Free Republic

The two Republicans who broke ranks with their party and announced they would vote against education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos have received thousands of dollars from the nation's largest teachers union.Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R., Alaska) and Susan Collins (R., Maine) have each benefited from contributions from the National Education Association. Collins received $2,000 from the union in 2002 and 2008, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Murkowski, meanwhile, has received $23,500.The NEA represents 3 million members, making it the wealthiest and most influential union in the country. The NEA, along with other labor groups like the American Federation of Teachers, has waged a fierce campaign against...

Speaking at an event organized to oppose President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda in Washington, D.C. Thursday, American Federation of Teachers President Elizabeth “Liz” Davis said that Betsy DeVos, Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Education, is more frightening than the Ku Klux Klan. “Of course, you know that there are some scarier things that are coming up … one of them is Betsy DeVos,” Davis said. “That frightens me more than the Klan, because Betsy DeVos is a multi-mega millionaire who has managed to buy her way to a position of influence that could actually change the face of what we know...

For the past several years, the state’s largest teachers union has engaged in an ongoing public relations campaign that has distorted facts and promoted inaccuracies about Michigan’s public school system. Michigan Capitol Confidential has documented many of the inaccuracies over the past five years. The most dramatic case of the union’s not telling the truth was its claim that Gov. Rick Snyder had cut $1 billion from school budgets. In a 2013 Facebook post, MEA President Steve Cook wrote, “Shortly after taking office, one of Snyder’s bold initiatives to ‘reinvent Michigan’ was to cut over $1 billion from the education...

As part of its broader package of rules for the 115th Congress, the House of Representatives revived the Holman Rule, a provision that allows House members to propose amendments to spending bills that closely manage federal agencies. These "retrenchment" amendments can affect details down to individual federal salaries and the number of staff in an office. ... The restoration of the Holman Rule means merely that when it comes to firing a federal employee, the president's signature on an act of Congress can do it. It doesn't seem extraordinary that the heads of the federal government should be able to...

Mish ShedlockJanuary 7, 2017 In a major setback for organized labor, Kentucky passed right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. “Organized labor suffered its first major legislative setback due to the 2016 elections on Saturday, when Kentucky Republicans gave final approval to right-to-work legislation and repealed the state’s prevailing wage law. Both bills are expected to be signed into law by the governor, and will take effect immediately. Labor leaders were equally troubled by the legislature’s move to gut the state’s prevailing wage law. Such laws require that employers pay certain minimum wages on work funded by public...

As the latest legislative session came to a close, Michigan House Republicans failed to put a stop to two union schemes that are ripping off taxpayers. It is bizarre that, despite having a huge majority, the GOP continues to allow unions to misspend tax dollars for the sole purpose of enriching their officials. Earlier this year, the state Senate passed two bills ending these special union deals. Senate Bill 279 dealt with union pension spiking schemes, in which the state’s largest union teamed up with school districts to pretend its officials are still working for schools when they really are...

Four years after Michigan’s right-to-work law was passed, the state’s largest teachers union appears to be taking a different response to the fact that school employees no longer have to pay union dues or fees. The Michigan Education Association has significantly cut back the amount it spends on collection agencies sent after school employees who didn’t pay dues. It has also created a new high-paying position — a director of membership engagement — according to documents filed with the federal government. Attempts to engage school employees who can no longer be legally compelled to pay dues would make sense considering...

Baltimore City’s Police Union is sounding the alarm because they say the department is in crisis due to the fact that it has too few officers. According to a new report, there are more than 100 fewer Baltimore City PD officers than last year, with the union saying this poses a safety concern as officers are being overworked. The police union president calls the situation “dire.” ... You don’t have enough police officers to patrol the streets safely protecting themselves, much less protecting the citizens of Baltimore,” said Lt. Ryan. Baltimore ended last year with the second highest number of...

A top official at the state’s largest teachers union has received another substantial raise, his second in three years. Despite plunging membership at the Michigan Education Association, Secretary-Treasurer Rick Trainor was given a nearly $20,000 pay raise in 2016. Trainor’s salary was $171,206 in 2016, up from $151,675 in 2015 — a 12.8 percent raise, according to documents filed with the U.S. Department of Labor. Trainor took a 44 percent raise between 2013 and 2014, from $109,911 to $158,296. MEA Secretary-Treasurer Rick Trainor The union official is now collecting $61,295 more each year than he did in 2013. (The average...

A recent Michigan Court of Appeals decision held that the Taylor public school district and teachers union colluded to cut employee pay to benefit the union itself, not its members. As Michigan Capitol Confidential previously reported, the court wrote that the Taylor Federation of Teachers “took deliberate action, in entering into the union security agreement to its own financial advantage,” and that in going along, the school district acted with “hostility” toward employees. The agreement required employees to pay union dues for another 10 years, in spite of a new Michigan right-to-work law that bans making union dues a condition...

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) is planning to cut 30 percent of its budget by Jan. 1, 2018, the end of President-elect Donald Trump's first year in office. “Because the far right will control all three branches of the federal government, we will face serious threats to the ability of working people to join together in unions,” President Mary Kay Henry wrote in an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg Businessweek.

A group of Service Employees International Union members who work for the Taylor school district is being sued by their union local over the ownership of a banquet hall. The lawsuit comes after the members petitioned to dissolve a decade-old merger between the SEIU’s Taylor and Lansing affiliates. The lawsuit asks for control of a banquet hall the Taylor union local owned before the 2005 merger. Because of the merger, SEIU Local 517M of Lansing is technically suing seven of its own members for ownership of the property. The Taylor hall was built using money collected from fundraisers, not union...

A Texas district judge recently ruled the Service Employees International Union has no grounds to request a retrial following a court order directing the Chicago-based union to pay Professional Janitorial Services Houston $7.8 million. . . . Harris County District Judge Erin Lunceford also instructed the SEIU to turn over nearly 10 years of financial records and other information before the court determines whether PJS can seize the union’s assets.

Does a Trump presidency mean public employees across the country will be freed from being forced to pay government unions against their will? With one seat on the Supreme Court already vacant and more expected to open up in the next few years as aging justices retire, President-elect Trump — already dubbed the "Nominator-in-Chief" — has great power to shape the future of public sector unionization. If Trump nominates one of the roughly two dozen people he pledged to consider to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia, it's likely public employees nationwide would earn freedom from being forced to support...

Ohio Senate candidate Ted Strickland joked about the death of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia on Monday, saying it came "at a good time" for union workers since he was unable to cast the deciding vote in a March case that ended up in a 4-4 deadlock. ... Strickland made the remarks in Cleveland, telling AFL-CIO members that Scalia's death "saved labor" from a terrible decision in the case, which could have dealt a blow to the ability of public-sector unions to collect fees from those who decide against joining the union and pay for collective bargaining activities. ... the...

Philadelphia transit employees will meet with city officials to negotiate a new contract as the Nov. 1 strike deadline looms, and the prospects of a full walk-out become a very real possibility. The contract between workers and the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transport Authority (SEPTA) expires at midnight Oct. 31 (Halloween). The two sides have been in talks for months in order to work out the details of a deal. A major strike could effect voters on Election Day if the walkout runs past Nov. 8.

The Michigan Education Association recently released a survey of some of its membership. Much of it isn’t surprising — like other workers, teachers want to make more money and don’t like how they are evaluated. But one key question is about retirement and shows that school employees don’t feel secure with the current teacher pension system. The survey asks: “Do you feel that you’ll be able to comfortably retire?” Only 12.2 percent answered “yes,” while 52.2 percent said “no,” and 35.6 percent were unsure. There is reason to be concerned. The teacher pension system, MPSERS, has nearly $27 billion in...

Michigan’s largest teachers union claimed an Algonac public school teacher's pay was so low he was eligible for charitable housing assistance, even though he had 16 years of experience. But this teacher’s plight appears to be due to the union’s failure to enforce contract language it negotiated, which could have increased his annual salary as much as $15,000. The Michigan Education Association highlighted Algonac teacher Jeff Smith in a story on its website. The union said that Smith had an “untenable financial situation” after 16 years of teaching and still lived in “cramped one-bedroom duplex” with his sons. MEA President...

It's been months since the passing of conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, but Democrats are still seemingly celebrating his death because it paves the way for their political purposes. At The Atlantic’s Washington Ideas Forum on Thursday, Labor Secretary Tom Perez casually noted that Scalia's death helped pave the way for union membership across the country. ... Unfortunately, Perez's comments are not isolated. In August, Ohio Senate Candidate Ted Strickland actually said “the death of Scalia saved labor” at an AFL-CIO event.

The Pennsylvania company that makes marshmallow Peeps as well as Mike and Ike candies has filed a federal lawsuit claiming a workers' strike is illegal. Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union Local 6 workers walked off the job Sept. 7. The lawsuit filed Wednesday by Just Born Quality Confections says that violates a no-strike provision of a contract that expired June 18. The company says the no-strike clause was still in effect until Sept. 18 under a contract extension.