For the second time, a TV drama set in Detroit that received Michigan taxpayer dollars was canceled after one season.

"Low Winter Sun," a police drama by AMC, ended after a short run. 

The show is set to receive $7.5 million in subsidies for the one season and was projected to hire 245 Michigan workers with a full-time equivalent of 148 jobs, according to the Michigan Film Office.

"Detroit 1-8-7," an ABC police drama, was filmed in Detroit in 2010 and then canceled after one season. The producers of that show received $6 million from taxpayers in Michigan.

Like most film projects set in Michigan, "Low Winter Sun" received a lot of pre-broadcast publicity. The New York Times compared it to a "love story about the city" and suggested it was part of a counter narrative "of a Detroit rising and being rebuilt …"

MLive did a story on a local bar that had a scene shot in it hosting a party to celebrate. 

But in the end, the series didn't make it to a second season.

Leon Drolet, chairman of the Michigan Taxpayers Alliance, said he thinks there is an inherent deficiency in films that get taxpayer subsidies. He believes movie investors are more likely to take chances on projects they wouldn't necessarily do if they didn't have a taxpayer safety net.

That's why Drolet said he isn't surprised some subsidized projects in Michigan don't meet a lot of commercial success. He wondered if some box office failures would ever be made if the moviemakers were on the hook for the entire budget.  

"I don't think it is a complete coincidence that these shows get subsidies and fail," he said. "The only show that continues to go on is the subsidizing of the film industry."

Michigan taxpayers have spent several hundred million dollars on film incentives with no clear uptick in jobs. The Republican-dominated Legislature had a chance to end the subsidies, but the GOP this year teamed up with Democrats to extend the $50 million-per-year program.

A Michigan union invoked the provision of the state constitution that bans slavery in their argument against right-to-work, court documents show.

Teamsters Local No. 214  stated Dec. 6 that right-to-work was "a violation of the prohibitions against involuntary servitude" because members of the union had to work against their will on behalf of non-union members. The union then referred to Article I, Section 9 of the state constitution, which states: "Neither slavery, nor involuntary servitude unless for the punishment of crime, shall ever be tolerated in this state." 

The claim was made in response to a lawsuit filed by four city of Dearborn employees who were going to be charged $150 by the union for any grievance they filed after they left the union when they exercised their rights under state law.

Officials from Teamsters Local No. 214 didn't respond to requests for comment.

Teamsters officials previously said it was not fair that non-dues paying members should get services of the union. However, labor unions asked for, and received, permission to exclusively represent all employees in a workplace where a union exists. A 1944 U.S. Supreme Court ruling held that when unions are granted that monopoly privilege, they must treat all employees fairly and not discriminate. In the case, Steele v. Louisville, the union was preventing black workers from holding certain positions and setting a ceiling on the amount of work they could perform. 

Antony Davies, a business professor at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh, said the union's interpretation of slavery "is an insult to people who have actually been enslaved."

"Slavery is what you get when one person forces another to work against that person's will," he said. "Right-to-work laws prevent unions from forcing people to join. Without right-to-work laws, it is the unions that force workers to join against their will. If unions truly add value, then they don't need to force workers to join. Workers will join of their own free will."

This is not the first time a union in court documents has invoked slavery in a complaint about right-to-work. The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 filed a lawsuit in 2012 against the Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels claiming right-to-work requires "dues-paying union members to work alongside non-union personnel," which it claimed was involuntary servitude.