By Steve Gunn
EAGnews.org

LANSING, Mich. – Michigan’s Republican lawmakers undoubtedly feel a little cheated by the state’s public sector labor unions, so they are looking at other ways to curb Big Labor’s power and influence.

Legislative Republicans joined Gov. Rick Snyder in December in pushing through a controversial right-to-work law, which says nobody in the public or private sector can be forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition for employment.

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The law went into effect last week.

Unfortunately the law does not affect workplaces until their current union contracts expire. Many public sector unions – most of them in colleges, universities and K-12 schools – spent the last few months negotiating new or extended collective bargaining agreements with management before the law changed.

Most of those agreements force current employees to keep paying union dues the entire life of the contracts, which in some cases will be another 5-10 years.

That means some employees who sought relief from the right-to-work law will be forced to continue paying union dues.

Now legislative Republicans are considering a bill that would end the practice of unions being designated as the sole bargaining agents for all employees in a particular workplace, according to the Detroit News.

With that provision in place, unions believe they have a legitimate complaint about the right-to-work law – they will be forced to represent the interests of employees who no longer pay dues.

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The unions may use that argument in 2014, if they choose to pursue a statewide ballot proposal to overturn the right-to-work law. But if sole representation clauses are outlawed, the union claim about being ripped off by “freeloading” non-members would no longer be legitimate.

Workers would be free to represent themselves in negotiations over salary, benefits and working conditions, or join other representative organizations, the news story said.

While such a law would not free workers caught under new or extended union contracts, it would take away a union talking point.

“The freeloader argument only exists because unions choose to put the exclusivity clauses into contracts,” state Rep. Mike Shirkey told the newspaper.

Republicans may also consider a bill that would force unions to have regular recertification votes, to determine if a majority of their members in any given workplace want to remain in their unions, the news story said. Wisconsin lawmakers adopted a similar law in 2011.