President Obama on Monday injected himself into an escalating fight over changing Michigan into a right-to-work state, saying the State Legislature’s move to ban the required paying of union dues was all about politics.
The quick entry into the fight by Obama suggests the White House could be more aggressively involved in the Michigan fight than in a similar battle in Wisconsin in 2011.
It also signaled an alliance between Obama and labor amid fiscal talks in which Obama will be under pressure to offer Republicans entitlement reforms opposed by unions.
“I’ve just got to say this,” Obama said at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Michigan before a small crowd of workers. “What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions. We shouldn’t be doing that.
“You know, these so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics, they have everything to do with politics,” Obama added to applause and cheers from the crowd. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”
Obama’s comments came a day before Michigan’s Legislature is expected to take final action on the measure, which would make the stronghold of organized labor the 24th state in the country to have a right-to-work law.
For more on Obama's comments, click here.
