Republican Gov. Rick Snyder’s right-to-work law took effect at midnight, meaning workers who are not covered by long-term employment contracts now have the ability to withdraw from labor unions. The reforms also prevent employers from mandating union dues as a condition of employment.

State Sen. Pat Colbeck (R.), an architect of the law, said the law’s implementation would go a long way toward bringing economic development back to the struggling state.

“We want to give workers the opportunity to make a choice to financially support the union so they have the freedom of association,” he said. “We also want to do everything we can for economic development—this is a giant ‘open for business’ sign for our state.”

Terry Bowman, founder of Union Conservatives and a longtime member of the United Auto Workers (UAW) union, pushed for the legislation for years because he said he was “fed up with my dues money being used to advance a political agenda I didn’t believe in.”

He said the implementation of the law would force unions to refocus their efforts on negotiating on behalf of union workers, rather than politicians.

“We are celebrating our independence day as union members,” Bowman told the Washington Free Beacon hours before the law went into effect. “[Union executives] knew workers were forced to financially support them, so there was no incentive for union officials to do a good job for their members; this will make unions accountable to their members.”

Not every worker will be affected by the bill’s implementation. For example, Bowman will remain a UAW member until his existing contract with Ford expires in 2015. Several Michigan unions spent the months following the bill’s passage pushing for long-term contracts to stave off implementation.

Some of the deals have been controversial.

The Taylor School District granted the local teachers union a five-year contract over employee wages and work conditions, but approved a separate agreement that would force all teachers to pay dues to the union for the next 10 years. National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation attorney Glenn Taubman said the contract is ripe for courtroom challenges.

“They don’t want wages and working conditions locked in for 10 years, but they want to keep the ability to force union dues [on teachers],” he said. “It’s very brazen.”

Linda Moore, president of the Taylor teachers union, received the “outstanding organizer” award from state American Federation of Teachers for shutting down the school system so that teachers could protest right-to-work.

Neither the district nor the union returned multiple calls for comment.

Bowman said lawmakers and activists would not have long to rest on their laurels. Unions have flooded more than just court dockets with challenges to the bill. Labor leaders have hinted at a 2014 ballot push to repeal the legislation.

That gives activists 18 months to maintain positive poll numbers regarding labor reforms.

Bowman has embarked on a multi-city town hall tour throughout the state with Americans For Prosperity’s Michigan chapter to extol the law’s virtues.

“This is not over by any means. We know the union going to spend tens of millions of dollars to defeat it,” Bowman said. “We’re never going to come up with that kind of money, but as long as we can educate the public that right-to-work is pro-union worker, we’re going to safely defend this.”

Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation that has spearheaded labor reforms in other states, said the law’s momentum would only build over time. He compared the law to Wisconsin’s labor reform, which inspired initial public opposition before winning over support after implementation.

The popularity of the reforms eventually helped Republican Gov. Scott Walker become the first governor to survive a recall election, he added.

“When it goes into effect, people will realize that the sun will rise in the morning, despite what union bosses have told them,” Mix said. “It will also repair the damage to economic that was done by 60 years of forced unionism. Voters will realize its benefits in creating jobs just like they did in Wisconsin.”

The legislation, which would end the longstanding practice of forcing employees to join unions as a condition of work, has stalled several times over the past decade. The bill’s sponsors say new laws in Michigan and Indiana forced the state’s hand.

“The needs of our economy dictate that it must be adopted at some point in time,” said state Rep. Daryl Metcalfe. “The victory of right-to-work in Michigan and Indiana certainly thrust the spotlight on it and made the General Assembly look it more seriously than the past.”

Pennsylvania is one of the most heavily unionized states in the country with more than 700,000 workers belonging to organized labor groups. That is nearly 100,000 more union members than in Michigan.

The advent of right-to-work in the traditionally labor-friendly Midwest and Rust Belt has left policymakers scrambling to catch up, said Nate Benefield, director of policy analysis at the free-market Commonwealth Foundation.

“Indiana and Michigan are states that we directly compete with,” he said. “We’re going to have to evolve to remain competitive and it’s also a great opportunity for us to outcompete the northeast.”

If Pennsylvania passes right-to-work, it will be the first state to do so in the northeast. That could give it an economic advantage over neighboring New York and New Jersey, which lead the nation in union membership as a percentage of the workforce, advocates of right to work legislation said.

“We’re playing catch-up to Indiana and Michigan, but our immediate neighbors, New York, New Jersey, and Maryland are even less competitive than Pennsylvania is,” Benefield said. “I think right-to-work is a big part to improving our business climate.”

Restricting the use of compulsory union dues also could deal a blow to union influence.

Indiana experienced a dramatic decline in union membership after passing right-to-work in February. Nine percent of state workers belonged to union in 2012, down from 11.3 percent in 2011, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Supporters of the legislation point out that Pennsylvania also saw union membership drop and blamed this in part to a declining private sector economy.

“We are sitting on all of these resources—natural gas, shale, connection to the great lakes—but history has shown that we’re not creating enough jobs to keep our young people here; they’re going to right-to-work states to find jobs,” Metcalfe said. “The union status quo attitude has hampered our ability to create jobs.”

Pennsylvania lost more than 300,000 net residents between 1990 and 2008. That is one of the worst rates in the country, according to the state’s Commonwealth Foundation. Benefield said improving the overall economy could reinvigorate Pennsylvania’s unions.

“When you have right-to-work, you expect members to leave the union, but when you bleed jobs because of a struggling economy, you bleed union jobs, too,” Benefield said. “Right-to-work states have faster economic growth, higher GDP, and higher job growth—those are good for all workers in the long-term.”

The GOP will have one obstacle in getting right-to-work through, however. Republican Gov. Tom Corbett said in December that he would not pursue such legislation in 2013, adding that the state “lacked the political will.” Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder made similar statements earlier in his term before reversing himself during the lame duck session.

Metcalfe said he believes that Corbett will sign the legislation if it reaches his desk.

“Over the last two years he’s invested himself in very little. He signed good legislation, but only because we’ve had good leadership in the legislature,” Metcalfe said. “He hasn’t used the bully pulpit in too many issues, so he’s leaving this to us as he does with most issues.”

State Sen. Arlan B. Meekhof, a long-time champion of right-to-work legislation and one of the law’s authors, said the legislation is tailor-made to succeed in the state and sends a signal to companies that Michigan’s business climate has improved.

“We did some policy research with what has been done in other states and we put together what we thought would work best for Michigan,” he said. “The perception now is that Michigan is open for business.”

Gradual implementation is a major component of the GOP strategy. When the law is implemented in April 2013, it will apply only to new businesses or workers who are not bound by contracts. While new job creators will be able to open up shop without worry of onerous union contracts, United Auto Workers (UAW) members at Ford will maintain paying union dues until their contract expires in 2015.

“We purposefully set this up to not break any contracts,” Meekhof said. “Once a contract is completed, then the workers would have the choice.”

Meekhof hopes that the incremental strategy will prevent the kind of union protests that led to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s recall election and helped overturn Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s labor reforms via referendum.

Republicans also included certain policies that safeguarded right-to-work in the court of public opinion.

The right-to-work law exempts cops and firemen, powerful uniformed labor forces that garner a great deal of respect from voters. The law’s authors also avoided the prospect of repeal-by-referendum by tacking on a $1 million appropriation to “educate” workers about their new rights. Appropriations bills are exempt from referendum.

Democrats have called both moves political gambits and are looking to incorporate those aspects of the bill into legal challenges to the law. Meekhof contends that both components abide by the Michigan Constitution.

He claims the appropriation was needed in order to ensure workers understand the new law.

“This is something entirely new in labor relations, so we need to make sure [workers] are educated, so they have the best information available,” Meekhof said of the disputed appropriation.

He defended the public safety exemption by pointing to the Michigan Constitution, which prohibits them from striking.

“They are already treated differently [in the state constitution], so that was the right way to go,” Meekhof said.

The delayed start-date of right-to-work is not entirely the Republican Party’s doing.

Any bill in Michigan that passes but does not garner two-thirds support in both houses of the legislature must wait 90 days for implementation. Right-to-work failed to clear that bar in the Senate, leaving Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer and her fellow Democrats hopeful for a legal intervention.

“The delay in the implementation buys workers time to figure out their first step. They may be able to find a judge that will put a stay on it,” said Robert McCann, a spokesman for Whitmer. “They may have set up legal problems for themselves … we believe [the] legal challenges are going to overturn them.”

Unions have already filed one lawsuit to block the law and more are expected to be filed.

Meekhof said Michigan will benefit from the changes even before it takes effect by attracting business owners. A small business owner himself, he grew to appreciate the contrast between his non-union office furniture company and those of his unionized customers.

“When you’re a small business owner trying to serve a large customer, you have to be as flexible as you can … the work rules in union contracts can restrict that flexibility,” he said.

Meekhof doggedly pursued a right-to-work agenda since 2007 when he was a state representative.

The Senator introduced a right-to-work bill in February 2011 despite Gov. Rick Snyder’s initial unease with pushing the reforms—one year before Indiana became the industrial Midwest’s first right-to-work state. Republicans failed to back the bill. It never made it out of the Senate.

“My district is 80 percent Republican,” Meekhof said. “You always have to remember that not everybody has that [safety].”

He said that Indiana’s success in attracting businesses after it became the 23rd right-to-work state in the country brought prominent Republicans, including Snyder, around to the cause.

“What we’re focused on is the economic opportunity for all citizens of Michigan … [Indiana’s results] answered that question and swayed the most people,” Meekhof said.

The Michigan legislature on Friday pushed through a bill that will limit the ability of interest groups and residents to recall elected officials. Challengers now have 60 days to file recall petitions, down from 90, and recall votes now require opposition candidates rather than up-or-down votes.

Liberal activists have campaigned to recall Republican Gov. Rick Snyder since May 2011. That chorus has gained a few key labor voices since Dec. 11 when Snyder made Michigan the 24th right-to-work state in the nation and the second in the industrial Midwest.

At 17 percent, Michigan has one of the most heavily unionized workforces in the nation. That figure goes a long way to meeting the 25 percent of voters needed to hold a recall election.

However, unions have failed to elect Democrats even in successful recalls.

Michigan became the recall capital of the nation in 2011, representing nearly 20 percent of recall efforts nationwide.

“There are legitimate reasons for recall but there was never any basis for the 2011 recalls other than retaliation from both political parties,” said Bob McCann, spokesman for Michigan Senate Democratic Leader Gretchen Whitmer.

Dozens of requests were filed, including the successful ouster of state Rep. Paul H. Scott, once considered rising GOP star.

Scott, 30, chaired the House Education Committee. His support for teaching and pension reforms sparked the ire of the Michigan Education Association, one of the state’s largest unions.

“I was totally unprepared for the assault from the MEA,” Scott, now a labor law attorney in his native Grand Blanc, said in an interview with the Washington Free Beacon. “They had unlimited resources and bussed out members; my town had always been quiet, so once they came people figured I must have done something awful.”

The union’s clout was not enough to help a union candidate replace him, however. Republican Joe Graves beat union candidate Steven Losey by 10 points.

“That was a union election all the way but their main problem was the time it took between the recall and the race to replace me,” Scott said. “Once the people saw how disingenuous the union was during the campaign—that my actions did not shut down schools or lay teachers off by the thousands—they turned against the union.”

Timing is everything in these labor-driven referenda, according to Sean Lansing, spokesman for the MacIver Institute, a conservative Wisconsin think tank.

Wisconsin unions angered by Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s 2011 labor reforms successfully forced a recall election in June of this year. Walker won by a wider margin than in his 2010 election. Walker’s success stood in stark contrast to the situation in Ohio where labor reforms championed by Republican Gov. John Kasich were defeated in a November 2011 referendum.

“The timeline plays a major factor,” Lansing said. “Ohio lost because the reforms did not have the chance to work. In Wisconsin, people were able to see the benefits before they went to the ballot box.”

Michigan Republicans avoided the referendum dilemma by classifying the law as an appropriation’s bill—$1 million has been set aside to implement the right-to-work reform of ending forced unionism. Appropriations bills cannot be overturned via referendum.

Labor groups are more likely to focus on the recall route as a result, according to Scott. But the former representative likes the governor’s odds in such a race.

“He’s got time on his side and he has the advantage of the bully pulpit to highlight the benefits,” he said. “If he can force a debate on the intellectual merits of worker freedom, he’ll win.”

The Michigan bill provoked outrage from Democrats.

“We’ve been pushing for recall reform for years but the whole process was offensive,” McCann said. “Instead of owning up to their votes, they shielded themselves. The timelines are so stringent it’s nearly impossible to get through the steps.”

However, residents and interest groups in other states have been able to hold recalls under similar restrictions. A 60-day framework did not stop Wisconsin’s unions from forcing a recall election.

Snyder has yet to sign the legislation but is expected to do so.

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder had said passing right-to-work legislation, which prohibits forcing employees to join unions as a condition of employment, was not a major part of his agenda when he ran for Michigan governor in 2010. But the state’s dire economic condition—850,000 jobs left the state between 2001 and 2010—along with Indiana’s move to become the Rust Belt’s first right-to-work state drove the Republican governor to push labor reforms through the legislature on Tuesday.

Indiana state Rep. Jerry Torr (R., Carmel), who began pushing for right-to-work in Indiana in 2003, said the reforms helped the state gain an advantage over its neighbors and predicted other states would follow suit.

“It was important for us to be the first state in the Midwest because I assumed that it would have a domino effect, lead our neighbors to come around to passing it,” he said. “What I didn’t expect was for Michigan to be the first one to follow and I didn’t think it would happen this fast.”

Snyder stunned political observers on Dec. 4 when he publicly said that he wanted to pass a right-to-work law during the lame-duck session. One week later, Michigan, one of the most heavily unionized states in the country and the birthplace of the powerful United Auto Workers union, became the nation’s 24th right-to-work state.

The move has emboldened Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Committee to push similar measures in neighboring states, including Wisconsin, Ohio, and Minnesota.

“All of these states are competing with neighbors with similar circumstances: similar infrastructure, similar industries, similar populations,” he said. “The fact that Indiana did it raised the stakes for Michigan and now that Michigan has done it, the pressure to consider right-to-work has increased dramatically in all of those states.”

Regional competition is a driving force behind state labor laws, according to Brent Pollina of Pollina Corporate Real Estate, Inc. The company provides information on local business climates to clients ranging from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses looking to cross state lines.

“Regional competitiveness is very important. Clients approach us and say, ‘We need to be in the southwest or the Great Lakes area—where should we go,’” he said.

Pollina takes a number of factors into account when analyzing a state’s business climate, including tax policy and budget deficits. Right-to-work legislation has emerged as a “veto issue” for companies looking to expand, especially in industries reliant on human capital such as manufacturing and logistics. Indiana has experienced a boom in company relocations since becoming the first right-to-work state in the Rust Belt in February.

“Not being right-to-work is a fatal flaw when you’re trying to attract jobs; it serves as a shortcut for CEOs to judge whether a state is friendly to business,” Pollina said. “Indiana has had a significant uptick in business because it is the only game in town—it enabled them to go over the border.”

Indiana jumped from 23rd to 5th on Pollina’s ranking of most business friendly states with the passage of right-to-work, making it the most-improved state on the list.

Michigan has not been so lucky. The state ranked 13th for its business climate in 2006. By 2012, it had fallen to 39th due in part to union power and the high deficits of the Jennifer Granholm administration.

“This could be the first year that Michigan starts to reverse its decline because [Snyder] has shown that he’s willing to take the state in a new direction,” Pollina said. “Where it’s going to help out is in attracting out of state employers—it’s a great thing for the state of Michigan.”

Michigan’s gain could represent a loss for its neighbors, according to Ohio University economics professor Richard Vedder.

“There’s a regional pattern to [right-to-work]—the south and the western states became universally right-to-work once one state did it,” he said. “There is some concern about the behavior of neighbors and the economic advantage they gain in having it.”

Vedder, whose grandfather, Edward Fry, served as Michigan Democratic Party chairman during the Great Depression, said that the weakness of modern unions, which have seen membership dive in recent years, may make right-to-work inevitable.

“The long run prognosis for these laws is very good; unions don’t have the clout in numbers and dollars that helped them fight these off with ease 25, 30 years ago,” he said.

“There’s no doubt you’re starting to see that trend spreading throughout Midwest with Indiana, Michigan and Iowa,” said Sean Lansing of the nonprofit MacIver Institute. “As more states move in that direction and if it’s as successful as supporters say it will be, other states will have to address the issue in order to remain competitive.”

Indiana’s Rep. Torr holds no illusion that Indiana will forever hold a tactical advantage over its neighbors, but he said the state is enjoying it while it is there.

“We’ve had companies knocking on our door ever since we passed the law,” he said. “If Michigan has the kind of experience that we have had, then it wouldn’t surprise me if other states got on it.”

Just three years later as governor, he signed into law a bill that will end the practice of mandatory union membership and make Michigan the 24th state to pass such laws.

Snyder’s seeming about-face represents a change in circumstances, rather than a policy evolution akin to President Barack Obama’s position on gay marriage, according to Vinnie Vernuccio, a labor expert at the conservative Mackinac Center for Public Policy.

“He has always been consistent in saying that he would sign right-to-work legislation but has been insistent that it was not on his agenda,” he said. “The impetus behind this was Indiana becoming a right-to-work state and adding 40,000 jobs during a time when we lost thousands of jobs.”

Indiana became the 23rd right-to-work state in the nation and the first in the Rust Belt in February. It gained an immediate advantage in attracting business by freeing up companies from onerous union rules and dues, according to Vernuccio.

“Snyder said that we need to be more effective because we now have a right-to-work state on our border that is more attractive to employers than Michigan is,” Vernuccio said. “That put him over the top.”

Snyder has pursued a reform agenda since beating Democrat Virg Bernero 58-40 in the 2010 governor’s race. He pushed for increased teacher contributions to their badly underfunded pension system, revamped the state corporate tax rate, and appointed temporary emergency managers to take over Detroit. Right-to-work was not on the agenda.

Snyder, enjoying majorities in the state legislature, could ill-afford the political showdown that Republican Gov. Scott Walker faced in Wisconsin over public sector unionism, according to Gary Wolfram, president of Hillsdale Policy Group, a taxation and public policy consultancy.

“He originally didn’t want to get engaged in a major political fight, while he had other, more pressing issues on his agenda, in particular, getting rid of Michigan’s business tax system, reviving Detroit and other failing cities, and reforming the pension system,” Wolfram said.

Detroit sat on the brink of bankruptcy when Snyder assumed office. The state had lost nearly 850,000 jobs over the past decade. He achieved many of the reforms he outlined on the campaign trail within his first two years in office without igniting major political disruption in Lansing.

That political strategy reflects Snyder’s background as a business innovator and accountant. He had never held political office before moving into the governor’s mansion in 2011, but he had spent the better part of 20 years managing Gateway into the Fortune 200 at the height of the tech boom and investing in medical and technology companies.

Snyder stayed behind to launch two venture capital funds that turned over eight-figure deals when Gateway decided to move its operations from Michigan to San Diego.

“His background is being an executive in the private sector: you deal with the immediate issues first,” Wolfram said. “Once you’ve dealt with those, the tax issue and Detroit and fiscal problems and pensions, then at some point you can deal with more contentious, long term issues.”

Prior to the right-to-work controversy, Snyder’s conservative reforms may not have caused too much controversy in the state capital, but that has not stopped unions from pushing back against the reform measures.

Unions sought to amend the state constitution to enshrine collective bargaining rights and the forced unionization of family members who take care of disabled relatives. The ballot initiatives lost by large margins, with opposition attracting more votes than Barack Obama. Democrats hoped the union campaign would draw positive attention to the labor movement in Michigan.

Bob McCann, spokesman for Democratic Senate Leader and prospective gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer, told the Washington Free Beacon that the union’s efforts to pass those constitutional amendments would keep right-to-work off the table.

“[The amendments] raised the issue of what’s been happening,” he said. “I hope that just by that issue being out there makes the people realize that our workers are the driving force behind our economy and Michigan is no place for right-to-work legislation.”

The amendments “had the opposite effect,” according to Wolfram.

“The fact that the unions went ahead and brought the right-to-work onto the table with the ballot proposal, that was the instigator,” he said. “The fight’s already being waged you might as well get it done.”

Right-to-work has proved just as divisive as Snyder predicted. Thousands of union members flooded the state capitol on Tuesday, as right-to-work became the law of the land. The protests were loud and at times violent.

Vernuccio predicts Snyder will have the opportunity to quell the dissent.

“The proof is in the pudding,” he said. “Michigan has a long history as a labor stronghold but bringing home Michigan workers who have sought work in other states, creating economic opportunity—that will win support from voters.”

“This has nothing to do with collective bargaining,” Snyder said in a Tuesday interview with Fox Business. “I, in fact, believe in collective bargaining. This is about worker freedom.”

Michigan is on its way to becoming the second right-to-work state in the Midwest, with legislation that would break the requirement for workers to pay union dues even the worker does not belong to the union. Earlier Tuesday Snyder said he would sign the legislation in an interview with Andrea Mitchell.

Snyder went on to praise the history of the labor movement in the interview.

“The union movement has done a lot of things in Michigan, the labor movement,” Snyder said. If you go back in history, in the last century–the ’20s, ’30s, ’40s–people flocked to join the union because they did a lot of great things with wages, working benefits, all those kinds of things. But if you go to today, shouldn’t they show that value proposition today?”

“You can expect the lawsuits. There’s nothing to prevent the unions from filing suit, so they’re going to do it,” said Patrick Wright, a senior legal scholar at the conservative Mackinac Public Policy Center.

Snyder urged labor groups on Sunday to “move forward … and get something done so we can move on to other important issues in our state.” The state’s powerful union shops responded by continuing protests that began last week.

“They’ve awakened a sleeping giant,” United Auto Workers president Bob King told the Associated Press on Saturday.

Right-to-work legislation, which allows employees to opt out of union dues, has met legal challenges in almost every state that has adopted the reforms. Indiana, the first Rust Belt state to pass a right-to-work legislation, will defend its law before an Indiana federal court on Friday. Right-to-work supporters say the battle carries even more significance in traditionally labor-friendly Michigan where 17.5 percent of workers belong to a union.

Mark Mix, president of National Right to Work, has helped states across the country defend the laws. He expects one of his toughest battles yet in Michigan.

“Labor leaders jealously guard their privilege of forcing everyone into unions but the message is clearer in this case: If Michigan can do these labor reforms, anyone can,” he said.

“The symbolism is central to whatever challenge [unions] raise—it would be quite embarrassing for the union movement to lose Michigan,” Wright said. “It sends a strong statement about weakened labor influence.”

President Barack Obama, who received millions of dollars from labor groups, slammed the law on Monday

“What they’re talking about is giving you the right to make less money,” Obama told union members near Detroit. “[The right-to-work laws] don’t have to do with economics. … They have everything to do with politics.”

Former Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating says Obama has ignored right-to-work’s legacy of job growth. Jobs jumped nearly four percent since voters added right-to-work to the state constitution in 2001 despite two recessions.

“It’s a salvation stone for state economies,” he said. “The difference between Oklahoma and Texas used to be the difference between North Korea and South Korea. We don’t have that obstacle anymore.”

The path to Oklahoma becoming a right-to-work state faced many obstacles, especially in the courts. Labor unions immediately challenged the amendment, alleging that the state law would interfere with federal laws that allow railroad and airport employees to form unions. The Oklahoma Supreme Court rejected that argument in 2004 after a costly legal battle.

That ruling has not deterred union attorneys from filing suit against subsequent right-to-work legislation. Indiana labor groups have filed lawsuits in federal and state courts alleging that right-to-work laws violate Equal Protection rights and allow employees to benefit from union bargaining on wages without paying dues.

“Right-to-work no longer allows us to collect the reasonable fees for that representation so there’s a free rider problem there,” said Marc Poulos, one of the attorneys challenging the Indiana law on behalf of the Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa Foundation for Fair Contracting (IIIFFC). “We also benefit [in the courts] from changes of philosophy that have started looking at labor rights as fundamental rights.”

Several prominent Michigan unions have already consulted IIIFFC for legal advice though Poulos would not comment on the talks.

Right-to-work supporters claim it is the unions that have been free-riding under Michigan’s current system, which forces all employees to join unions as a condition of employment. Mix said workers rights would be reinforced by the labor reforms.

“There are ‘union security clauses’ in state law that say workers have to pay union fees, in order to work—they’re about union security, not worker security,” Mix said. “With right-to-work, we can start a new model where workers can vote with their pocketbook to hold unions accountable and make decisions based on the shop-floor instead of politics.”

Michigan lawmakers have tried to inoculate the legislation from previous legal challenges. The senate bill, for example, states that the law applies “to the maximum extent that the state constitution of 1963, the United States Constitution, and federal law permit,” language designed to avoid Oklahoma’s hang-ups. Wright said such provisions would do little to deter organized labor.

“I expect many challenges using many different theories,” Wright said.

Poulos says that labor groups have certain advantages against state governments in federal court, comparing labor reforms with local gun restrictions that have been struck down by higher courts.

“Generally speaking, the courts have become more friendly in ruling against states that overreach with legislation,” he said. “The Supreme Court has said that states cannot overreach and step in the way of individuals exercising their Second Amendment rights; we believe they will do the same here with their labor rights.”

Wright is confident that the law will pass constitutional muster with Republicans outnumbering Democrats on Michigan’s State Supreme Court four to three.

“The laws are well drafted and I expect that they’ve incorporated the previous legal challenges … [supporters] have done as much as they can to avoid legal challenges,” he said. “Michigan is perceived to have a conservative supreme court and it will act and uphold laws that should be upheld.”

Keating agrees, though he worries about what Michigan’s move will mean for Oklahoma’s business prospects.

“As an Oklahoman, I hate to see states like Wisconsin and Michigan and Indiana pass right-to-work because that’s going to take away the advantages that states like Oklahoma have in attracting business,” Keating said.

“What we shouldn’t do–I just gotta say this–what we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions,” Obama said in the speech, which was meant to be on fiscal cliff issues. “We shouldn’t be doing that.”

“You know, these so-called right-to-work laws don’t have to do with economics, they have to do with politics,” Obama continued. “What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money.”

Employees in Michigan are required to pay dues in unionized shops or pay an agency fee, regardless of whether the employees belong to the union. The Washington Free Beacon reported on Michigan Republican efforts last week:

The system has helped make Michigan one of the most heavily unionized states in the country. More than 17 percent of workers belong to unions, 50 percent higher than the national average. [...]

Republican Gov. Rick Snyder has passed a number of labor reforms since taking office in 2011 but had previously ruled out right-to-work legislation. He reversed himself on Tuesday, announcing that the reform would be part of his agenda.

Ending mandatory union dues has taken a large toll on unions in other states. Wisconsin’s largest teacher unions have seen membership drop 30 percent since Gov. Scott Walker made dues voluntary for state workers. They are considering a merger to reverse the loss and preserve their political clout.