A recently announced effort by a powerful union and the Fight for $15 organization to get pro-labor Democrats elected in 2018's gubernatorial elections is targeting Michigan as a critical battleground.

The Service Employees International Union, one of the biggest and most affluent unions in the country, and Fight for $15 have launched a $100-million effort to increase voter engagement and support gubernatorial candidates who believe in fair wages and worker's rights.

The campaign, which involves a massive "get out the vote" component, is specifically focusing on Rust Belt, midwestern states like Michigan, where assaults on labor — via right-to-work campaigns and unbudging minimum wages — have been significant.

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"I grew up in Michigan. I saw how working people used the power of their unions to fight for good jobs that lifted entire families up. Unfortunately, fewer people now have the opportunity to join together in unions. Instead of fighting for strong unions, politicians are gutting them," said Mary Kay Henry, president of the SEIU. "We need to elect leaders who will help working people join together to turn jobs doing service and care work into jobs you can sustain a family on."

To kick off the Michigan effort, the groups are planning a Labor Day march next Monday.

In attendance, there will be former Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing, who announced in January that she was running for governor. Whitmer is not endorsed by the SEIU, but is one of the several Democratic gubernatorial candidates — including former Detroit Health Department director Abdul El-Sayed, Ann Arbor businessman Shri Thanedar and retired businessman Bill Cobbs — who support raising the minimum wage.

The SEIU has been fighting for several years to raise the minimum wage across the country, including backing ballot proposals in states such as Michigan. The union also has been advocates for collective bargaining and unionization in the state. In 2012, for example, the union contributed at least $5.5 million to a home health ballot measure that would have amended the Michigan Constitution, giving workers collective bargaining rights and creating a home health care registry. While the proposal ultimately failed, the group is rerallying its efforts around the health care industry.

For the Labor Day March, participants will meet at a McDonald's on West Grand Blvd. near the Lodge Freeway at 6 a.m., then march to a 7:40 a.m. rally in front of the Henry Ford Health System.

“Hospital work and other service work is now the backbone of our economy. But too many Americans who work in these jobs are falling behind," Henry said. "It's time to rewrite the rules so people doing today's service work can form unions, raise wages and lift up millions of families. America needs unions."

Today, Henry Ford Health System, which is not unionized and has 8,790 employees, and Detroit Medical Center, which is unionized and has 9,184 employees, make up the third and second largest private employers, respectively, in the city of Detroit. They, along with the six other hospitals in the city, play a significant role in terms of employment. They also, according to Henry, fall short when it comes to paying their workers.

This sentiment was reiterated by Tracy Burks, a patient sitter at St. John Hospital & Medical Center in Detroit. Burks, who has been with the hospital for one year, spoke about the frustrations making $11 an hour — $16 on the weekends — to support herself and her 3-year-old son.

"I’ve worked a union job and a nonunion job, and there’s no comparison," the 39-year-old said, noting that there is a fear in a nonunion environment to bring up pay problems to bosses.

"If I tell my boss $11 an hour isn't working, I will get taken off the schedule," she said.

While Burks is working during Monday's march, she said she plans to donate at least 40 hours of her time to the campaign over the next year — something SEIU and Fight for $15 members have promised, according to the drive's announcement.

"Anything to provide better pay to support our families, I'm there," Burks said.

Michigan has long been a flashpoint in labor debates. The nexus of the modern labor movement, the state was viewed as generally union-friendly up until 2012. In December of that year, Gov. Rick Snyder signed off on Michigan's right-to-work law, which allows workers to opt out of paying dues to the unions that bargain for them.

“Michigan big labor literally controls one of the major political parties,” Dick DeVos, one of the key behind-the-scenes players in the push for right-to-work in the state, said in January 2013, shortly after the bill was passed. “I’m not suggesting they have influence; I’m saying they hold total dominance, command and control.”

While the campaign was a blow to the unions, it also has worked to tighten the coffers of the state's Democratic party.

"Passing right-to-work in Michigan was more than a policy victory, it was a major score for Republicans who have long sought to weaken the Democratic Party by attacking its sources of funding and organizing muscle," a Mother Jones feature on the passage of right-to-work in Michigan explained.

In January 2017, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics found that the number of union members in Michigan dropped from 621,000 in 2015 to 606,000 in 2016, going from 15.2% to 14.4%.

The Michigan decrease was part of a 0.4% drop in national union membership that saw the number of labor-affiliated workers in the U.S. drop from more than 14.8 million in 2015 to 14.6 million in 2016. Today right-to-work provisions exist in 28 states.

For those who worked to support the right-to-work effort in Michigan, such as the free-market think tank Mackinac Center for Public Policy, the push by SEIU and Fight for $15 to elect a pro-labor governor is viewed as no threat.

"I don't know that the standard union arguments against right-to-work will work in Michigan because we've seen growth and prosperity since the time right-to-work went into effect," said John Mozena, the vice president of marketing and communications for the Mackinac Center. "You have situations where Foxconn are very public about the fact that they will only consider states that have right-to-work laws, and there really isn't any downside to right-to-work for anyone but the union leaders who have to focus on actually providing value to their members rather than politics."

This sentiment was echoed by Patrick Semmens, a spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee.

"Michigan’s right-to-work is popular, and pro-right-to-work candidates should benefit from that popularity, which is overwhelming and bipartisan," Semmens wrote in an e-mail. "The more right-to-work is the central issue, the more of an advantage it is for officials with a track record of opposition to forced union dues."

Those who are part of SEIU and Fight for $15, however, are hedging their bets that Michiganders are ready for a change. They point to the 2014 U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics data, which shows that 1.9 million Michigan workers — nearly 50% of all workers — make less than $15 an hour. They argue that the desire for better pay and unions is there, it's just about activating the public to be engaged.

“This is not about a different message, slogan or TV ad,” said Scott Courtney, an SEIU executive vice president. “It’s a fundamental change of approach to engage a huge swath of the population that does not participate in politics. We’re going to go out and talk to them, not just two weeks before the election and not just once.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.