Amid the hubbub over the fiscal cliff these past few weeks, an important event happened Dec. 11 that many Americans probably missed: The union movement was struck a critical blow in the state it calls home.
That day, a "right to work" law was passed and signed into law in the birthplace of the United Auto Workers. As in 23 other states, Michigan workers no longer can be required to pay membership dues in order to have a job.
The state joined a growing list of right-to-work states that includes the entire South, Texas and much of the Midwest. A big part of the reason Michigan passed its law in December is because its neighbor, Indiana, had passed one in February and was already seeing success.
Union leaders don't like it, of course, and President Obama waded unsuccessfully into the debate. But Gov. Rick Snyder and Michigan legislators were only conceding to reality.
In today's global and highly competitive economy, employers cannot give in to unrealistic union demands and still create jobs. In a post written for the American Enterprise Institute, Dr. Mark Perry, an economics professor at the University of Michigan, pointed out that since June 2009, more than two jobs have been created in right-to-work states for every one job created in forced-union-membership states, despite the fact that fewer Americans live in right-to-work states. The unemployment rate was a full percentage point lower in those right-to-work states.
For more evidence, look no further than your kitchen cabinet, which, if you are like many Americans, contains the last box of Hostess Twinkies you'll ever buy. Hostess, one of the country's most iconic brands, went out of business last year when the company couldn't come to terms with its union's demands. Now 18,000 people — union and nonunion members — are out of work.
People in Michigan are beginning to see this, which is why their elected officials felt free to change the law. Much of the auto industry has migrated south to right-to-work states. Michigan's November unemployment rate of 8.9 percent was the 46th worst in the nation. Detroit officials are trying to figure out the best way to shrink their city so they don't have to maintain infrastructure and public services in places where hardly anyone lives anymore.
Who's next? Who knows, but it's hard to see how Michigan will be the last state to take this step. Nationally, fewer than 12 percent of workers belonged to a union in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In 1983, more than 20 percent belonged.
Unions have played an important role in American history and can continue to do so. In the first part of the 20th century, workers saw them as a guarantor of good wages and benefits and were glad to join. But now employers and workers alike see them as job destroyers that provide little in return.
To reverse that trend, unions no longer can rely on brute force. Instead, they should provide such obvious benefits that people join willingly. Other powerful American associations succeed so well using carrots that they don't need a stick. AAA — the American Automobile Association — has 53 million members in the United States and Canada, and AARP has a membership of more than 37 million Americans over age 50. In both cases, members voluntarily send in their checks knowing those organizations will provide them benefits and effectively advocate on their behalf.
If membership weren't worth the dues, those organizations would die, and rightly so. The same should be true of unions.
Fox News commentator Noelle Nikpour is completing her first book, "Branding of America." Follow her on Twitter at @NoelleNikpour and respond to this column at letters@sun-sentinel.com.
