Having the right to leave a union doesn't mean much if union members don’t know how to get out.

That could change if a request to the Michigan Employment Relations Commission from the Mackinac Center for Public Policy is approved.

The Mackinac Center submitted a formal request to MERC that would require the state agency to establish a new rule that unions that represent public employees tell their members three weeks ahead of when they are eligible to opt out by use of a "resignation notification."

"This is about common sense," said Patrick Wright, vice president of legal affairs at the Mackinac Center. "People need to know their rights and we want to make sure that they do."

State law says anyone can make a request to a state agency to create a new rule, Wright said.

Union members have limited windows when they can officially resign and often do not know when they are eligible. With the passage of the state's right-to-work law, union members can no longer be fired for not paying dues or fees to a union.

But the law does not have a provision that requires unions to notify their members of when they have the right to resign from the union.

The request to MERC details the ways union members would be notified, when unions would be required to notify their members and the penalties for not doing so, among other provisions.

Unions often do not make it easy for their members to know when they can leave. The Michigan Education Association for example, gives its members the opportunity to leave the union only during the month of August. This restriction is known as the "August window."

Before the state's right-to-work law went into effect, there was little incentive to leave a union, because non-union employees had to pay fees of up to 90 percent of what they would have paid in dues. However, after the law was enacted many MEA members who wanted to leave the union were unaware they could only do so in August, and the union said it had no interest in volunteering the information.

None of the unions Michigan Capitol Confidential contacted responded when offered the opportunity to comment.

"The Michigan Employment Relations Commission will take this request under careful consideration and may put the matter up for discussion at an upcoming meeting," Ruthanne Okun, director of Michigan's Bureau of Employment Relations, said in a statement, according to a story posted on MLive.

The following is the Mackinac Center's request to MERC, in part:

Pursuant to MCL 24.238, the Mackinac Center requests that the Michigan Employment Relations Commission promulgate the following rule.

Notice of rights of public employees under 2012 PA 349

(1) Notification to bargaining unit members.

Pursuant to MCL 423.209(2)(a), Michigan's right-to-work law, public employees may refrain from becoming or remaining a member of a labor organization or bargaining representative or otherwise affiliate with or financially support a labor organization or bargaining representative.

Any labor organization or bargaining representative that requires, pursuant to union governing documents, that members resign or terminate their membership within a specific period of time in the calendar year shall be required to notify all members of the bargaining unit of their rights under 2012 PA 349. The notice shall adhere to the form described in section (2) and shall be delivered in the manner described in section (3).

(2) Form of notification.

The resignation notification shall contain all of the following information:

1. Acknowledge the ability of the public employee to resign his or her membership with the labor organization;
2. Indicate the deadline and/or window of time during which a resigning member must submit a resignation notice;
3. Indicate to the public employee that resignation does not relieve the designated bargaining representative of the obligations it has to the public employee of collective bargaining, contract administration, and grievance adjustment with the employer; and
4. Provide a link to the governing documents, which shall be posted on the labor organization website or an affiliate’s website if the labor organization does not have a website, [which] imposes time restrictions on a member resignation.

(3) Method of notification

The labor organization shall send the resignation notification to bargaining unit members twenty-one (21) days prior to the deadline for resignations or twenty-one (21) days prior to the first day of a resignation time period, whichever comes first.

The resignation notification shall be sent to the public employee’s work e-mail address of each bargaining unit member. The form of the resignation notification to be sent to bargaining unit members shall be prescribed.

If the public employee does not have a public email address, the labor organization may send a physical copy of the notice to the employee at his or her work and home addresses.

(4) Penalties

Failure of a labor organization or bargaining representative to comply with this rule shall constitute an unfair labor practice. In some cases, a person who suffers an injury as a result of a violation may bring a civil action for damages, injunctive relief, or both. In addition, a court shall award court costs and reasonable attorney fees to a plaintiff who prevails in an action brought under this rule.

(Editor's note: A statement attributed to Ruthanne Okun that was reported in MLive has been added to this story.)

During the fight over Michigan becoming a right-to-work state President Obama said that the law was really "a race to the bottom" and "the right to work for less money."

The President's comments joined a chorus of similar statements from labor executives and critics of right-to-work laws. But a look at income growth since 1990 shows that right-to-work states are significantly outpacing non-right-to-work states, according to data from the U.S. Census Bureau.

From 1990-2012 (the latest year data is available), right-to-work states made up 13 of the 20 states with the fastest median household income growth. Of the 15 states that had slower income growth than the national average, which was negative growth overall adjusted for inflation, 10 of them were non-right-to-work states during that period.

Dr. Brian Long, the director of supply management research at Grand Valley State University, is not surprised by the data.

"You hear the argument that right to work is the 'right to work for less' – but the evidence doesn’t show that. And when you consider cost of living, right-to-work states are doing even better," Dr. Long said. "Business development people have told me that 2/3rds of major companies would not even look at Michigan when it was not a right-to-work state. Now that we are, there have been a lot of inquiries."

During the battle over right-to-work in Michigan in December 2012, the following statements were made:

• "[Right-to-work] laws cost all workers, union and otherwise, $1,500 a year …" – Left-wing website Think Progress
• "There is a lot of evidence that wages and benefits are lower in right-to-work states. There's a redistribution of wages and benefits toward owners' capital." – Dale Belman, a professor at Michigan State University's School of Human Resources and Labor Relations
• "So called right-to-work states enjoy lower wages and benefits for all workers regardless if they are union or non-union. The weaker the labor unions, the less likely non-union jobs will pay well and have decent benefits." – State Rep. Brandon Dillon, D-Grand Rapids
• "Right-to-work laws mean right to work for less. More work and less wages. More work and less protection. More work and less benefits." – Rev. Jesse Jackson
• "[R]ight-to-work legislation is intended to hurt working people by making it easier to cut our pay and benefits." – Tom Kostrzewa, president of Western Michigan University's Part-time Instructors Organization
• "[R]ight-to-work laws devastate economic justice. They lower wages for all workers. They lessen benefits for all workers. They increase poverty for all people." – Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
• "What [right-to-work] means is one simple thing. Families have less disposable income. They have less money to go out to eat. They have less money to go out and purchase a new appliance. They have less money to go to the hardware store. They have less money to go out and buy that new car." – William Black, executive director and international representative for Michigan Teamsters Joint Council No. 43

Tim Bartik, a senior economist with the Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, said to the Detroit Free Press in December 2012: "I think the relevant issue that people should be asking themselves about right-to-work is what impact does it have on employment and what impact does it have on wages. And both of those questions are important."

If those are the important questions, an analysis of the date for the past quarter century shows right-to-work states doing much better than non-right-to-work states.

But Bartik believes the comparison is too simple.

"The problem is that there are many differences between all these states in factors affecting economic growth," he said. "And in order to infer causation from correlation, one has to hold constant other factors affecting economic growth, which is hard to do."

In a piece for the Center for Michigan, Bartik looked at much of the research on the issue and found it to be mixed, but with "downside risks."

"For the last 50 years, right-to-work has mostly been in the same Southern (and some Western) states," he wrote. "Southern states have had faster job and wage growth than the North. But is this due to right-to-work, or other Southern characteristics? That is hard to say. Southern states also have lower wages than the North. But whether this is due to right-to-work is also hard to say."

A 2013 study by Michael J. Hicks, a professor at Ball State University who also is on the Board of Scholars for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, and Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative for the Mackinac Center, used an economic model designed to overcome research challenges that have beset other scholarly analyses by breaking up the data into four distinct time periods and by controlling for "reverse causation." That is, by teasing out the impact of economic growth that might correlate with the passage of right-to-work laws, they were able to better discern the true impact on a state.

The study found that right-to-work laws boosted average real personal income growth by 0.8 percentage points from 1947 through 2011. That may not sound like much, but if a state would have otherwise grown at 2 percent adding another 0.8 percent is a 40 percent improvement in its growth rate.

A similar previous analysis looked at federal government data over the same time period for job growth. Right-to-work states average job growth at twice the rate of non-right-to-work states. Right-to-work states made up eight of the top 10 states for employment growth while non-right-to-work states made up all 10 of the states with the slowest growth.