Free Republic

The Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners may have violated state law when it approved 10-year contracts with 15 unions to beat a March 27 deadline to avoid the impact of the state's right-to-work law. The union contracts allowed Washtenaw County employees to switch from a defined benefit plan to a defined contribution plan. However, a state law says that when a pension is changed, an actuarial analysis needs to be provided at least seven days before the plan is adopted. The law reads: "'[P]roposed pension benefit change' means a proposal to change the amount of pension benefits received by persons...

Maryland lawmakers agreed this week to require public school teachers to pay union fees – a move that bolsters the state’s connection to organized labor as others move toward a right-to-work status. The bill passed Thursday in the General Assembly and is headed to the desk of Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley for signing after Monday, the final day of Maryland’s 2013 legislative session. The bill is also part of a larger progressive agenda put fourth this year by leaders of the Democrat-controlled Assembly that includes the approval of tax increases and one of the toughest gun-control proposals in the country.

March 28, 2013 is a day that will be marked in Michigan history. Worker freedom officially takes effect today. Soon, most workers in Michigan will have the choice of whether they want to financially support their union or not. Right-to-work simply means that a union no longer can get a worker fired for not paying them. Despite claims by unions, collective bargaining largely will remain the same. Unions still can negotiate with employers over wages, hours, working conditions and almost anything except for the requirement that workers pay them simply to keep their jobs. Now unions need to prove their...

Just days before the state's right-to-work law goes into effect, a union representing Kroger workers in Michigan pushed through a new contract that locks its members into paying dues or fees to the union for four years. Grocery employees represented by the United Food & Commercial Workers Union Local 876 ratified the agreement March 22, according to the union's website. The previous union contract was supposed to expire June 15, 2013, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. The weeks leading up to the law's start date on March 28 have been filled with public sector unions rushing to approve...

A memo from a community college president clearly spells out that unions suggested having their contracts reopened expressly to circumvent Michigan's right-to-work law. In addition, the memo states that Macomb County Community College (MCCC) offered to cooperate with the unions in that effort. This week, the community college made good on its offer. It approved four renegotiated contracts, including one contract that had been approved just four months ago. In a memo, dated Feb. 15, 2013, MCCC president Jim Jacobs wrote: "Many unions are asking that public employees extend existing contracts for 10 years so as to avoid the impact...

Two state universities have rejected union deals that would have averted the state's new right-to-work law. The Ferris State University Board of Trustees and the Central Michigan University Board of Trustees rejected contracts from unions that included union security agreements. Such agreements prohibit union members from exercising their right to decide if they want to pay dues or fees to be in a union, which is their option beginning March 28 thanks to the state becoming the nation's 24th right-to-work state late last year. Some school districts and some state universities have approved deals that allow unions to forcibly collect...

Wayne State University officials say the state's right-to-work law helped the university get a better deal from its faculty union. However, university officials don't specify what they actually got in return. Last month, WSU reached an agreement with the union on an unprecedented eight-year contract. The deal was struck as the clock was ticking toward the state's right-to-work law going into effect. At stake for the American Association of University Professors-American Federation of Teachers was the ability to keep collecting dues and fees from all members through 2021. The state's right-to-work law goes into effect March 28 and gives union...

Negotiating right-to-work-dodging contract extensions could cost Michigan universities millions in state funding. Michigan's new right-to-work law prohibits contracts that require employees pay dues or fees to unions as a condition of employment. However the law doesn’t go into effect until March 28. That means unions have a brief opportunity to try and dodge the law by getting employers to extend existing contracts or agree to clauses that extend the forced dues/fees collection for longer than the contract. Michigan’s 15 public universities are considered prime targets for these union efforts. But some state lawmakers are taking steps to head-off such contract...

On Dec. 11, the Taylor School District closed because so many of its teachers skipped school to go to Lansing to protest right-to-work legislation. As a result, about 7,500 students in Taylor were forced to miss classes that day. For organizing that "sick out" protest, the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan gave Taylor teachers' union president Linda Moore an award for "outstanding organizing." Public Act 112 in Michigan makes public school employees strikes and/or lockouts illegal. In a Jan. 28 announcement posted on Facebook, AFT Michigan boasted that so many union members took Dec. 11 off "that Taylor schools shut down."...

On Dec. 11, the Taylor School District closed because so many of its teachers skipped school to go to Lansing to protest right-to-work legislation. As a result, about 7,500 students in Taylor were forced to miss classes that day. For organizing that "sick out" protest, the American Federation of Teachers-Michigan gave Taylor teachers' union president Linda Moore an award for "outstanding organizing." Public Act 112 in Michigan makes public school employees strikes and/or lockouts illegal. In a Jan. 28 announcement posted on Facebook, AFT Michigan boasted that so many union members took Dec. 11 off "that Taylor schools shut down."...

Then there is the recent news that Big Labor may now be feeling buyer’s remorse regarding the very bill that they were most responsible for inflicting on the innocent public: ObamaCare! So what are unions now going to push for? Perhaps for repealing this stupid law and replacing it with something more sensible? Quit dreaming! No, the unions are now pushing to get their lower-paid workers covered by the subsidies the law intended for just those who have no health care insurance at all. In other words, the unions are once again trying to rip off the taxpayer to cover...

A constant claim by opponents of right-to-work, whether it be from the AFL-CIO, state Democratic legislators or the president, is that income is lower in right-to-work states. But these naysayers are blinded to a paycheck reality: the cost of living. Having a larger paycheck doesn’t matter much if you can’t purchase as much with it. Adjusting for per-capita personal income — a standard measure of a state’s wealth — the difference between right-to-work and non-right-to-work states disappears. Consider Connecticut, the state with the highest per-capita personal income. A dollar just doesn’t buy as much in Connecticut as it does in...

The Taylor School District reached a five-year tentative agreement with the Taylor Federation of Teachers that would prevent its union employees from having the option of leaving the teacher’s union, the superintendent confirmed. The contract is expected to be approved by the school board at a special school board meeting tonight. The contract will prohibit union members from exercising their right to not pay dues or fees to the union as a condition of employment thanks to Michigan becoming the nation's 24th right-to-work state late last year. Schools boards have to agree to contracts with these types of restrictive provisions...

Scores of right-to-work critics ranging from politicians to economists have cited lower per-capita incomes in right-to-work states as why the new law is not good for Michigan. However, not factoring in cost-of-living exposes a flaw in that analysis, said Mackinac Center for Public Policy Fiscal Analyst James Hohman. Once that is considered, Hohman said the per-capita income is higher in right-to-work states than non-right-to-work states. For example, Texas per-capita income was $37,098 but would have a purchasing power of $49,700 in the state of New York in 2007, according to Hohman’s analysis. New York’s per-capita income was $47,852. Hohman found...

Republicans in the Michigan House widely supported giving workers the freedom to choose whether they wanted to financially support a union as a condition of employment. But six GOP members voted against legislation (House Bill 4003 and Senate Bill 116) that made Michigan the nation's 24th right-to-work state. On both bills, 58 Republicans voted “yes” and six Republicans joined the Democrats in voting “no.” These six were: Reps: Anthony Forlini, R-Harrison Township; Ken Goike, R-Ray Township; Ken Horn, R-Frankenmuth; Ed McBroom, R-Vulcan; Pat Somerville, R-New Boston; and Dale Zorn, R-Ida. Five of the GOP House members who voted against right-to-work...

Gov. Rick Snyder said he wasn't interested in a right-to-work bill, but when labor unions pushed the Proposal 2 ballot initiative, his stance on the issue changed. Prop 2 would have guaranteed public employee collective bargaining and overridden state laws that conflict with local contracts. And, as union leaders noted at the time, it would have prevented a right-to-work law from ever happening. One of the main effects of right-to-work laws is that they lessen the abilities of unions to wage expensive and economically harmful ballot campaigns. In fact, that may be the main outcome of the legislation. Despite the...

The Civil War ended nearly 150 years ago, but one college professor is bringing the era up in the debate over right-to-work in Michigan. Michigan State University Economics Professor Charles Ballard said that states that embraced slavery with a "long history of strong hierarchy and inequality in race relations" would naturally be supportive of right-to-work laws. "All of the states that seceded from the union in 1861, plus a stripe in the Midwest, in the plains and in the Rocky Mountains, those states are the poorest in the country," he said in an Mlive article based on comments he made...

Michigan Education Association President Steve Cook said his union will use “any legal means at our disposal” to combat members who want to leave the union. Cook made his statement in a letter he sent to MEA local presidents, board members and staff. MEA Spokesman Doug Pratt didn’t respond to a request for comment. The MEA said if members want to resign, they have to do so in August, "and only August,” Cook wrote. "We are sticking to that," Cook wrote. "Members who indicate they wish to resign membership in March, or whenever, will be told they can only do...

The historic December 2012 passage of a right-to-work law in Michigan was filled with drama, not least of which was unions behaving badly outside the state Capitol on the day of the vote. Media reports were filled with images of the vandalism and violence in front of the building, but less attention was paid to the histrionics and bad economics displayed by anti-right-to-work politicians on the inside. The House and Senate chambers resounded with economically faulty and/or misleading claims about the economic effects of right-to-work laws, some of which warrant rebuttal. For example, Senate Minority Leader Gretchen Whitmer, D-East Lansing,...

For nearly two years, many doubted a right-to-work bill had enough support in the State Senate for passage. In December, the measure passed easily. Republicans, led by Gov. Rick Snyder, resoundingly approved the bill, which became a reality after unions in Michigan tried to pass Proposal 2 in November. Four Republican State Senators, however, voted against giving workers the freedom to choose whether they want to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. They were: Sen. Tory Rocca, R-Sterling Heights; Sen. Mike Green, R-Mayville; Sen. Mike Nofs, R-Battle Creek; and Sen. Tom Casperson, R-Escanaba. Michigan becoming the...