Michigan earns 'D' in government union, worker freedom report

Michigan scored a D on the report, titled "The Battle for Worker Freedom: Grading State Public Sector Labor Laws," which ranked states on an A-F scale. In total, 15 states scored a D, making it the most common grade.

Arkansas and Georgia joined five other states topping the report with an A+, while California and Illinois were one of six states to receive an F.

The foundation, a Pennsylvania-based free-market think tank, looked at a number of factors while considering rankings. Those factors included whether collective bargaining is limited, what legal protections workers have, and the laws currently in place.

Michigan’s ranking dropped from a B to a D between 2022 and 2024. It had seven pieces of recent legislation the report looked at related to unions.

“States that earn this grade have statutorily authorized collective bargaining without effective legal protections for workers,” the report said. “Often, they have union executive-friendly legal provisions authorizing striking, mandating disclosure of employee contact information, or allowing robust release time for union executives.”

The foundation found that the four largest government unions—the National Education Association, American Federation of Teachers, Service Employees International Union, and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees—are slowly replacing membership losses they have incurred since 2018.

Just since 2024, they’ve reported a collective gain of 232,502 members, or 3.5%. According to the report, a big part of this is due to tens of millions of dollars being directed by the unions to state legislators.

David R. Osborne, the senior director of labor policy at the foundation and the report's author, told The Center Square that emphasis on recruitment “not just from the workplaces they already represent” was his biggest takeaway.

“Instead, they’re legislatively capturing completely new workplaces, even those that are generally considered inappropriate for unionization,” Osborne said. “In this past session, union-friendly legislators introduced bills to unionize college faculty, graduate students, homecare workers, foster parents, and prisoners, among others.”

The membership decline began in 2018 following the landmark Janus v. AFSCME case, which prohibited public-sector unions from collecting agency fees from nonmember employees.

Osborne explained how Michigan responded to the decision in 2024 by becoming the first state to enact a so-called “trigger” law. The law would allow unions to collect agency fees, also known as “fair share” fees, if Janus v. AFSCME is ever overturned or superseded.

“The law specifically permits unions and public employers to include in collective bargaining agreements a provision that purports to require nonmembers to pay agency fees, which would not be enforceable without a change to Janus,” Osborne said.

The report called many of these actions taken by states and unions “anti-freedom” proposals which leave workers confused on their rights and obligations.

“Union executives are spending tens of millions of dollars to rewrite the rules of the game and bolster their political machine in every state, at the expense of freedom for government employees,” Osborne said. “State lawmakers across the country must stand up against anti-freedom labor proposals to ensure that every American worker has the right to choose whether or not to associate with a union, without coercion or fear, and that their hard-earned dollars don’t fund a political agenda they don’t support.”