LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – With Michigan under Democratic control, the new legislation coming out the state’s house and senate has been moving fast and furious. One of their priorities out of the gate was to get rid of Michigan’s Right to Work laws and at the end of March of this year, Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer signed legislation repealing Right to Work laws for private-sector employees. These were laws that prohibited organized-labor organizations from levying service fees and dues on workers where their place of work is covered by a collective-bargaining agreement whether they are in a union or not.

MORE NEWS: Middle East Expert: Americans ‘Lulled’ Into False Sense of Security on Terrorism

This new Democratic-led legislation goes into effect March 30, 2024 and it will require employees to pay union dues (or a service fee) to their bargaining representative as a condition to keep their job. This law does not apply to public sector employees in unions. The legislation also appropriates $1 million to Michigan’s Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity to increase staff and implement the new law. The appropriation reportedly shields the legislation from a ballot initiative that would repeal it meaning that there would have to be a constitutional amendment or court decision in order to repeal this legislation.

The National Review had reported when the bill passed that “Michigan Democrats want to bring back union coercion.”

They also reported that on Thursday, June 8th, “the Michigan Senate approved a bill along party lines to require public employers to furnish unions with employees’ personal information – including their full names, home and work addresses, home and work email addresses, personal phone numbers, wages and more – regardless of whether they are union members.”

The bill’s sponsor, state senator John Cherry told NPR that “unions need that data to fully serve everyone in a workplace.”

However, unlike with many other companies across the United States, workers cannot opt out of sharing their personal information. The National Review also points out that the law doesn’t restrict how the unions can use the information – which leaves it open for the Democrats to use it for political purposes.

Senate minority leader Aric Nesbitt has several concerns about the legislation including the safety of women who went through bad divorces or domestic violence, or are hiding from stalkers or abusers, having to give our their personal information. He also added in a statement, “Setting the potential for strong-arming and intimidation aside, there are many reasons why a public employee might wish to keep their private contact information private from union leaders. It could simply be because the person disagrees with the known funding of politicians and causes that don’t align with the employee’s values.”

MORE NEWS: ‘Very Strange’ UM Lab Case Ends With Guilty Plea and Immediate Deportation

Nesbitt went on to say, “Or maybe it’s because of well-documented cases of corruption or embezzlement like in 2018 when a local AFSCME union boss was charged with stealing $600,000 from the union. Perhaps more concerning, it could even be because of well-known and documented rumors of harassment and sexual assault by powerful, well-protected union bosses.”

Senator Thomas Albert (R-Lowell) said about the legislation, “It moves beyond reasonably assisting legitimate communication between a union and the employees it represents into an unwarranted invasion of privacy into a potential misuse of information.”

The bill passed the Senate by a party line vote and was referred to the committee on labor in the House of Representatives.