Labor unions spent over $30 million to pass Proposal 2 in Michigan, which would have enshrined collective bargaining rights in the state constitution. The Grow Michigan Jobs campaign engaged businesses, media, and influencers over 9 months to frame the debate in favor of pro-business reforms. They argued growing jobs was better than protecting some union jobs. On election day, 58% of voters rejected Proposal 2 and all other proposals, allowing Right to Work legislation to pass. The Chamber gained 150 new members due to their leadership against the proposals.

1. Michigan Chamber of Commerce and Grow Michigan Jobs
Situation:
Labor unions and other special interests mounted a more than $30 million
campaign to rewrite Michigan’s Constitution to rollback a series of pro-business
reforms. Most troubling: Proposal 2 was designed to “enshrine collective
bargaining in the constitution” so that any state or local law interfering with
union agreements would be nullified, barring Right to Work and all other
legislation that could interfere with union power.
Solution:
Grow Michigan Jobs, a nine-month engagement campaign, framed the narrative
of the debate, beginning to make the case while the opposition was still busy
collecting signatures and fighting court battles to get on the ballot. We reached
out to thousands of key influencers in business, government and media,
attempting to influence them with digital marketing, social media, video, media
relations and by engaging influencers as well as the opposition on the web sites
of the state’s most prominent news organizations.
ROI:

2. The opposition had more money and thousands more workers at the polls and
dominated all the early polls in September with a big majority of support. But as
Margaret Thatcher once said, “before you win the vote, you have to win the
argument.” Our side won the argument and 58 percent of voters rejected
Proposal 2. All five of the Constitutional amendments were rejected handily.
– Right to Work adopted. Proposal 2 had been designed to block Right to Work
legislation. Gov. Rick Snyder offered to work to keep Right to Work off his desk if
unions would drop their Proposal 2 efforts. When Proposal 2 lost with 57 percent
voting “no,” it spurred on passage of Right to Work legislation in December
2012,something many on both sides previously considered unlikely in Michigan,
birthplace of the UAW. growmijobs.org continued the push for RTW and inspired
a similar pro-RTW site called moremijobs.com.
– Forced name change. Grow Michigan Jobs was a direct response to our
opponent’s campaign, Protect Our Jobs. The name growMIjobs argued that
growing jobs was better than protecting a minority of jobs represented by
unions, that our campaign was about all Michigan jobs while Protect Our Jobs
was about the tiny minority in unions and hence their name Protect OUR Jobs
(not all jobs) said it all. By fall, they changed their name to Protect Working
Families, a change the media jumped. The change also confused voters.
– Unanimity in media, business. 15 newspaper editorials all opposed Proposal
2. None, not even the normally liberal Detroit Free Press, sided with the
opposition. This lead to union attacks on the Free Press, which further alienated
a paper that might otherwise be sympathetic. GrowMIjobs joined those
conversations, expressing sympathy for the Free Press editors.
– Credibility. Our daily interaction allowed us to catch the opposition doing
things like creating fake Facebook accounts solely for the purpose of
commenting on news sites. Catching these examples and pushing out stories
that helped frame the narrative in our favor helped build our relationship with
the media and hurt theirs.
– 150 new members. The chamber gained new members including nearly 150
during the summer and fall who specifically said they were “sold” because of the
chamber’s leadership on the ballot proposals.
– 42,000 leave unions. The U.S. Bureau of Labor in January 2013 reported
unions in Michigan lost 42,000 members members in 2012.