Gretchen Whitmer
Democratic gubernatorial candidate Gretchen Whitmer is sure to get applause from labor but not from conservative politicians and business people this week at the annual Mackinac Policy Conference.
Whitmer will be promoting a plan to raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour over three years and repealing the Republican-authored Right-To-Work law that made union membership optional, Chad Livengood of Crain's Detroit Business reports.
"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."
Whitmer also wants 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, Livengood reports.
