In 2012, Dearborn Public Schools teacher John Bayerl was involved in a union-organized Protect Our Jobs campaign to amend the state constitution, which among other things would have prohibited a proposed right-to-work law.
An MLive article published in 2012, when the law was enacted, stated that Bayerl “argues that schools and other institutions won’t be able to survive, much less thrive, without collective bargaining.”
“Today, on the ground, every day I see collective bargaining work, and I think we need to protect that,” Bayerl said in 2012. “I think that is Michigan’s only hope to be that innovative, forward, high-tech, leading state in the union.”
Bayerl’s gross pay at the Dearborn school district has increased from $82,302 in 2013-14 to $103,121 in the 2020-21 school year.
The right-to-work law did not change the sections of Michigan's labor laws that prescribe the collective bargaining duties and requirements of public sector agencies, including school districts. It did prohibit all public and private employers with workplaces that have been organized by a labor union from requiring employees to pay dues or fees to a union as a condition of employment, with the exception of law enforcement agencies.
Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.