Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder announced on Twitter (@onetoughnerd) that he has signed Michigan's right to work laws. This makes Michigan the 24th state to protect workers from being forced to join a union. Earlier this year, Indiana became the 23rd state to do so.
"I have signed the freedom to work bills into law." - Gov Rick Snyder— Rick Snyder (@onetoughnerd) December 11, 2012
Often misunderstood, "right to work" is actually a simple and very limited policy. It prevents union contracts from making payment of union dues a condition of employment. That's all. Unions can exist, but can't force people to give them money. That is, unions must convince workers that the union does something or provides something worth paying for.
What anti-trust laws do to business, right-to-work laws do to unions: these laws prevent monopolies in order to protect consumers and workers.
One reason monopolies are disfavored was on display today on the Michigan Capitol lawn. As Lord Acton said, power corrupts, but it is absolute power that tends to corrupt absolutely. When a union is granted a monopoly, that power is eventually reinterpreted as a "right," and then as an entitlement. Defense of union power becomes an ends that justifies almost any means. And so in Michigan today, supporters of right to work were brutally assaulted and their property vandalized and destroyed.