Free Republic

When the opportunity came to give testimony on a “Steve Cook” bill prohibiting public school pension spiking scheme benefiting its current and past two presidents, the Michigan Education Association remained silent. The state's largest teachers union chose not to testify during a legislative hearing on a bill forestalling such schemes in the future. The hearing also considered a second bill closing the door on the practice of paying school and government employees for time spent doing union business. At the same hearing, however, the state’s other major teachers union, a branch of the American Federation of Teachers, talked and talked...

Government and public school employees in Michigan have the legal right to resign from a union whenever they choose to do so. That ruling, handed down by Administrative Law Judge Julia C. Stern in September of 2014, is now poised to be unanimously upheld by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, the agency responsible for labor law administration and dispute resolution in this state. On Tuesday, MERC voted to pursue adoption of Stern’s finding that the Michigan Education Association’s so-called August window, which limits when school employees can withdraw from the union to one month each year, violates the state’s right-to-work...

Based on his employee evaluations, Bob Mroczek is the type of person you want in the classroom with students. As a paraprofessional, Mroczek’s evaluation includes the following comments from teachers: “Wonderful with the students! Willing to do whatever asked! Shows a positive attitude and is very helpful!” “I don’t care where you schedule Bob. Just don’t take him from my class.” “Can you clone Bob?” His supervisor concluded an evaluation: “Clearly, Mr. Mroczek’s contributions to H.H. Dow [High School] are recognized by students and colleagues. We hope he is able to return to the role of paraprofessional next year even...

Clark County management has informed its largest union that employees won’t receive salary or benefit increases anytime soon, citing a new state law and contending that the contract between the county and Service Employees International Union Local 1107 has expired. The freeze is expected to end in August or early September, when the county expects to have a new contract in place with the union. The county and union go to arbitration on July 1. Both sides had already planned to go to arbitration before a new state law was passed, after two years of fruitless negotiations for a new...

Thousands of Chicago Teachers Union members and their supporters blocked a downtown stretch of LaSalle Street early Tuesday evening, staging a show of force amid an intensifying contract battle.. "You have to remember that what you're fighting for is not just a fair contract, it is the history of fair contracts," CTU President Karen Lewis told supporters gathered outside the Thompson Center. "And if we have a chance, this is it. This is the time where you have to stand up and tell 'em all, 'No, we're not going to take that.' " **SNIP** Chicago Public Schools says it is...

Scott Walker’s war on Wisconsin’s public colleges will result in lower quality and higher debt for students and families, which is precisely what his right wing political patrons at the Bradley Foundation have been planning for decades. Wisconsin students have experienced first hand Scott Walker’s assault on public higher education over the last four years. Double-digit tuition increases and historic, unprecedented budget cuts have resulted in declining enrollment, rising costs, and exploding student loan debt for millions of Wisconsin families. The groundwork for Walker’s crusade against public higher education in Wisconsin was first being laid as Walker began his political...

A couple of weeks ago, we reported that the war waged by the Jeffco teachers union against school district staff, particularly those in the communications office, was the most vitriolic in history. We couldn’t figure out why the union would be such abusive bullies to staff members – not even elected officials. And, now, the reason is clear. Documents recently uncovered show that the teachers union and other school staff were using the Jeffco Schools communications department as a de facto campaign headquarters – and had been since at least 2003 (see last picture of memo). With a contentious election...

“Bad news always seems to drop on Fridays,” Dave Vanness, an Associate Professor at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, wrote on a blog which appeared on the blogroll that the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) maintains. “Friday May 29, 2015 was a particularly bad news day for Wisconsin and for all of us who believe in academic freedom,” he avers. “On that day, Joint Finance Committee of the State of Wisconsin passed Omnibus Motion #521 on a 12-4 party-line vote, including a $250 million biennium budget cut to UW System, major changes to shared governance (a huge topic...

As part of the negotiations to get Proposal 1 on the May 5 ballot, Gov. Rick Snyder reportedly promised to veto a potential repeal of the state's “prevailing wage” law. This law prohibits awarding government construction contracts to the lowest bidder, unless the contractor pays the equivalent of union wages that often exceed market rates. Studies have shown that this adds hundreds of millions of dollars annually to the cost of government infrastructure projects, including school construction and road repairs. Snyder has not denied those reports, and even though voters turned down the proposed sales tax hike in May, there...

Hillary Rodham Clinton told the president of the National Education Association that she would listen to teachers if elected president, a simple promise Monday that impressed the president of the nation’s largest labor union. “She used the most important word that I was personally looking for, the word ‘listen’,” said Lily Eskelsen Garcia, president of the NEA, which represents mostly K-12 teachers and paraprofessionals and has 3 million members. Garcia met privately with Clinton, a Democrat who is running for president, at NEA headquarters as part of the union’s endorsement process for the 2016 campaign. The NEA has invited both...

Here’s how the scam works: Near the end of each academic year, APSCUF informs their members that it miraculously found an extra $25 per person in dues that it doesn’t need. The union then portrays itself as an honest broker and offers the money back as a “rebate.” The rebate form gives members three options for their $25: 1. Let the union keep it; 2. Donate it to APSCUF’s political action committee; or 3. Have it sent back to them. Presenting this “found” money with these options and urging members to donate to APSCUF’s PAC has proven extraordinarily effective —...

Ballot initiative threatens state worker retirement security A coalition of anti-union, anti-public employee groups, including the National Right to Work Committee, launched their latest attack against public employee pensions and the hard-earned retirement security of state workers. Their misleading campaign, called the “Voter Empowerment Act of 2016,” would undermine collective bargaining and require voter approval for changes to pensions and other retirement benefits, including medical insurance. “This dangerous initiative is a real threat to the financial security of our members and all public employees,” said Yvonne R. Walker, Local 1000 president. “It is more important than ever to become a...

Last year when SEIU Healthcare Michigan reported losing more than 80 percent of its members, the story garnered headlines nationally. This year, the union known principally for Michigan’s health care “dues skim,” has failed to file the annual financial disclosure report required by the federal government. “All labor organizations are required to file an LM report, if their receipts are $250,000 or more, within 90 days of the end of their fiscal year,” said Matthew Perry, an investigator with the regional field office of the Office of Labor-Management Standards, a part of the U.S. Department of Labor. “For SEIU Healthcare...

A Dec. 16, 2014 headline on the Michigan Education Association website reads: "MI taxpayers helping charter school management companies make big profits." It was one of a series of posts by the state's largest teachers union attacking the mostly non-union charter schools — which are competing against unionized conventional public schools, and so reducing the number of dues-paying MEA members. In this case the line of attack was that no Michigan laws prevent “for-profit” charter school operators “from using public money to grow their profits.” The MEA has consistently criticized charter schools, insinuating that profits and making money in public...

The deck could soon be stacked in favor of repealing Michigan’s prevailing wage law. On Tuesday, the Board of State Canvassers approved language for a citizen initiative to repeal the law, which the Anderson Economic Group notes costs taxpayers more than $224 million annually extra for schools and more for local governments and roads. Gov. Rick Snyder reportedly pledged not to sign a prevailing wage repeal as part of the bargain he made to garner enough legislative votes to put the now-defunct Proposal 1 on the May ballot. A citizen initiative to repeal the prevailing wage would take the governor...

State of Michigan employees took an average of 10.7 days of sick leave during the 2014 fiscal year, according to an annual report. Those 10.7 sick days are in addition to 18 days of vacation time the average state employee used. ForTheRecord says: According to the most recent available U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures, private sector workers took on average 2 to 5 sick days a year in 2009. Leisure and hospitality and construction workers took 2 sick days a year on average while education and health services workers took up to 5 sick days a year on average.

First of a Three-Part Series Wouldn’t you like to have a job where you get paid to slack off, and no matter what, have a powerful authority to back you up, winning battles to preserve your salary, benefits, and your every demand if your boss tries to fire you? It’s a fact of life for many government workers. A dive into government labor fights at the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA) reveals a nasty secret—the great lengths federal unions go to protect government slackers, at your expense. Cases at the FLRA, a quasi-judicial body that oversees disputes between federal agencies...

The debate has America split—literally. With Wisconsin's adoption of so-called right-to-work legislation earlier this year, 25 states now prohibit mandatory union dues, and with legislation being pushed in several more states, the right-to-work movement is talking about a national "tipping point." Under right-to-work legislation, no person can be compelled, as a condition of employment, to join or not to join a labor union or pay dues. Republican legislators in Missouri passed a right-to-work measure this month, but Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon has said he will veto the bill. A bill almost passed in New Mexico, and backers are pushing similar...

This has to be the month's top entry in the "Just when you think you've seen it all" category — and it will be more than a little interesting to see how the nation's press handles it. As the Associated Press reported a week ago, the City Council in Los Angeles, by a vote of 14-1, ordered the drafting of a law mandating a citywide minimum wage of $15 per hour by 2020, noting that "the support of Mayor Eric Garcetti virtually guarantee its eventual adoption." Now that it's almost a done deal, labor unions whose members earn less want...

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces. The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020. For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business...