Over the past decade, the number of employees in Michigan has risen by 500,000, going from 3.9 million to 4.4 million. Yet, total membership in Michigan labor unions has declined by nearly 70,000, dropping from 631,000 to 564,000.

The percentage of workers who are in a public or private sector union has collapsed. Almost 60% of government employees (a total of 350,000 people) used to be union members. Today, about 180,000 (or 39%) choose to remain. Public sector workers, unlike their counterparts in the private sector, are still free to leave their union under the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2018 decision in Janus v. AFSCME.

The repeal of Michigan’s right-to-work law came after a concerted effort – a gasp – from organized labor to exercise the power to compel hundreds of thousands of people to pay dues against their will. Repealing the law was an unfortunate signal to Michigan’s workers, to the nation and even to foreign businesses that the state is less interested in worker rights and a competitive labor market.

But compulsion is not a viable strategy. The business model is on shaky ground. And that’s what the numbers about union membership tell us about the modern labor movement.

Jarrett Skorup is the vice president for marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy.