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Michigan lawmakers approved legislation on Tuesday that seeks to punish public universities for entering into long-term union contracts that some legislators view as an end run around the state's new right-to-work law, the Detroit Free Press reported. The Republican majority on the state House's higher education appropriations subcommittee pushed through a bill that would strip nearly $75 million in performance-budgeting funds from Wayne State University and campuses of the University of Michigan. The institutions struck multi-year contracts with labor unions that would put off for years the point at which they would give workers the ability to opt out of paying union dues, as the new right-to-work law would allow. “I think we’ve sent a serious message here,” Rep. Al Pscholka, the subcommittee’s chairman, told the newspaper. “This has to do with trying to circumvent state law. An eight-year contract doesn’t stand up for taxpayers. It’s very blatant what’s going on here.”
