Break the Detroit Municipal Workers' Contract

The city’s emergency manager has the power. The city can now get the municipal union out of the loop once and for all. Union greed is at the root of a lot of Detroit’s misery. The Wall Street Journal details the situation.

Detroit’s unions are operating with diminished political and legal clout. For one thing, the city’s elected mayor and City Council have been sidelined by Mr. Orr, who doesn’t have to face union political firepower in an election. He also has the power to set wages and benefits for city employees and break union contracts.

Michigan’s public-employee unions tried and failed last fall to win statewide voter approval for a measure to enshrine collective-bargaining rights in the state constitution. Unions did persuade voters to repeal a law that authorized the governor to appoint emergency managers to run troubled cities. But the Republican-dominated state legislature replaced the defeated statute with a new one.

Mr. Snyder, a Republican, delivered another blow to union clout in the state by signing a right-to-work law that allows workers to opt out of paying union dues.