Sweeping anti-union legislation was signed into law today in Michigan, despite vocal opposition from organized labor in the state capital. As Sarah Cobarrubius reports for Working In These Times, opponents of the new laws are already talking about ways to repeal them:

Union organizers, however, say the legislation can still be undone. There are four methods under Michigan state law through which a proposal can be placed on the ballot. While a legislative referendum cannot be used to challenge right-to-work, the Citizens Research Council of Michigan reveals that citizens could still launch a statutory initiative, though this requires more signatures. In order to do this, organizers would have to file petitions containing signatures of registered voters equal to at least eight percent of the votes cast in the last election for governor. Even if the legislature rejects the initiative, it would go on the ballot for 2014 general election.

[Photo credit: Peoplesworld, Creative Commons.]

Michigan is poised to enact sweeping anti-union legislation, a bill that would transform the state from a historical stronghold of American labor to a so-called “right-to-work state” where union membership is optional even in unionized workplaces. President Obama spoke out against the proposed legislation today:

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — President Barack Obama has repeated his opposition to right-to-work laws as the Republican-controlled Michigan Legislature moved toward adopting the union-curbing measure.

The Michigan House voted Thursday to approve a bill barring unions from collecting mandatory fees from non-members. The Senate also took up the bill, and Republican Gov. Rick Snyder endorsed it Thursday.

White House spokesman Matt Lehrich says Obama has long opposed right to work laws, “and he continues to oppose them now.

Marcy Wheeler, a native Michigander and political blogger, has more on the battle for union rights in her home state.

Like the Colonel’s 11 secret herbs and spices, the recipe for the fracking fluid known as EXP- F0173-11 is closely guarded. The manufacturer maintains that it doesn’t have to disclose certain secret ingredients that give EXP- F0173-11 the great taste and extreme viscosity* that frackers know and love.

A new Texas law requires drilling companies to say exactly which chemicals they are injecting into the ground in persuit of natural gas, but the law has a huge loophole:

Drilling companies in Texas, the biggest oil-and-natural gas producing state, claimed similar exemptions about 19,000 times this year through August, according to their chemical- disclosure reports. Data from the documents were compiled by Pivot Upstream Group, a Houston-based firm that studies the energy industry, and analyzed by Bloomberg News. Nationwide, companies withheld one out of every five chemicals they used in fracking, a separate examination of a broader database shows.

Trade-secret exemptions block information on more than five ingredients for every well in Texas, undermining the statute’s purpose of informing people about chemicals that are hauled through their communities and injected thousands of feet beneath their homes and farms, said Lon Burnam, a Democratic state representative and a co-author of the law. [Bloomberg] 

Companies can get the exemption just by asserting that an ingredient is a trade secret. There’s no independent oversight mechanism to make sure they’re exempting chemicals in good faith. 

*Or whatever it is that makes EXP- F0173-11 a favorite for discerning frackers. That’s probably a secret, too. 

[Photo credit: Bilal Kamoon, Creative Commons.]

Today’s edition of Sidney’s Picks is all about yesterday’s fast food walkouts in New York City.

• “Can fast food workers ever be unionized? Here, in New York, today, a lot of fast food workers decided to skip the theory and proceed directly to the “Fuck you, pay me” phase of the process,” writes Hamilton Nolan of Gawker.
• 200 workers from dozens of fast food restaurants around New York City walked off the job yesterday to demand higher wages, and the right to organize without retaliation. The walkout, organized by Fast Food Forward, was product of the largest organizing drive in the fast food industry. 
• Sarah Jaffe delves into the economics of fast food jobs.
• How the Wal-Mart strike inspired New York’s fast food workers. 

[Photo credit: Wander Mule, Creative Commons.]