Those numbers sound bad. But they're not exactly death sentences. In 2011, 17.5 percent of Michigan workers belonged to a union, compared to about 11.8 percent nationwide, according to the Bureau of Labor statistics. That comes out to 671,000 total employees on the state's union rolls. A one-tenth drop in that tally would knock it down to 604,000, and trim the overall rate by about 2 percentage points.



In short, a right-to-work law alone isn't going to put the UAW out of business.



UNIONS THAT WORK



It might, however, force big industrial unions to meaningfully grapple with their futures. The reality is that organized labor has been on the decline for reasons that are much bigger than the rules governing whether or not non-members have to pay administrative fees. Automation and offshoring have slashed the number of workers needed on assembly lines in any given factory. Unions have repeatedly failed to crack retail and much of the services industries. Meanwhile, they've developed a national image problem. The Pew Research Center reports that since 2007, public approval for unions has plummeted, so that less than half the country now has a favorable opinion of them. In Michigan this past election cycle, labor tried and failed to pass a constitutional amendment protecting the right to collective bargaining. Perhaps that shouldn't be a surprise: according to the Economic Policy Institute, just one in five of the state's manufacturing workers were even covered by a collective bargaining agreement, down from nearly half in 1983. The labor movement has seen better days there, just like everywhere else.

If unions are going to have any chance of reversing course -- and it's not obvious they can at this point -- they'll need to win back the public and break into markets where they've been effectively shut out. As Reuters reported last year, even the UAW has concluded that its long-term financial future may depend on its ability to organize foreign auto makers such as Toyota that mostly operate factories in right-to-work states. Although the union already bargains on behalf of factory employees in right-to-work Texas, practicing the act of selling itself to workers year in and year out might strengthen it in the long term.

Some, such as Rich Yeselson at The American Prospect, are worried that unions will fold before they'll learn to adapt. "Most local unions today are logistically and, often, intellectually, atrophied," he writes. As a result, they rely on the fact that workers are automatically required to pay union fees "just to function at a reasonably high level. The medicine may make them weaker, but to take them off it immediately could be fatal."

But the reality is that local unions won't be going cold turkey. The effects of right-to-work laws appear to unfold gradually and at the margins. Their dues paying members won't vanish overnight. And if the spread of these statutes ultimately forces unions to make the case for themselves more effectively, it may go some ways toward restoring the public's decayed trust in them.

What's transpired in Michigan is a political defeat for organized labor. But a knockout punch, it is not. If it rouses more unions out of their comfort zone and forces them to adapt themselves to the world we now live in, it may well turn out to be a blessing in disguise.