Labor unions clearly played an important historical role in improving the training and skill development of workers and ending abusive labor practices. In more recent years, however, the value they provide for workers has been called into question even by liberal stalwarts like former U.S. Senator and presidential candidate George McGovern. He has criticized unions for pursuing demands that can bankrupt companies and leave their workers out of jobs. Michigan, the historical center of union power, is the leading state for this sort of anti-worker union overreach.
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Sept. 15, 2010
The Michigan House of Representatives is likely to vote on Senate Bill 1226 within days. Your State Representative needs to hear from taxpayers like you today to stop public employee union bosses from sabotaging the balanced budget deal.

SB 1226 is a long overdue, extremely modest reform of out of control unionized state employee benefit costs. The bill would encourage more state workers to retire by sweetening their pension benefits, while requiring remaining state workers to contribute a mere 3 percent of their salary to the retiree healthcare fund.

Not only is liberal Gov. Granholm pushing for this, the mighty teachers unions were forced to accept a similar deal earlier this year. But the public employee unions are very close to killing this very modest attempt to bring state worker benefits more in line with the private sector – and in the process killing the balanced budget deal that contains no tax hikes. Public employee union bosses would rather have taxes raised or balance the budget by firing police and firefighters across the state.

E-mails from just two or three constituents can be more influential than all the union lobbyists who are pressuring your legislator. Take action by clicking here to write your State Representative.

Lansing State Journal — Alan Miller and Kathleen Lavey — March 7, 2010

Lansing teachers got a half-percent pay increase last fall and took a hit on health care to help the cash-strapped school district. After two years without a contract, Leslie teachers settled last fall for a 50 percent cut in so-called step increases, or annual raises for increasing seniority. And some staffers and officials of the Michigan Education Association got pay boosts last year ranging from 6.8 percent for the mailroom coordinator to nearly 15 percent for President Iris Salters.

At a time when local teachers’ unions are struggling to maintain salary and benefits and the union’s statewide membership is declining, many MEA negotiators and executive director Luigi Battaglieri also got hefty pay increases.

That’s the cost of doing business, said Doug Pratt, MEA director of communications. “Do we compensate our officers well? Do we compensate our managers well? Yes,” he said. “We believe in attracting and recruiting the best possible candidates.” Pratt said the size of pay increases for some staffers can be attributed to a deferred-compensation deal union employees agreed to several years ago.

“They’re one of the most powerful teachers’ unions in the country, and that’s probably what those salaries tell you,” said Michael Van Beek, director of education policy for the Mackinac Center, a conservative Midland-based think tank. He said the MEA, like the United Auto Workers or any other union, is responsible for its members’ best interests. But there’s a key difference. Teachers, whose dues fund the union, are paid with public money. Teachers pay a maximum of $620 a year in MEA dues as well as a maximum of $158 a year to the National Education Association.

Van Beek points out the MEA often lobbies against education reform. That’s because many reforms that would save money eliminate union jobs or benefits for workers. “When it comes to reforms, they’re often on the opposite side of the reforms,” Van Beek said. “When it comes to fiscal savings, they’re often on the opposite of that, too.”

Expenses up Overall, MEA salary expenses are increasing.
For the 2005-06 fiscal year, the average salary for each of the 346 MEA employees was $75,308. By 2008-09, 343 employees earned an average of $89,612 each – an increase of nearly 19 percent. Salters was paid $239,105 in fiscal year 2008-09, the most recent year for which figures are available on documents submitted to the U.S. Department of Labor. That’s up from $208,298 in 2007-08.

Salters is one of three officers approved by the union’s board of directors. Others are Vice President Steven Cook, who made $195,024, and secretary- treasurer Margaret McClellan, who was paid $147,770. Executive director Luigi Battaglieri, a hired administrator, earned $215,326. Efforts to interview Salters were unsuccessful.

“The question of compensation is always a difficult one. What is the right amount?” said Richard Block, professor of labor and industrial relations at Michigan State University. “Levels of compensation are a function of the responsibility of the person, the culture of the organization as well as what other local officials are getting.”

Neighboring unions
MEA officials’ salaries are higher than those of other public unions in Michigan and of state education associations in neighboring states, such as Illinois and Ohio. For example:
• Patricia Front-Brooks, president of the Ohio Education Association, last year received less than a 1 percent raise, from $172,574 to $173,802.
• Kenneth Swanson, president of the Illinois Education Association, last year got a salary increase of 5.7 percent. His pay went from $171,296 to $181,044.
• Albert Garrett, president of AFSCME Council 25, which represents more than 100,000 workers in Michigan, took a pay cut. His salary was reduced by almost 1 percent from $156,721 to $155,237.

At the MEA, compensation is approved by its 82- member board, which in turn represents the membership. Members nominate candidates for the board, which are elected by the membership. “It may not bother the membership, and the membership is paying the bills, so why should it bother us?” Block said. The average pay raise at the MEA in 2009 was more than 7 percent. In 2007, average salaries increased by more than 9 percent.

Such raises year after year have led to many MEA positions with salaries much higher than the teachers the MEA represents, and better than comparable positions elsewhere. Some administrative assistants at the MEA earn more than $80,000 a year. One payroll clerk earned more than $55,000 last year, and the union’s mailroom coordinator earned more than $64,000.

Represented by union
Pratt said the majority of MEA employees are represented by a staff union, separate from the MEA, and collectively bargain for wages. “We use collective bargaining to come to what they accept as fair, competitive wages for the market,” he said. “Our membership agrees to that contract through their elected leadership.” As to the success seen by the negotiators for the staff, Pratt said, “Well, we train them.”

Jerry Swartz, president of the 1,000-strong Lansing Schools Education Association, said he has a high degree of confidence in MEA leaders and staff. “There is not a disconnect between the MEA staff and elected leaders and the general membership,” he said. “We have strong, reactive, assertive, thoughtful leadership in our state association and we have an excellent staff who work very hard, and the direct output of that is good working environments and good learning environments for kids.”

Nov. 15, 2009
This article is a must read. It’s a prime example of how public sector unions are preventing reform and the only solution they want is increased taxes on Michigan workers. Union bosses operate on forced union dues. Union members are good people that are forced by state law to fund union activities. Unions have lost their way. It’s time they compete for members like every other private organization. Worker freedom is a must. Stop compulsory union dues. This is the only way to stop corrupt, money-hungry union bosses.

Gov’s tax hike ploy is reckless    –    by NOLAN FINLEY
There’s something Gov. Jennifer Granholm isn’t mentioning as she barnstorms the state to leverage the deep cuts she orchestrated in school funding into the sales tax hike she’s long coveted.

The governor isn’t telling angry and fearful parents that there’s at least $1 billion, and perhaps more than $2 billion, in education money to be had if she’d stop obsessing over the fact that there’s still a few dollars left in our wallets she hasn’t taxed.

“She’s absolutely looking for taxes and ignoring the low hanging fruit that could be had from reform if she had the leadership to pursue it,” says Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, who’s tired of Granholm blaming him for the cuts.

Certainly, higher taxes are one way of making up the education shortfall. But that seems heartless in a state where unemployment is rising, incomes are falling and folks are already having trouble paying the monthly mortgage. Particularly when there are other sources of revenue.

The most promising pool of money lies in the Obama administration’s Race for the Top school improvement program. Michigan is eligible for up to $600 million from the project, which will reward states for embracing school reform.

But to be eligible, Michigan must make some changes. Specifically, it must start using student achievement scores to evaluate teacher performance, make it easier for non-teachers with specialized skills to get into classrooms, and ease restrictions on charter schools. Nothing radical, yet still the Michigan Education Association is using its influence in Lansing to put on the kibosh.

House Speaker Andy Dillon has proposed placing all public employees into a single health insurance pool to save, he says, $900 million. But that’s going nowhere, again because of the MEA’s opposition and Granholm’s indifference. It’s a reform that wouldn’t cost a single teacher job.

And as an added benefit it would make obsolete the MEA’s insurance affiliate, MESSA. MESSA is sitting on an estimated $450 million reserve, money skimmed from the school districts it serves. It would be worth exploring whether the districts would have a claim on the money if MESSA was reformed out of business.

Teacher benefits are also ripe for reform. Binging the teacher benefit package down to the national average would free up $1 billion. Teachers see any reform as balancing the budget on their backs. But their backs ought to be good and limber, since taxpayers are still paying for massages for teachers covered by the best MESSA plans.

Granholm won’t talk about reform as a budget balancing tool because if residents knew there were other ways to erase the school deficit, it would be tougher to extort them for a broader sales tax.

Give Bishop the last word, since he’s been so meanly treated by the governor in recent weeks: “What she’s doing is calculated, shameless and reckless.” Well said.                         –     Nolan Finley is editorial page editor of The Detroit News.

Nov. 14, 2009
That is the headline from today’s Detroit News. Another example of union bosses standing in the way of real reform. Read the story here at http://tinyurl.com/yf73ew4. Union bosses will stop at nothing to pillage the good people of this state. Union bosses pretend that unions are immune from economic downturns and will threaten & intimidate politicians into giving into their will.

The most outrageous part of this storyline is that union bosses are able to operate on forced union dues. Workers have no choice but to support this behavior. Workers deserve the freedom to say they have had enough. Unfortunately today if a worker refuses to pay the union he will lose his job because state law protects unions from competing for members. State law requires every worker in a union shop to belong to a union. Imagine that too keep your job you have to pay off a private 3rd party organization i.e. the union. That is just wrong and un-American.

Oct. 8, 2009
Teachers bleed Michigan’s budget dry, Part Two
by Nolan Finley, Detroit News

I used to think the union auto worker was the poster child for Michigan’s entitlement culture. But when it comes to a presumption of privilege, the United Auto Workers union isn’t even on the same planet as the Michigan Education Association.

I’ve been bombarded all week by public school teachers incensed and offended that I suggested on Sunday that policymakers might spare schoolchildren the impact of a proposed $218 per pupil cut in state aid by trimming that amount from teacher benefits, which nudge toward $25,000 a year. They found the prospect of giving up less than 1% of their health care and pension packages too repulsive to even think about.

Responses ranged from, “I committed my life to my district with the promise of a certain salary/benefits structure. Breaking that promise to me would be immoral,” to “teachers deserve to maintain what they’ve sacrificed to keep over the decades,” to “Read your article, you fascist tool. Get a gun, exercise the Second Amendment and blow your (bleeping) fascist brains out, you (bleep).” The last one, obviously, from a language arts teacher.

Look around, folks. Try to find other workers in Michigan who’ve been spared sacrifice in this collapsing economy. They’ve all worked hard for their pay and benefits, they all deserve them, and they’ve all had to give up part of them to keep their employers afloat. Teaching is a difficult and important job, but not exclusively so. Lots of people in Michigan work in difficult and important jobs today, but for less money than they were a few years ago. And a lot fewer have jobs. Take a good look at those photos of the 50,000 Detroiters who jammed Cobo Wednesday looking for relief, and see if you still feel sorry for yourselves.

Teachers are instinctively protective of the fat packages they negotiated when times were high, just as auto workers were. Ultimately, the MEA will come to the same altar as did the UAW. This year’s proposal for the $218-per-pupil state aid cut may be fought back, but the deficit will return stronger next year. If nothing changes, districts will face cuts of $400 to $700 a pupil. That will push many into insolvency.

State school Superintendent Mike Flanagan is warning both school districts and teachers to get in front of the crisis. He’s got a hammer. He can withhold state payments from troubled districts that don’t craft deficit reduction plans that include trims in benefit costs. He says he will.

“They (teachers) have to wake up to the fact that the status quo is unsustainable,” Flanagan says. “If they don’t agree to some changes in benefits now, they’ll find themselves in a much worse situation later.”

Districts may also choose bankruptcy, as Robert Bobb has threatened to do in Detroit, to obliterate budget-busting contracts.

The MEA is betting on its political clout. It’s leading the attack on House Speaker Andy Dillon’s plan to group all public employees, including teachers, into a single pool to save up to $900 million. Dillon isn’t talking about benefit cuts, just changing the way they’re administered. And yet the MEA has declared war, mostly because the plan threatens its own lucrative insurance franchise.

Learn from the UAW, teachers. You face an existential threat every bit as large as the one that washed over auto workers. Make the same mistake as they did in denying the inevitable, and you’ll share their fate.

Aug. 22, 2009
MEA cooks health-coverage numbers to the boiling point    –    by Julie Mack, Kalamazoo Gazette

Call me naive. When an institution like the Michigan Education Association issues a report, I assume it’s an honest attempt at marshaling the facts. OK, maybe there’ll be some massaging of the data to make a point. But I figure credible organizations will go only so far in cooking the numbers.

So I’m truly flummoxed by the MEA’s new report that purports to show that Michigan schools spend less per employee than private companies for health insurance. The MEA didn’t just cook the numbers in this report. They made the pot boil over.

Did they think nobody would notice? That nobody would actually look at the footnotes to see how they did their analysis? That nobody would call them out? I noticed. I read the footnotes. I’m calling them out.

The corker is that the MEA touts the report, titled “Wrong Diagnosis — Wrong Cure,” as a response to the “misinformation and faulty data” used by proponents of creating a statewide insurance plan that would include public school employees. The MEA has its prize dog in this fight: A majority of Michigan teachers are currently insured by MESSA, an affiliate of the union, and the MEA clearly doesn’t want to lose that business.

The report was written by Arch Lewis, an MEA research analyst. An MEA press release says the analysis “dramatically changes the debate on public employee health care with this single fact: Michigan schools spend less per employee than private companies for health insurance.”

But to reach that conclusion, Lewis didn’t compare apples to oranges. He compared apples to Campbell’s Select Harvest Light Italian-Style Vegetable Soup.

Lewis claims that Michigan’s public schools pay an average of $8,311 per employee for health benefits, compared to $13,255 in the private sector.

Lewis obtained the first number by dividing total health-insurance costs for Michigan schools, about $1.7 billion, by the number of full-time-equivalent employees whom he estimates are eligible for insurance. The private-sector figure comes from a 2008 report by the Kaiser Family Foundation and represents the Midwest average premium for family coverage in an employee-sponsored, preferred-provider plan.

Talk about a disingenuous comparison:

*The school-employee average subtracts out employee contributions; the Midwest average includes the employee share.
*The school-employee average includes single workers; the Midwest average is for family coverage only, which is more than twice the cost of covering a single worker.
*The first number spreads the costs among all eligible employees, including those who don’t participate in a school insurance plan; the second number is for covered workers only.

Ignoring just one of those differences skews the analysis. Ignoring all three renders it essentially meaningless.

Consider Vicksburg Community Schools, where 35 percent of eligible employees don’t participate in their insurance plan, 45 percent of participants don’t require family coverage, and employees subsidize a substantial part of the premium costs.

Using Lewis’ methodology of dividing the district’s health-insurance costs by the number of employees, Vicksburg averages about $6,000 per worker. Yet Vicksburg’s per-employee premium for family coverage — the number directly comparable to the $13,255 private-sector figure cited by Lewis — was $17,308 in 2008, or 31 percent higher than that Midwest average.

The report also contends that school-district costs for teacher health coverage run 20 percent below employer costs in the private sector. Lewis bases that contention on his average of $10,588 per teacher compared to his $13,255 Midwest benchmark. But that Midwest figure includes what employees as well as employers pay.

A more honest comparison: Midwest employers contributed an average of $10,006 in 2008 towards a preferred-provider family plan, according to Kaiser. So, if Michigan school districts contributed an average of $10,588 per teacher to health-care coverage, teachers received at least a 6 percent higher insurance subsidy than private-sector workers.

But the real subsidy for teachers receiving coverage was actually much larger, since not all teachers required family coverage and not all used school insurance.

Lewis and MEA spokesman Kerry Birmingham said Friday that they stand by their analysis. And perhaps it’s just coincidence that the report, which had been prominently displayed on the MEA Web site for days, disappeared from the home page Friday afternoon after Lewis and Birmingham talked to the Gazette.

Lewis said that the real point of the report is that insurance for Michigan school employees is “not out of line with the private sector.”

Lewis said he had to work with the numbers available. “I’m not going to argue with you that it’s a precise comparison,” Lewis told the Gazette. “Is it imperfect? Probably.”

Actually, Lewis could have done a precise comparison had he chosen to: All he had to do was ask MESSA for its average cost of a family-plan premium and compare that to averages reported by Kaiser. But that would have led to a much different conclusion. Consider that for this school year, Vicksburg went to the least-expensive health plan they could buy through MESSA. The cost: $14,898 per employee for family coverage, 15 percent above that Midwest private-sector average.

“They’re manipulating the data to tell the story they want to tell,” Vicksburg Assistant Superintendent Stephen Goss said about the MEA report.

Other school officials I asked about the report seemed more resigned than outraged. “It’s the way the MEA does business nowadays,” one said.

That’s an awfully cynical view, one that doesn’t reflect well on an organization that represents a noble and important profession.

It’s especially disappointing that this kind of tactic comes from educators, the people we depend on to teach us truth. It’s a good thing my teachers gave me the skills to see through this report.

Julie Mack’s opinion appears Saturday in the Kalamazoo Gazette and an online column appears during the week. She can be reached at (269) 388-8578 or at jmack@kalamazoogazette.com.

Feb. 25, 2009
A non-binding resolution has been introduced in the House calling on Congress to enact the “Employee Free Choice Act” (EFCA). That sounds like a good thing, but in fact the “Card Check” legislation, as it is also known, would deny the right of an employee to vote on a private ballot whether s/he would want a collective bargaining contract in his or her place of employment. Currently, private ballots are used to decide whether a shop is represented by a union.

House Resolution 10 was discharged from the Labor Committee, without a hearing in committee, and sent directly to the House floor for a vote. It could be taken up any day. Incidentally, a resolution was also introduced in the Senate to oppose the Card Check legislation. Senate Resolution 16 passed the Senate on February 19, along party lines.

It would be unfortunate if the House sent a message to Congress that employees should be denied the right to decide whether they want union representation with a secret ballot. The EFCA would allow for intimidation to take place on the shop floor or even in the employee’s home when the union rep. comes to visit. This bill is so radical that even that staunch pro-labor liberal, former US Senator George McGovern staunchly opposes it. You can learn more at www.EmployeeFreedom.org.