The union-backed proposal known as “Protect Our Jobs” has mostly been sold as enshrining collective bargaining privileges into the Michigan Constitution and fending off a right-to-work law that could be passed at some point in the future.

These points are being debated by both sides, but the main effect of the POJA initiative being passed by voters in November is far less known and would do far more damage than either of the typically discussed positions.

Tucked into the middle, part of the union petition reads, “No existing or future law of the state or its political subdivisions shall abridge, impair or limit” unions’ ability to “negotiate in good faith regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. … ”

In short: Aside from a couple exceptions, no state law past, present or future could limit what government union officials could win in labor contracts.

Here are some practices that would start again or continue if the constitutional amendment were to pass:

• Allegations of kissing students, head-locking children, sexual misconduct, drug use and distributing alcohol to minors was not enough to keep Michigan school districts from paying out millions to get rid of problem teachers in the past five years because of strict union-backed tenure rules. At the same time, districts all over the state were spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on legal fees trying to get rid of tenured teachers. The legislature passed a tweak to the tenure law that would make it easier to get rid of incompetent or deficient educators – that law would be repealed.

• Statewide, 39 school districts pay out several million dollars per year to teachers who spend at least half of their time on union business. These are union bosses who are paid while teaching no students or contributing to education. The Michigan House passed a bill banning this select release time — that law would be halted.

• Royal Oak eliminated bus services for students, saving $593,162 per year, but could have saved $894,707 by simply ensuring that employees pay 20 percent of their own health care costs. Many other districts across the state have cut educational services while receiving more money from taxpayers as they shuffle that money into health insurance costs. The legislature passed a bill mandating that public employees pay 20 percent of their health care (the average private-sector employee pays over 20 percent) — that bill would be repealed.

• Sarah Cunningham, an English and history teacher in Jackson, was touted by the Michigan Education Association and others as exceptional — the educator has a master's degree, has written two books and is an in-demand speaker across the country. Because of the local contract, she was pink-slipped by the district because of seniority rules. In Ann Arbor, the district uses social security numbers as the "tie-breaker" when determining layoffs. These districts and many more across the state are required by the union contracts to use seniority as the basis for layoffs rather than performance. The legislature ended “last in, first out” mandates last year — this law would be repealed.

• Employee unions, which use teacher dues on political campaigns, were banned from using public schools to collect their dues for them. In response, local unions have to go to their members to get money. This has resulted in some unions demanding the bank account or credit card numbers of their members. This law would be repealed by the amendment.
• Under POJA, nothing would stop local governments and unions from stripping down transparency laws by prohibiting the disclosure of information that would otherwise be freely available to the public. Michigan Capitol Confidential has used FOIA laws extensively to break dozens of stories exposing government waste and, occasionally, criminal activity. 

• In the Troy School District, before parents are asked to volunteer at sporting events, teachers must be asked to serve as ticket takers, official timers, or "adult supervisors" where they make as much as $46. If POJA passed, the Legislature could never pass a law requiring parents to be allowed to volunteer at school sporting events if the local collective bargaining agreement barred it.

• The water department for Detroit and the surrounding municipalities employs a horseshoer — despite the department having no horses. If the legislature wanted to pass a law requiring government entities to actually have work for someone to have a position paid for by taxpayers, that law would be prevented by this amendment.

These are just a few of the hundreds of laws that could be overridden by the proposed constitutional change.

Government unions have an unfair advantage over taxpayers because the incentives of public policymakers are primarily political rather than profit-centered. That is, local school board members and town commissioners want to be re-elected and superintendents want to keep their jobs, which handcuffs them as they go to bat with powerful labor unions that spend tens of millions of dollars on elections.

A constitutional amendment would not "protect our jobs." It would ensure the continuation of illogical provisions and local fiscal calamity.

The “Keep Home Care Safe” proposal campaign has made another tactical change. Its website no longer makes the claim that passing the proposal would create the Home Help Program.

Its new claim is that the proposal is needed to safeguard those who participate in the federally created Home Help Program, which allows elderly and disabled people to receive care in their home instead of having to move into a nursing home. It was created in 1981.

Backers of Proposal 4 as the ballot measure is now known, want voters to believe that the state constitution is an appropriate place to establish a registry of providers who have had background checks. What ballot backers don't want voters to know is that such a registry already was created, but it was a flop.

In more than six and half years since the Service Employees International Union created a scheme to organize 44,000 home health care workers, the registry gathered only 933 names.

That's not a surprise because the vast majority of those in the Home Help Program never hire an outside caregiver. It's estimated that about 75 percent to 80 percent of the program participants are family members or friends taking care of disabled loved ones. They have no need for background checks.

The SEIU to date has taken more than $31 million from Medicaid checks that should be used to help the disabled and elderly in Michigan.

What Proposal 4 would actually do is lock the forced unionization of the program participants into the state constitution. The SEIU, which has been financing the ballot initiative, is battling a state law that ends the forced unionization scheme.

"This proposal is about one thing and one thing only — the SEIU is attempting to hijack the constitution to force residents into unions against their own will while fleecing them to fatten the union’s wallet," said Nick De Leeuw, spokesman for Citizens Protecting Michigan's Constitution. "For the sake of Michigan seniors and infirm residents whose health often times literally depends on the money being stolen from them, it's time we tell the SEIU 'No, hands off our constitution.' "

To collect enough signatures to put the proposal on the ballot, Proposal 4 campaign backers claimed the proposal would create the Home Help Program. In doing this, it took advantage of the fact that many Michigan voters were unaware that such a program already existed. Ballot proposal backers continued with that story until recently switching to its new message involving the registry.

No one has opposed having a registry, but it was defunded by the legislature as one of many efforts to end the forced unionization of workers. The SEIU then provided money to operate a dummy employer needed to help in the scheme and employed an "executive director" who worked less than three hours a month from her home so she could continue to collect unemployment benefits. She previously ran the registry.

With this in mind, clearly coordination and maintenance of the registry could be done by one or two state employees as part of their existing jobs.

Officials from the Proposal 4 campaign and SEIU officials did not respond to requests for comment.