't join the union. Right-to-work laws make such agreements illegal. Employees can choose not to join a union, though they would still receive the benefits of union representation if their company is unionized. 
 
 Supporters of such laws - largely Republicans and business interests, including the Koch brothers - say workers should have the right not to pay union dues if they don't want to. (They also call the laws "freedom to work" legislation.) In addition, they say that right-to-work laws are good for business. Economist Thomas Holmes in 2000 found that growth in manufacturing in counties near the border in right-to-work states was 26 percentage points greater than non-right-to-work states - a finding trumpeted by right-to-work supporters. 
 
 
 
 Critics - largely Democrats and unions - say the laws are designed to weaken unions. If employees are not required to pay union dues, they point out, unions are likely to shrink and labor will have less leverage to engage in collective bargaining. That results, they say, in lower wages and worse working conditions. Opponents of the law also say it's no surprise that businesses are drawn to states with anti-union policies, as well as looser regulation and lower taxes, but that doesn't prove such policies are good for the economy - and workers shouldn't have to suffer in a race-to-the-bottom battle between states to appeal to businesses. 
 
 
 
 So what has happened in Michigan? 
 
 Last Thursday, Michigan's GOP-led legislature passed bills to make Michigan the 24th state with right-to-work laws on the books. The move came as something of a surprise, in part because Snyder, the governor, has long maintained that right-to-work was not on his agenda. The first-term governor, who has until now largely been viewed as a moderate, said Thursday he plans to sign the measure despite it being a "divisive issue." 
 
 
 
 Thousands of union workers protested the vote Thursday in Michigan's capital, Lansing, chanting "shame on you" at lawmakers; eight were arrested. The fight over right-to-work has particular resonance in Michigan, which is arguably the heart of the labor movement: "Sit down" strikes in Flint in the 1930s launched the United Auto Workers as a major power and led to the unionization of the U.S. auto industry. 
 
 no previous page 
 
 next
– It's a huge day for labor in Michigan. Gov. Rick Snyder has signed a pair of right-to-work bills that make it illegal to require the payment of union dues in order to work, the Detroit Free Press reports. The state's House of Representatives passed the bills earlier today. Some 12,500 people were in Lansing to protest—which may be the most demonstrators the state capitol has ever seen. "This is a national attack," United Auto Workers president Bob King declared, as the crowd beat drums and chanted. "Unions built the middle class of America." Michigan was a surprise setting for the battle, the New York Times notes. Just last month, labor leaders were calling for collective bargaining to be written into the state Constitution. It seems to have backfired: Now, the UAW's home state is the 24th to ban required union dues—and a bellwether for future conservative efforts across the US. The battle comes after Snyder shifted position; the governor had once called the issue too thorny too address. Elsewhere: President Obama had weighed in yesterday: "These so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics," he said. "They have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money." You can follow it all at the Free Press' live blog, or catch up on the background here.