What Democracy Really Looks Like

Heritage Foundation‘s Ed Fuelner on Michigan Right to Work passage:

In a statewide election in Michigan last month, voters soundly defeated Proposal 2, a measure that would have made union collective bargaining a right and given collective bargaining agreements the force of law. Voters shot down the union-backed measure 57-43 percent.

This, too, is what democracy looks like.

Last week, the Michigan legislature, perhaps inspired by the vote, passed a bill to become the nation’s 24th right-to-work state. This simply means that workers will no longer be forced to join a union. They will still be free to do so, if they wish.

Gov. Rick Snyder signed the bill because, he says, he wants Michigan to remain competitive. When nearby Indiana became a right-to-work state earlier this year, businesses scrambled in to create jobs. “They’ve had 90 companies in the pipeline for economic development say this was a factor in deciding to look to come to Indiana,” Snyder said of that state’s right-to-work law at a news conference earlier this year, citing statistics from the Indiana Economic Development Corporation. “That’s thousands of jobs. We need more and better jobs in Michigan