GOP gubernatorial campaign in Michigan highlights an issue - right to work - that would have been suicidal a few years ago

Oakland County Sherriff Mike Bouchard, who is running for the Republican nomination for governor, called for making Michigan a right to work State in a press release and commercial Wednesday. He pointed out that average right to work states have an 8 percent unemployment rate, compared with Michigan's rate of 13.8 percent.

Attorney General Mike Cox, who is also seeking the GOP nomination for governor, indicated support for right to work in a Tuesday Gubernatorial debate. "Fourteen right-to-work states have passed us by," in per-capita personal income, he said. "That's where our children are going." He ought to know. As he noted, his oldest daughter moved to right-to-work Tennessee.

So, now that right to work has entered the policy debate for this year's gubernatorial race, it's worth asking: What is it and what does it do?

Right to work generally refers to section 14b of the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, which allows states to bar union shop collective bargaining agreements in which paying union dues is required for many jobs. In non-right to work states, workers can be forced to join a union or pay dues as a condition of employment. To date, 22 states have adopted right to work laws since Taft-Hartley went into effect in 1947, mostly in the South and West.

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On average, right to work states have fared better than their closed shop neighbors. People know this, and are voting with their feet. According to a recent Cato Institute study, since 1970 the population of right to work states has more than doubled, while the population of closed shop states has increased by only 25.7 percent. And Census data show that 4.7 million Americans moved from closed shop states to right to work states between April 1, 2000, and July 1, 2008.

A 2009 Census estimate has Michigan's population dwindling below 10 million for the first time since 2001. Michigan was third out of 23 states experiencing outmigration, according to the estimate. Only California and New York, both closed shop states, came out ahead of Michigan.