When Michigan does become a right-to-work state again someday, the law will need an update for modern times.
If union membership should not be a precondition for getting or keeping a job, nor should ideological training, swear-tos, or vaccination status. Workers need freedom from coercion in all forms.
Since Gov. Gretchen Whitmer and the Democrats were kind enough to repeal Michigan’s right-to-work law in 2023, the modern version can be built back better.
When Ray Stannard Baker was writing about the right-to-work battles of 120 years ago, working certain jobs without a union card could cost a man his life. And for the next century, that was the context of the fight for the right to work: freedom from labor unions.
But since 2020 and Whitmer’s heavy-handed response to the man-made flu, the threat environment has changed. An unwillingness to take a specific medical intervention—an experimental shot that does not prevent someone from getting or spreading the Covid virus—cost people their jobs. We talked about one such case with Detroit-based attorney Jon Marko.
In the months after George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis, Gov. Whitmer embraced the Black Lives Matter movement. She marched alongside it in Highland Park in June 2020, and in July, she signed an executive directive called “Improving equity in the delivery of health care.”
That directive set in motion a rule that took effect two years later: that Michigan’s 400,000 health professionals must take implicit-bias training to get or renew their occupational licenses.
This was the governor using state power to push a particular ideology on people, holding their livelihoods over their head to leverage compliance. As a subcommittee of the Michigan House seeks out examples of weaponized government, implicit-bias training is an ongoing example.
Today, people need implicit-bias training to keep their medical licenses. If this system is left unchecked, how long until patients need implicit-bias training to access medical care? This slope is slippery.
Grand Rapids dentist Dr. Kern Wildern, now 71, objected to the training and the implication driving it. He didn’t just balk at the requirement, he let his license lapse in 2021 after four decades in the field.
Now, four years later, Wildern wants to get back to work. He’s suing the Michigan Department of Licensing and Regulation, arguing that the training rule goes beyond its authority.
Some people, like Wildern, left their fields voluntarily, rather than take the training. Others, like Kalamazoo chiropractor and 2022 governor candidate Garrett Soldano, are forced into it “kicking and screaming.” Others will avoid such fields altogether.
The net effect will change the character of the medical field. Do you want medical care from an avowed leftist? Better think twice before getting that Trump tattoo. On our current path, that decision could cost you your life a decade from now.
Wildern’s case will be heard in state court, which is run by Democrat-leaning judges. Don’t hold your breath thinking the Democrats will make history by interpreting the law, rather than ruling for the state. That’s not how politics works.
In Lansing, Washington and everywhere, judges and justices are political animals who earn their robes through a political process. Their decisions are colored by the blue or red teams that appoint or elect them. In Lansing, it’s the blue team.
That leaves a new law as the only recourse. Republican control of Lansing, and in particular the governor’s office, is the only way to change things.
Outside of reenactors, people have a limited interest in revisiting the battles of the past. There’s a reason right-to-work, in its historic form, has no champion in Lansing. It has no juice.
In the late 2020s, workers need freedom from more than just union cards.
Right-to-work could be a winner in 2026. But it will need a champion on the campaign trail, and a modern reboot.
James David Dickson is host of the Enjoyer Podcast. Join him in conversation on X @downi75.
