Michigan business balks at right to work

Corporate Michigan's burgeoning love affair with Gov. Rick Snyder and his Republican-controlled Legislature has limits and they can be summed up in three words — right to work.

"It really sucks all the air out of the room and you're going to have a mud fight," says PVS Chemicals Inc. CEO Jim Nicholson, chairman of Business Leaders for Michigan. "We think it's distracting, and we're not encouraging either side."

That probably doesn't mean much to the partisans convinced that making Michigan the nation's 23rd right-to-work state — if Indiana doesn't get there first — is precisely the right prescription to rid the state of its understandably negative rep as a Big Labor stronghold. But it should.

Absent an unforeseen shock to the national economy or an unexpectedly sharp decline in U.S. auto sales that would chill the industry rebound, perhaps nothing on the horizon threatens the unity of the state's largest employers and their support of government reform than right-to-work legislation becoming reality.

Why? Because many CEOs would be forced to pick sides likely to pit company business interests and harmony against public policy preferences and political pressure. Because ugly conflict akin to that already seen in Wisconsin and Ohio, to name two rivals, likely would do more harm than good to Michigan's already bruised image.

Because union labor costs, especially in competitive industries like autos, retail and energy, typically are less problematic than restrictive work rules. Because a divisive campaign certain to galvanize unions would sap Team Snyder's time, imperil government reform efforts and reverse labor-management cooperation forged by necessity during the recession.

And most of all, because business would live — win or lose — with the consequences of a pitched battle in the home state of the United Auto Workers, the Teamsters and public-sector unions that play for keeps. The politicians? Not their problem, particularly if they're no longer in office.

Hence the urgency to drop a right-to-work bill this year, whether before the November election or during the lame-duck session. The same calculus, however, undergirds palpable reluctance in the business community — Snyder is governor for three more years, but his party only is guaranteed this year to control both houses in Lansing.

"Right-to-work is not on my agenda regardless of anything else," Snyder told The Detroit News, refusing to say he would sign such a bill. "Having Michigan look like Ohio or Wisconsin is not good for Michigan We'll see what happens in Indiana."

Should the Hoosier State's Legislature approve the measure and send it to Gov. Mitch Daniels — who likely would sign it — activists and Michigan Republicans will exert more pressure on Snyder, legislative leaders and a business community wrongly assumed to be monolithic on right to work. Not so, especially on an emotional issue so contrary to the embedded culture of the state and southeastern Michigan, particularly.

State business interests, seared too by the confrontational, no-growth years of the "Lost Decade," increasingly are pragmatic about labor in Michigan and the wisdom of mounting an epic fight arguably made less necessary by brutal competition.

The Detroit Regional Chamber's MICHAuto initiative to promote investment in the state's myriad automotive interests intends to embrace labor as a partner, says President Sandy Baruah, not deny it. And Business Leaders for Michigan's directors spent nearly two hours of a recent meeting debating whether to back nearly inevitable right-to-work legislation or avoid it.

They chose the latter.

Cowardly? To some, maybe, particularly one-note ideologues convinced Michigan's sole road to economic salvation is right-to-work. But what if the battle fails, reform is derailed by voter backlash, the labor image is reinforced and the unprecedented cohesiveness of the statewide business community behind a common agenda of restructuring and growth is shattered?

The fear is that a tough, public confrontation over right-to-work would hobble reform and fracture business along predictable lines — union vs. non-union companies, western Michigan vs. southeastern Michigan, old-line industrials vs. entrepreneurial high-tech firms.

Would the gain be worth the cost? To prominent business leaders employing hundreds of thousands across Michigan, the answer right now is probably not.

dchowes@detnews.com

(313) 222-2106

Daniel Howes’ column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays and Fridays.