Free Republic

Although his real employer is a private organization – the Michigan Education Association – Steve Cook continues to be considered a Lansing public school employee for purposes of “spiking” his eventual payout from the state-run school pension system. The MEA is the state's largest teachers union, and Cook, its president, will eventually receive pension benefits that are based on his six-figure union salary rather than the modest pay he received years ago while employed as a classroom paraprofessional. Defenders of the deal argue that taxpayers shouldn’t be concerned because the MEA reimburses the school district for the money it contributes...

Labor unions negotiate higher wages and better benefits for union members. That’s fine – that’s their purpose and it’s why some people choose to join unions and pay union dues. The unions have to perform a delicate balancing act. If they don’t push for better wages and benefits for their members, then workers will have less of an incentive to join unions. But, as unions attain better wages and benefits for their workers, non-union labor starts to look much more attractive to employers and so employers will tend to prefer to hire non-union labor. If union labor is more productive...

You’d think Wisconsin Republicans would reward themselves with some rest after pulling off—via a great deal of misdirection from Scott Walker—the enactment of a southern-style “right to work” law banning union shop agreements reached via voluntary free-market contract negotiations. But no: as The Nation’s Moshe Marvit explains, Badger State GOPers are back with a bill to revoke the right to a day off after seven days of labor. The new bill, which is being sponsored by Republican Van Wanggaard in the State Senate alongside [Rep. Mark] Born in the Assembly, would add a provision to the “day of rest” law...

LaKiesha Allen is a 35-year old Lansing school secretary who pays the Michigan Education Association $38 a month in union dues from her $23,000 annual salary. Local union officials have threatened to get her fired if she stops paying those dues. So Allen was stunned to learn that MEA President Steve Cook, a man she has never met, swung a deal with her employer to parlay his six-figure union salary into a richer pension payout. Cook's payout will come from the same pension fund that Allen is counting on for her own retirement – a fund that is currently underfunded...

On the evening of June 5, 2012, after he had been declared the winner of a historic recall election, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker hugged his friend Republican National Committee chairman Reince Priebus and took a call from presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Amid sobbing supporters, Walker’s wife, Tonette, pulled him aside and suggested he begin his victory speech by saying, “This is what democracy looks like!” That phrase had been the rallying cry of Walker’s political opponents for months, as they marched around the state capitol in Madison and stalked the governor at his home. Following Walker’s announcement of his bold...

A long-time Hillary Clinton supporter who heads the nation’s second largest teachers’ union says she was aware of the former Secretary of State’s personal email address before the New York Times reported its existence two weeks ago. Randi Weingarten, a donor to Clinton’s previous presidential run and to the Super PAC backing her likely 2016 bid, said on Twitter over the weekend that the existence of the email account was not “secret.” Asked if she was aware of the personal email account, hdr22@clintonemail.com, before the Times published its scoop, Weingarten gave a one-word reply: “yes.” Weingarten did not respond to...

Ballots were mailed out this week to more than 15,000 San Bernardino, Calif., county, city and agency employees to vote in an election for Teamsters representation. The workers, who are members of the San Bernardino Public Employees Association (SBPEA), will have the opportunity to vote in favor of affiliating with the Teamsters. The workers reached out to the union seeking strong representation. “I’m voting yes for the Teamsters and I encourage my co-workers to do the same. We need improvements and strong representation in future negotiations,” said Luis Aguilar, an employee with the county’s Transitional Assistance Department, which administers public...

Steve Cook, the president of the state's largest teachers union, is also listed as the highest-paid employee of the Lansing School District. His annual salary is $20,000 more than that of the district’s superintendent. The deal between the Lansing School District and the Michigan Education Association allows Cook to remain a member of the state’s pension system for school employees while working full-time as president of the private union. This lets him accrue pension benefits based on his $201,613 MEA salary, setting Cook up for a much higher post-retirement payout from the underfunded public school employees pension system. The Lansing...

Denver Public Schools had four times the number of administrators as any other large metro area districts last year, and salaries and benefits for those staffers are $22 million more than the next largest metro district, Colorado Department of Education figures show. The teachers’ union president reviewed the data Watchdog.org obtained and said the nearly $68 million paid to DPS administrators would be better spent on students. “We need to be talking about keeping dollars closer to classroom when it comes to public education,” said Henry Roman, president of the Denver Classroom Teachers Association. “Should they be putting the money...

In a sharp jab at Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, President Obama on Monday criticized Wisconsin's newly-signed law to prevent workers from being obliged to pay union dues as a "sustained, coordinated assault on unions, led by powerful interests and their allies in government." "I'm deeply disappointed that a new anti-worker law in Wisconsin will WEAKEN, rather than strengthen workers in the new economy," Obama said. "Wisconsin is a state built by labor, with a proud pro-worker past. So even as its governor claims victory over working Americans, I'd encourage him to try and score a victory for working Americans —...

One threatening letter to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker promised to attack his wife and “gut her like a deer.” Another talked about killing his sons: “I already follow them when they went to school.”Then there was the time the governor’s car was attacked by protesters who, as Walker recounts in his book, “surrounded the car and began beating on the windows and rocking the vehicle.” ....The John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, which keeps a trademark on the Profile in Courage Award, would, alas, be unlikely to give it to Walker, even though his actions in Wisconsin surely fit the award’s...

Last week I grabbed a cup of coffee and had a chat with Democratic National Committee member Jason Rae, one of a spate of Democrats vying to succeed Mike Tate as Chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. I met with Jason at his request, but rather than sit and interview him, he wanted to pick my brain about the DPW Chair race and the state of the Democratic Party here in Wisconsin. As I shared my thoughts on the DPW Chair race, I started by noting the many, many criticisms of the poor messaging efforts on the part of...

We are halfway there: On Friday, the state assembly of Wisconsin voted to make the state the 25th to pass right-to-work legislation, and Governor Scott Walker is expected to sign the bill with some satisfaction. That’s 25 down, 25 to go. (Our optimism is not so unanchored as to consider the sorry case of the District of Columbia.) Right-to-work laws end the practice of union bosses’ enriching their organizations through a legal variety of extortion under which all workers are required to pay the equivalent of union dues, whether they wish to be represented by a particular union or do...

"...Regardless of whether you’d characterize the right-to-work law as fanatical or not, it’s remarkable the extent to which Madison kept mum about its passage. Besides a few dozen Democratic legislators and a few hundred labor protesters the day before, the famously liberal city was placid as the conservative legislation rolled along. The liberals who have faced Walker have lost, and lost,and lost again,and progressive Wisconsinites’ stores of outrage seem,at least for the moment,to be exhausted.That’s not to suggest the left has given up. But Walker and the Republicans in the Legislature have more ideas they plan to advance,including cutting funding...

On the final day of legislative debate over a proposed Right to Work law in Wisconsin, union protesters proved once again they are unable to replicate the massive crowds generated during Wisconsin’s historic 2011 Act 10 debate. While unions attempted to hold an outside rally during the midday, which mustered about 300 people, the hour long outside rally completely failed to move inside the statehouse and support Wisconsin Assembly Democrats as they debated against the bill. While Assembly Democrats were able to draw debate out to 24 hours by using poetry, claims of racism, and references to Moses delivering the...

After debating all night, the Wisconsin Assembly passed a right-to-work bill Friday which is designed to end mandatory union membership in the state. The policy, which has passed in 24 states, outlaws forced union dues as a condition of employment. After a state version of the policy passed the Wisconsin Senate last week it was sent to the Assembly where representatives heard testimony from labor experts, union leaders and the public before voting 62-35 in favor of the legislation. Mark Mix, the president of the National Right to Work Committee, praised the Assembly for moving the legislation to Gov. Scott...

MADISON, Wisconsin—Scott Walker loves the haters. In recent years as Wisconsin has moved further to the right, the mild-mannered preacher’s son has become in the eyes of his opponents an icon of all that is evil—and he seems to relish it. On the stump, the governor is fond of talking up the fact that he’s “the No. 1 target in America of the labor unions and many others on the left,” and the hecklers that seem willing to follow him to the ends of the Earth give him a chance to flex his conservative muscles. They feed the perception that...

".....Economists and others who study the issue say it's too soon to draw conclusions from either state about what effect right-to-work is having.But that hasn't stopped proponents from pointing to job growth in Indiana, and detractors highlighting union membership slides in Michigan,as possible outcomes headed Wisconsin's way.Under right-to-work,private-sector businesses cannot enter labor contracts that require workers to pay union dues. Supporters say that it's about worker freedom and that right-to-work will make Wisconsin more attractive to businesses looking to move in or expand.But opponents say the goal is to destroy unions,which they argue will hurt the economy,lower wages and endanger...

Former Michigan AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney and Vincent Vernuccio, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, squared off Tuesday, Feb. 10, in a debate over Michigan’s right-to-work law. “Those who are behind it want to see unions weakened,” Gaffney asserted. “Right-to-work comes from the rise of the political right in this country and the conservative movement becoming more active.” “If that’s so, than why have we seen unions actually growing in some right-to-work states?” Vernuccio responded. The debate was sponsored by the Michigan Labor and Employment Relations Association. An audience of approximately 50 attended the event,...

Walker demonizes unions, the poor and voters of color in order to appeal to whites. Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s drive for an anti-labor “right to work” law covering private-sector workers is deeply rooted in the racism of the Deep South’s former slaveholding states. They are yet more evidence that he is following a template known as the Republican Party’s “Southern strategy,” which plays to white voters’ racial resentment, even though his budding presidential campaign is based in snow-encrusted Wisconsin. This emerging strategy is reminiscent of Richard Nixon’s original “Southern strategy” of 1968 and Ronald Reagan’s 1980 campaign kickoff event....