Tennessee Votes To Constitutionally Protect Right-To-Work, A Law Michigan Democrats Will Seek To Repeal In 2023

With 69.7% of Volunteer State voters supporting Question One in the 2022 midterm elections, Right-to-Work is now enshrined in the Tennessee Constitution. Right-to-Work, a law protecting workers from being forced to join and pay dues to a union as a condition of employment, has been on the books as statute in Tennessee since 1947.

By putting this worker safeguard in the state constitution, Tennessee voters have raised the bar for its repeal moving forward. In the same week Tennessee voters constitutionally protected their Right-to-Work law, events in Michigan, one of the 27 other Right-to-Work states, demonstrated why lawmakers elsewhere may seek to follow Tennessee’s lead.

To those covering and following the Michigan gubernatorial race, it wasn’t a surprise that Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D) won reelection. What did shock many was the fact that Whitmer won with an 11 percentage point margin and that Democrats also won control of both chambers of the Michigan Legislature for the first time in nearly 40 years.

It didn’t take long for Michigan Democrats to announce that repealing Right-to-Work will be among the top priorities when they assume control of state government in January. The morning after the election Michigan Senator Dayna Polehanki (D) proclaimed that Right-to-work “is gonna go bye-bye” under the new Democratic-led Michigan Legislature.

Governor Whitmer has touted repeal of Right-to-Work as a top policy goal since her initial run for governor in 2018. Earlier this year Governor Whitmer urged lawmakers to support HB 4145 and 4146, previously filed legislation that would repeal Right-to-Work. In 2023, for the first time, Whitmer will have a legislature led by Democrats who share that goal.

Repeal of Right-to-Work is not the only labor policy reform on Michigan Democrats’ agenda. Reimposition of state prevailing wage mandates, which inflate the cost of taxpayer-funded projects, is another policy change that Governor Whitmer and Democratic legislators have pointed to as a goal. A 2015 study produced by the East Lansing-based Anderson Economic Group found that the state’s prevailing wage law, which was repealed in 2018, drove up construction costs for Michigan school districts by $126.7 million annually. Proponents of the prevailing wage mandate’s reimposition, however, point to a 2018 study finding that the supply of skilled workers, wages, and productivity declined in Indiana following repeal of that state’s prevailing wage mandate.

It wasn’t only Republican-dominated red states like Tennessee where preferred policies were enshrined in the state constitution during the 2022 midterm election. While it’s now much harder to repeal Right-to-Work in Tennessee, it’s about to be much more difficult to enact Right-to-Work in Illinois, should current results hold after all the mail-in ballots have been counted. That’s because, as the yet to be finalized vote count stands, 58% of Illinois voters have approved Amendment One, which prohibits the enactment of Right-to-Work in Illinois and creates a constitutionally protected right to collective bargaining. Though Amendment One supporters are already claiming victory, the final outcome may not be known for days or weeks.

“Illinois accepts mail-in ballots for up to two weeks after Election Day if the envelope was postmarked by Novmeber 8,” writes Patrick Andriesen with the Illinois Policy Institute. “That means a final tally could take weeks and it could be that long before voters know whether over 50% of all Illinois voters in the election approved the change to the constitution. All ballots cast must be counted before election officials are able to make that calculation.”

In Massachusetts, there was also a Question One on the ballot, this one asking voters to approve the creation of a new 9% state income tax rate on incomes above $1 million. That 80% rate hike, which state and national teachers unions backed with $16 million in spending, passed with support from 52% of Bay State voters.

Massachusetts’ Question One put the new 9% rate in the state constitution. As such, should this 80% increase in the state’s top income tax rate have negative unintended consequences that cause lawmakers to seek its repeal, it will not be possible to do so with a simple majority vote of the state legislature. Should Massachusetts lawmakers or residents decide they want to repeal or even adjust the new 9% top income tax rate, they’ll have to amend the state constitution again, which is a multi-year process.

While Michigan Democrats hope to repeal their Right-to-Work law next year, President Joe Biden would prefer that the matter not be left to state legislators and governors to decide. “We should change the federal law [so] that there is no Right-to-Work allowed anywhere in the country,” Joe Biden said on the 2020 campaign trail.

The PRO Act, which would federally preempt all 27 state Right-to-Work laws on the books today, passed out of the House of Representatives in 2021. If Republicans end up controlling the House of Representatives once all the outstanding races are decided, the PRO Act isn’t going anywhere. But if Democrats end up with a majority in both chambers, it’s possible they could move to repeal all 27 state Right-to-Work laws from Washington, D.C. by sending the PRO Act to President Biden’s desk.

Developments surrounding Right-to-Work in Tennessee, Michigan, and Illinois are indicative of the contrasting policy preferences that will be pursued next year in states under unified control by either party. Whereas Governor Whitmer has called Right-to-Work “an assault on workers,” her counterpart and other leaders in Tennessee believe their constitutional protection of Right-to-Work will give their state an advantage over Michigan and other states when it comes to attracting new investment and job creation.

“I think the message that we had really resonated with voters that it is a fundamental right that you can’t be compelled to join or support a union as a condition of where you work,” said Bradley Jackson, president of the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “We’re very, very pleased with the outcome, and I think it really solidifies the message that Tennessee is one of the best states in the country in terms of our business climate.”

Elections have consequences, so the saying goes. The 2022 midterm results in Tennessee, Michigan, Illinois, and Massachusetts underscore how most Americans will continue to be more immediately affected by state-level outcomes that don’t receive as much coverage as the high-profile federal contests.