Posts tagged Michigan Legislature
MICHIGAN: While you were sleeping, the law changed
March 12, 2025 // The two laws were scheduled to take effect Feb. 21. The Legislature acted minutes (not hours) before the deadline and delivered the bills to Gov. Gretchen Whitmer in the middle of the night. Employers went to sleep on Feb. 20, woke up to a new regulatory environment, and are scrambling to understand the laws. How did we get here? In 2018, out-of-state advocacy groups sent two ballot measures to the Legislature. One measure imposed paid sick time mandates on every employer in the state — every company, nonprofit and government entity. The other measure mandated minimum wage increases, eviscerating the tip credit that helps restaurant servers and bartenders earn well above minimum wage.
Union contracts should not protect drunken teachers
March 6, 2025 // The Bay City union contract spelled out the process: A teacher’s first offense resulted in a written reprimand and the teacher was required to go through counseling. The second offense resulted in a three-day suspension without pay and mandatory counseling. Third offense: a five-day suspension without pay and mandatory counseling. Fourth offense: a 10-day suspension without pay and mandatory counseling. Only upon the fifth offense could the district fire the teacher. It gets worse. A teacher using illegal drugs at school got three strikes before she could be fired. Even teachers caught selling drugs could not be fired until their second offense.
Michigan Security Guard Slams Union with Federal Charges for Illegal Dues Seizures, Transparency Issues
May 9, 2024 // According to Reamsma’s charge, he submitted a notice to UGSOA union agents in March that requested the union reduce his dues payments in accordance with Beck and provide him with the required financial information. In response, union officials claimed that the amount of dues chargeable to nonmembers was equal to 100% of full union dues. Reamsma’s charge states that UGSOA “failed to provide the required financial disclosures for itself and its affiliated unions, and a chance to object to its alleged reduced fee.” The charge also notes that, despite Reamsma notifying union officials in April that he prefers to pay union dues by check, UGSOA ignored this request and has continued to take money directly from his paycheck by payroll deduction. Federal labor law forbids union officials from using direct deduction to collect union dues or fees without worker consent.
Return of union dues skim threatens home health workers
May 8, 2024 // With dues skim finally put to rest, home healthcare workers’ true feelings were made clear. In under a year, SEIU lost tens of thousands of members, shrinking from 55,265 to 10,918. By 2022, membership had fallen to 5,031, less than 10% of its membership at the height of dues skim. When given a choice, home healthcare providers fled the union in droves. Despite this, the Michigan Senate has since introduced SB 790-791, which would allow for the untimely return of the dues skim.
Michigan’s largest unions have seen plummeting membership over the past decade
April 18, 2024 // Analysis Michigan’s largest unions have seen plummeting membership over the past decade Jobs and incomes are up, workplace injuries are down By Jarrett Skorup | April 16, 2024Share on FacebookShare on X Photo by Kateryna Babaieva on Pexels In recent years, most of Michigan’s largest labor unions saw massive declines in membership, despite significant job growth in most industries. The reason? A decade with right-to-work law, which gave workers the ability to choose whether to join a union, as a member or through a fee, or not. The reports many labor unions are required to file with the federal government reveal the state of labor union membership, as do reports from the Michigan Civil Service Commission. Every one of Michigan’s 15 largest unions or so has seen a decline, whether in state government, schools, local government, or private industries such as construction or food service. But the declines are uneven. A variety of AFSCME associations, representing mostly state and local government workers, have seen a loss of more than half their members. The SEIU, which mostly represents workers in health care and local government, is down nearly 70%. Despite job gains in the auto sector over the past decade and a highly publicized strike last year, the UAW branches in Michigan have lost 16,000 members over the past decade. Other private sector unions have seen fewer losses. These include the United Food and Commercial Workers (-8.7%), Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters (-6.8%), the Operating Engineers (-2.5%) and Michigan Nurses Association (-3.7%). Losses in the public sector are much more pronounced than those in the private sector. The Michigan Education Association has now lost more than 38,000 members, or one-third, since the right-to-work law went into effect in 2013. The American Federation of Teachers branch, the bulk of which is in the Detroit Federation of Teachers, is down more than 25%. The Michigan public school system added 27,000 employees since 2012, but its largest employee unions have lost a combined 45,000 members. The total number of public sector union members in Michigan has dropped by 80,000 since the right-to-work law was passed. Unions representing state of Michigan employees are down by more than one-third. That may soon change. The Democratic-led Michigan Legislature repealed the state’s right-to-work law in 2023. The UAW and other unions representing workers for private employers can now require them to rejoin or pay fees. A 2018 ruling from the U.S. Supreme Court means that public sector employees such as schoolteachers still have the right to decline paying or joining a union. Repealing the law is expected to boost union membership and financial support for the Democratic Party. In fighting in 2012 against a law allowing workers to opt out, SEIU Healthcare Michigan President Marge Faville said unions needed the forced funds to “make sure Democrats get [elected].” Just before legislators voted to enact a right-to-work law, a local Michigan Education Association leader sent an email out on a public server to tell other public school employees that “[emergency management] is the future in Michigan with a Republican governor and Legislature” and union members need to “[get] everyone we know to vote for Democrats.”
Effort by Michigan House staffers poses test to Democrats’ pro-union credentials
April 1, 2024 // Each representative decides what to pay their workers Those who work in the Michigan Legislature describe it as a workplace defined by high turnover, unwritten rules and a lack of boundaries respecting staffers' time. All 110 state representatives manage their own offices. But unlike workplaces in the private sector, barring an expulsion, state representatives who are poor managers can only be fired by voters in their districts.
Michigan Security Guards Across Western Michigan File Petition for Vote to Undo Union Bosses’ Forced Dues Powers
February 28, 2024 // According to the petition, the requested deauthorization vote will take place among “all full-time and regular part-time security guards…performing services for the Company…in and around the cities of Alena, Cadillac, Petoskey, Traverse City, West Branch, Flint, Bay [C]ity, [Big] Rapids, Ludington, Mount Pleasant, Owosso, Saginaw, Escanaba, Houghton, Ironwood, Marquette, Sault Ste Marie, Grand Rapids, Holland and Muskegon Michigan.” “UGSOA union officials have threatened to have everyone who does not join the union fired. Many of us are retired police officers, or military, working part time, supplementing our income by providing security for government buildings across Michigan,” Reamsma commented. “When Right to Work was in place, guards were never forced to join the union. Now part time guards are expected to pay the same high dues as full time guards and all guards must join or lose our jobs. We are thankful for the help of the National Right to Work Foundation for their assistance in navigating this complex process.”
Michigan Senate votes to force public employers to give unions workers’ contact info
June 9, 2023 // The Democratic-controlled Michigan Senate voted Thursday to require public employers, like state agencies and schools, to provide personal contact information of workers to labor unions who represent them in negotiations. The proposal passed along party lines in a vote of 20-18. Democrats in the majority said the measure was needed to ensure unions had the ability to help employees. But minority Republicans contended the change could lead to harassment, and, they said, the intent was to give a "handout" to labor organizations who supported Democratic lawmakers' campaigns.
‘A huge opportunity for the labor movement’: Unions jump on newly won Democratic trifectas
December 1, 2022 // And if Democrats succeed in repealing certain laws in Michigan — and in pushing through other union-backed measures — union officials and campaign operatives hope to rekindle the labor movement’s influence in other states. Democrats are putting their energy toward raising the minimum wage, banning so-called captive audience meetings where employers can warn against unionization, and more. “We’re busy preparing our legislative agenda, because we put everything we had into the ground game for this election,” AFL-CIO President Liz Shuler said in an interview. “How can we go on offense to pass legislation to protect people’s voice and ability to exercise their rights?”
School districts could become dues collectors for employee unions under current legislation
October 3, 2022 // MEA, other unions, could make a collection requirement part of employee contracts Senate Bill 1093, introduced by Sen. Erika Geiss, D-Taylor, on June 23, would undo a 2012 change to Public Act 336 of 1947. The 2012 change prohibits public schools from using taxpayer resources in assisting a labor organization in collecting union dues from its workers. These collections are considered a contribution to “the administration of a labor organization.” The bill would strip this prohibition from state law. Districts would not be required by law to use taxpayer dollars to benefit a union in this way, but they would have to perform this service if they made it part of a collective bargaining contract with the union.