LANSING (Sept. 21, 2023) — The Michigan Manufacturers Association (MMA) today released the following statement following the Senate Labor Committee’s passage of Senate Bill 171 (Senator Sean McCann, D-Kalamazoo), which repeals current law that establishes protections for job-providers against a patchwork of different local employment regulations.

Statement of MMA Director of Employment Policy David Q. Worthams

We urge the Michigan Legislature to exercise caution in their consideration of Senate Bill 171, which would authorize 535 Michigan cities and villages, 83 counties and 1,240 townships to enact a disparate and complex web of rules and regulations governing private employers’ relationships with their employees.

This legislation creates an impossible compliance situation for manufacturers, large and small, allowing local governments to create a competitive disadvantage between companies that reside in different cities on something so fundamental as labor standards. A local patchwork of regulation damages Michigan’s business climate, causing existing Michigan companies and those considering coming here to question whether they are willing endure the risk of a local government acting in a way that threatens their competitiveness with other companies in and out of the Michigan. 

If Michigan is to compete for and win jobs and capital investment, the Legislature must stop advancing anti-employer legislation that urges our job-creators to consider a more welcoming state to locate their business. Other states are actively working to lure away Michigan’s manufacturing industry and we don’t need our policymakers showing them the door. 

At the end of the day, Senate Bill 171 is moving in the wrong direction for Michigan

For more information or to schedule a call with Dave Worthams, MMA Director of Employment Policy, contact MMA’s Delaney McKinley at 517-487-8530 or mckinley@mimfg.org.

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