By Ben Velderman
EAGnews.org

LANSING, Mich. – The Michigan Board of State Canvassers delivered a stinging defeat for the Michigan Education Association, the United Auto Workers and other Big Labor supporters throughout the Great Lakes State.

On Wednesday, the canvassing board decided a union-backed proposal to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the Michigan Constitution will not be on the November ballot, reports Reuters. Board members split the vote 2-2, and the tie vote means the proposal will not be placed before voters.

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Officials could not reach an agreement over whether or not the proposal met the requirements for ballot proposals.

Earlier this month, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette issued an opinion that the proposed constitutional amendment would have voided 170 existing state laws (either all or in part), and was simply too complicated to be thoroughly summarized in a 100-word ballot summary, MLive.com reports.

The two Republicans on the board agreed with Schuette’s assessment, while the two Democrats did not.

The proposal’s backers “immediately filed a motion asking the Michigan Supreme Court to decide whether to allow the proposal on the ballot,” reports Reuters. The court would have to act quickly, since the final language of the November ballot is needed by August 27.

Barring a last-minute reversal by the court, this is a severe blow for Michigan’s labor unions. They were set to wage an $8 million campaign in support of the collective bargaining measure.

If it had succeeded in November, Big Labor would have had a constitutional firewall to protect Michigan unions from right-to-work legislation that Republican legislators have been whispering about for the past year.

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Undoubtedly, some Republican lawmakers watched with great interest as nearby Indiana became the 23rd “right-to-work” state in the nation last February.

And legislators were surely inspired when Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker survived a recall campaign last June. Walker emerged as Big Labor’s top nemesis when he signed legislation in 2011 that placed limits on collective bargaining powers for public employees.

Gov. Rick Snyder seems uninterested in reforming collective bargaining privileges for public employees, though he has provided school districts with economic incentives to explore non-union options for school support services.

In other words, the MEA – the state’s largest teachers union – is not facing an immediate existential crisis, like the one facing their Wisconsin union brethren. But the canvassing board’s decision leaves the door open for serious collective bargaining reforms in the future.