Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer plans to use this week's Mackinac Policy Conference to promote a new jobs plan that would shift Michigan's economic development policy from being business-friendly to friendlier for workers.
Whitmer, the establishment favorite to be the Democratic nominee for governor, places an emphasis on boosting wages through new education and job-training programs, while raising the minimum wage to $15 per hour over three years and repealing the Republican-authored Right-To-Work law that made union membership optional.
"It hasn't made (Michigan) a place where business is flocking," Whitmer said of the five-year-old Right-to-Work law. "That was the promise of Right-To-Work, was that all of sudden there would be this new environment and … we'd be more attractive to business investment and that would have a trickle-down approach of increasing people's incomes and lifestyles — and that's not happened."
The centerpiece of Whitmer's plan is a new $100 million MI Opportunity Scholarship to provide high school graduates with two years of free community college or the equivalent state financial aid for attending a four-year university or a post-high school job training program.
Whitmer's plan also places an emphasis on getting older adults into college or job training programs through the scholarship program.
"There are a lot of people beyond high school graduation who need to skill up," she said.
Whitmer's plan calls for a series of worker-focused policy changes ranging from mandatory paid family leave and a publicly administered retirement system for small businesses to requiring equal pay for women in state government jobs and private companies that perform services for the state.
She also wants to prohibit employers from firing someone because of their sexual orientation or gender identity by amending the state's civil rights law.
Whitmer is using this week's annual gathering of Michigan business, political and civic leaders at Mackinac Island's Grand Hotel to roll out a jobs plan focused on the talent gap in Michigan's workforce. The conference will focus heavily on whether Michigan's workforce is prepared for future jobs and economic challenges.
It also could be the opening salvo of Whitmer's general election strategy against the Republican nominee should she prevail in the Aug. 7 primary against former Detroit health department director Abdul El-Sayed and Ann Arbor businessman Shri Thanedar, who has narrowly led Whitmer in some recent polls after airing a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign.
In a state where the $50,803 median household is $9,000 below the national average, Whitmer has made raising household incomes the primary focus of her plan.
"It's not a real comeback until everyone feels it," Whitmer writes in the 13-page plan.