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The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers announced the layoffs on its Facebook page Thursday night. The initial number reported by the union was 58. ... L-3 Army Fleet Support is reducing its workforce in order to address recent decreases in our customer’s flying-hour program and projected requirements ... Workers at Army Fleet Support went on strike briefly near the end of April... AFS announced layoffs of 50 workers in April of 2013 and 70 workers in August of 2013.

Santa Fe Public Schools is among three school districts suing the state of New Mexico and its Public Education Department in an effort to force an increase in funding for public schools in a state that perennially scores near the bottom in national ratings. The lawsuit, filed Thursday in state District Court in Santa Fe, asks the court to declare that current funding levels violate the New Mexico Constitution and asks the state to change its funding formula to offer equal support for students who are English language learners or living in poverty.

Students at several Jefferson County, Colorado, high schools walked out to protest the school board's recently proposed curriculum review committee that seeks to promote patriotism, respect for authority, free enterprise, plus the positive aspects of U.S. history. The teachers union, whose members forced two high schools to close by calling in sick, is against the implementation of performance-based pay. The union has encouraged and applauded student protests against what it's calling academic censorship.The average parent and taxpayer has little idea of what is being taught to our youngsters. In February 2006, I wrote a column titled "Indoctrination of Our Youth,"...

“We made a decision very early on that protecting the Senate firewall was our top priority,” LCV spokesman Jeff Gohringer told The Hill.House Democratic strategists are frustrated that key outside groups are putting their money into the fight for the Senate at the expense of the House. Spending on House races by organized labor as well as groups representing women and environmental organizations as dropped by $18 million compared to the last cycle, the groups said. That has Democrats worried their House losses on Election Day could be in the double digits, making it that much harder to take back...

Two teachers have taken Pennsylvania’s largest teachers union to court over its attempt to decide which charities may be supported by teachers as an alternative when they decline to join the union on religious grounds. The teachers, Chris Meier from Lancaster County and Jane Ladley from Chester County, are required—as a condition of employment—either to be a member of the Pennsylvania State Education Association or pay a nonmember “fair share” fee of $435. Last spring, PSEA accepted Meier and Ladley’s status as religious objectors. In lieu of paying membership dues, state law instructed the teachers to pay a “fair share”...

An official from a Michigan union that bullied members who opted out under the state's right-to-work law by printing their names in its online newsletter is now saying they have had to abandon local public school bargaining units for lack of support. In its winter 2013 newsletter, Operating Engineers Local 324 used the derogatory term “freeloaders” to identify 19 members who had opted out of the union under the right-to-work law. At that time, Business Manager Doug Stockwell said the union had “weathered the storm” with right-to-work. Michigan Capitol Confidential broke that story and it went on to receive national...

When government employees buy the California legislature with huge campaign contributions, one of the benefits they expect in return is absolute protection of the lush pensions they are promised, even when their employer goes into bankruptcy. Thus, California law insists that Calpers, the state-backed agency used to provide many government employees with their pensions, is granted very special powers, including the right to seize assets and liquidate them to provide for full payment of pensions, even when other creditors are paid a penny on the dollar.But yesterday, a federal bankruptcy judge in California issued a preliminary ruling indicating that once...

Albany Officials at one of the state's largest public labor unions shielded a downstate council leader from potential prosecution after she allegedly used a union debit card to make at least $20,000 in questionable purchases — including liquor, restaurant bills and home improvement items. Several people familiar with the matter, and internal documents filed with the Albany-based Public Employees Federation, indicate PEF's leaders asked to handle the matter as an internal "ethics violation" when contacted several months ago by the office of Rockland County District Attorney Thomas P. Zugibe. The union represents more than 53,000 state government workers. The district...

Speaking at the National Education Association (NEA) Representative Assembly at the Colorado Convention Center in Denver on July 3rd, Colorado Education Association (CEA) President Kerrie Dallman referred to the school district of Jefferson County (JeffCo) – where teachers have staged a “sick-out” and students left classes to protest throughout last week – as one of three in her state in which the teachers’ union was “working against hostile school boards.” “I also want to say thank you to the staff and leaders from the 18 states around the country who were sending in 48 staff under the NEA shared staffing...

Prosecutors are using a law originally enacted to go after mobsters to accuse former principals, teachers, and administrators of trying to boost their bonuses by conspiring to artificially raise kids' test scores. While only 12 ex-educators are on trial in Atlanta, dozens of teachers and administrators were initially charged and many have since pleaded guilty in exchange for their cooperation. The dozen on trial could get up to 20 years in prison, and they might never have been prosecuted if it weren't for a pair of ambitious reporters at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC). Back in 2008, Heather Vogell, now a...

Steve Malanga at Public Sector Inc. reports on Pennsylvania governments increasing taxes in order to pay increased pension requirements. Malanga follows tax increases in Scranton, York City, and in a number of school districts. He also notes that districts are looking to challenge property assessments in search of more revenue. The Warrior Run School District in Union and Northumberland counties has a different idea on how to raise revenues. Last week the school district sent registered letters to dozens of property owners advising them that it is challenging the assessments of their properties, asking for a higher value and tax...

September 24, 2014 Associated Press ARVADA, Colo. – Hundreds of students walked out of classrooms around suburban Denver on Tuesday in protest over a conservative-led school board proposal to focus history education on topics that promote citizenship, patriotism and respect for authority, in a show of civil disobedience that the new standards would aim to downplay. The youth protest in the state's second-largest school district follows a sick-out from teachers that shut down two high schools in the politically and economically diverse area that has become a key political battleground. Student participants said their demonstration was organized by word of...

In the three years since Dansville Schools dropped Michigan Education Special Services Association insurance for a different high-deductible plan, it has saved $736,873.87 and its employees haven't had to pay for any health insurance premiums in that time, according to the superintendent. MESSA is a third-party administrator affiliated with the Michigan Education Association that buys health insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and resells it to school districts. Dansville Superintendent Amy Hodgson said the $736,873 was how much more the district would have paid had it kept MESSA. She said the employees do have to make co-pays for...

In a video last year discussing the first year of the right-to-work law, Michigan Education Association President Steve Cook said his greatest fear was losing “thousands” of union members. That was after the group withheld information about how its members could opt out of the union. Cook said in the video he talked to former United Auto Workers President Bob King who told him unions maintain about 94 to 95 percent of membership in right-to-work states. Cook said that wasn’t bad but added that the MEA’s claims of losing only 1 percent of membership proved they were not inept. Fast...

Administrative Law Judge Julia C. Stern has ruled that under Michigan’s right-to-work law, public employees can resign from a union at any time of the year. On that basis, Judge Stern said that the state’s largest teacher union, the Michigan Education Association, has been violating the law by enforcing its so-called 'August window.' “Freedom and the ability to exercise one’s rights do not come with a time limit,” said Patrick J. Wright, vice president for legal affairs at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. “As we have said all along, the bylaws of a membership organization do not trump state...

Someone is pulling our leg. This has to be a joke. And the government needs to call their bluff on it. The Public Service Alliance of Canada has come forward with some pretty tall demands for their employees. These include an extra week of paid holiday every year and one cent for every hour worked by their members to be contributed to a “social justice fund” that the union would control. The government must say no to these. But they’re not even the headline material. They’re just the opening act. No, the real doozy is they want employees to be...

All four Harlem Success Academy charters serve primarily minority student populations (all are 93.5 to 97.1% black and Hispanic) and low-income households (75 to 80% of students at these schools qualify for free or discounted lunch), and yet all are ranked academically higher than about 97% of all schools in New York state based on 2013-2014 standardized test assessments in math and reading. What a truly amazing academic success story! Harlem Success Academy 3, an elementary school where 95.2% of the students are black or Hispanic and 80% are from poor households who qualify for free or discounted lunch, performed...

A Democratic district attorney who has pursued Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker over alleged campaign finance violations told a fellow prosecutor that his crying wife, a union official, drove him to hunt the governor and his conservative allies because of his anti-union laws feared by organized labor. The explosive revelation came Tuesday as lawyers for Milwaukee DA John Chisholm began two days of oral arguments in a Chicago courtroom over earlier rulings that effectively ended his wide-ranging investigation. The investigation aimed to show that conservative groups were illegally working hand-in-hand with Walker's office when they ran 'issue ads' pressing the...

The president of a local teachers union incorrectly told his members they would lose benefits to a sick bank all teachers had contributed to if they left the union. Todd Mignerey, a high school teacher at Flushing Community Schools and the Flushing Education Association union president, sent the email in June while discussing the Michigan Education Association’s opt-out period in the month of August. The claim was made in a 11-page PDF document entitled, “Union Membership Has Benefits, Why Should I Remain In FEA, MEA, NEA?” Page 3 of the document states, “FSTDIP (Formerly Sick Bank)”: “MEA legal has confirmed...

A Tulsa, Okla.,-based plumbers and pipe welders union is clearly flush with cash, as a dozen of their top officials made more than $200,000 last year, federal records show. Plumbers AFL-CIO Local Union 798 paid business manager Daniel Hendrix $280,000 and financial secretary/treasurer Wade Pilgreen $272,000 in fiscal 2013, according to disclosures the union filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. ... Hendrix said his pipe fitters make about $50 an hour and work at least a 60-hour a week plus expenses, and the union staff is compensated at a similar rate for their roughly 80-hour work weeks. A person...