Posts tagged LM-2
FEA: Where Do Your Union Dues Go? A LOOK AT Florida Education Association SPENDING 2019 – 2021
March 20, 2023 // Spending on political activities and lobbying remained relatively steady over the past three years. In 2021, the union spent $5.3 million on political activities and lobbying. About $800,000 of this went to employees and officers as compensation for their political activity and lobbying efforts. Other expenditures went to public affairs advertising ($2.7 million), the union’s “Fund Our Future” project ($672,715), and to outside firms for lobbying ($119,993) including $50,000 to Florida Pastors for Children for state legislative issue advocacy. The union also gave $567,000 to the FEA Advocacy Fund, the FEA’s political arm.
Florida labor reforms have not strengthened unions
January 5, 2023 // In other words, Florida’s largest teachers union is down more than 9,000 members since 2019, or 6.3%. The labor reforms Florida is pursuing are good for teachers and other workers. Nobody should be forced to be represented by a political organization they oppose — so the Workplace Democracy Act, requiring unions to be recertified regularly, makes sense. And taxpayers should not be funding the withholding of money for political organizations — so Paycheck Protection to put an end to that is sound policy.
More Than 140,000 Michiganders Have Left Their Unions Since 2012
December 14, 2022 // Unions have lost more than 143,000 members since Michigan’s right-to-work law went into effect, according to analysis of state and federal reports from 15 major unions. Numbers compiled by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy found that there are 26.5% fewer people paying dues to the state’s largest unions today than there was in 2012. “As the new Legislature debates whether to repeal Michigan’s right-to-work law, they should wrestle with the fact that the law is overwhelmingly popular — supported by Michigan voters 3-to-1 — and that more than 143,000 people have decided their union wasn’t working for them,” said Jarrett Skorup, senior director of marketing and communications at the Mackinac Center. “Forcing many of these workers back into unions against their will is bad policy and a violation of their rights.”
Michigan teachers unions continue to shed members
December 9, 2022 // The latest report from the state’s largest education union shows that the Michigan Education Association shed 1,000 members since the previous year, continuing a trend. The number comes from the LM-2, a financial report the MEA and other labor unions must file with the U.S. government. According to the report, MEA’s revenue decreased to $84.2 million, and its membership stands at its lowest in at least 22 years. Michigan has a right-to-work law, which prevents unions from getting a worker fired for not paying union dues or fees. When the law was enacted in 2012, the MEA had 117,265 members. The number has dropped consistently in the last ten years, reaching to 79,839, a 31.9% decline.
Opinion: Paying unions: Recurring opt-in requirements protect public workers
August 31, 2022 // Much of the political spending is used to encourage and support ideologically aligned politicians in opposing badly needed reforms to public education such as addressing tenure policies, offering performance-based merit pay and alternatives to traditional public education like charter schools and tax-credit programs. A big chunk of those “dues and agency fees” also are used to advance controversial curriculum like critical race theory, divisive bathroom practices and abortion policies that go against the wishes of parents and communities.
THWARTING UNION’S THEFT OF VACATION TIME WAS NO SMALL MATTER
August 1, 2022 // What at first seemed to be insignificant ended up being very consequential indeed. The architects of this scheme knew the courts would have no sympathy. They had been caught and exposed for cheating nonmembers out of vacation time and violating their First Amendment Rights. So the unions chose instead to settle and restore the vacation time of this city Health Department worker and end this unlawful practice. This legal victory means that several union contracts in Ohio will have to be revised. And countless public employees across the state will have their vacation time returned to them.
Freedom Foundation: ‘Education union spent more money on political activities than worker representation’
June 15, 2022 // “It includes lobbying government officials, get-out-the-vote activities, and even internal targeting or messaging towards union members in getting them to try to vote a particular way,” said Maxford Nelsen, director of labor policy at the Freedom Foundation. “It’s a fairly broad range of activity that falls under the heading of political activities and lobbying and it is broader than just writing checks to candidates for office.” The tax form also revealed that the NEA spent more than $55 million on benefits for union officers. “By the time you get to the NEA headquarters, salaries for full-time staff working in the NEA headquarters are definitely far higher than most teachers are getting,” Nelsen told Legal Newsline. Juliette Fairley, Legal Newsline, Rebecca Pringle,
AFT: Where Do Your Union Dues Go?
June 10, 2022 // During its 2020-2021 fiscal year, AFT collected $196.7 million in dues from school employees, a $10 million increase from last year, despite having 13,390 fewer members. AFT members pay $235 each year in union dues. AFT spent $49 million of members’ dues on politics last year, according to the union’s own reporting. The union spent an additional $6 million on “Contributions, Gifts, and Grants,” with much of this money going to political organizations. In total, this accounted for about 27% of AFT’s spending in 2020-2021. Only 36% of AFT’s spending went towards representational activities, Contributions, Gifts, Grants, Fedrick Ingram, Evelyn DeJesus, Michael S. Powell, Michelle Ringuette,
Now Is the Time for Unions to Go on the Offensive
June 7, 2022 // But, thankfully, a growing “militant minority” of labor advocates are calling for a more aggressive and offensive stance, and an implicit rejection of fortress unionism. Those forces argue for a dramatic increase in spending on organizing campaigns, a boost in the funding of alternative labor groups and independent unions, and more militant and disruptive labor activities, such as legal and illegal strikes, secondary boycott activities, and defying restrictive court injunctions on picketing and protest. May Day,
Teachers Unions Fund Left Wing Politics
June 1, 2022 // The LM-2 also lists another $117 million spent for “contributions, gifts and grants,” that were primarily political in nature. Even more despicably, the NEA dispersed more than $55 million in benefits to union officers. That’s almost twice as much as it spent advocating for the teachers from whose paychecks the dues were confiscated