ABSTRACT
Michigan reflects national trends in its policy toward public sector bargaining, with legislative acts granting bargaining rights and later restricting them. This chapter examines the labor relations experience in Michigan state and local government, with an emphasis on legal changes in the 1990s. We begin with a brief historical background, describing the basic legal framework for public sector bargaining in Michigan. We describe the current extent of unionism in Michigan, and we summarize Michigan's strike experience and the legal scope of bargaining. We discuss impasse resolution procedures, including mediation, factfinding, and-for public safety employees---<:ompulsory interest arbitration. We extensively analyze Public Act 112 of 1994, which restricted the scope of bargaining in public education and established tough strike penalties for school employees, and we present the political context in which Act 112 was enacted. We analyze Proposal A of 1994, a school finance measure that has substantially affected bargaining in public education in Michigan. We discuss state civil servants, whose union activities are governed by Civil Service Commission rules rather than by Michigan's public sector bargaining statute, and a decision by the Civil Service Commission in December 1998 to make those rules less favorable to unions. Finally, we present some concluding remarks.
