By Steven Greenhouse, The New York Times
Hoping to set a precedent for other states, Michigan’s labor unions spent months pushing a referendum to amend the state’s Constitution to prohibit the legislature from ever enacting a law that would curb the powers of public employee unions.
But this push to enshrine collective bargaining rights in the Constitution was roundly defeated in Tuesday’s election, 58 to 42 percent — an embarrassing loss for labor in a state known as a cradle of American unionism.