He forged a reputation as a moderate, can-do businessman-politician, but Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, a Republican, has taken a leap into the political unknown by embracing a right-to-work bill that has put him at the center of an ideological battle with the state's powerful union movement that shows no signs of dying down in the weeks ahead.
Negotiators for the United Auto Workers union and Detroit's Big Three automakers labored into the night Wednesday in a bid to avoid production disruptions and clinch their first labor agreement since the $80 billion government bailouts of General Motors Corp. and Chrysler two years ago.
For that reason, she said, "we're not reliably a right-to-work state yet until all of the challenges are worked through."
Kristin Dziczek, director of the Labor and Industry Group at the Center for Automotive Research at the University of Michigan, said it likely would be several years for the right-to-work laws to affect the automotive sector in Michigan, because the bills being considered exempt labor agreements in place for automakers and supply-chain companies for several years.
