As far as President Obama was concerned, the issue was crystal clear: Republicans in Michigan were about to strip workers there of their rights by passing a right-to-work law.

“What we shouldn’t be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions,” he said at a campaign-style appearance at the Daimler Detroit Diesel plant in Redford, Mich., on Monday. “We shouldn’t be doing that. These so-called right-to-work laws, they don’t have to do with economics; they have everything to do with politics. What they’re really talking about is giving you the right to work for less money,” he said.