Union Bullying Members is Shedding Them: Over 500 People Leave Operating Engineers

Another welcoming people has gained them back

By Tom Gantert | September 22, 2014

An official from a Michigan union that bullied members who opted out under the state's right-to-work law by printing their names in its online newsletter is now saying they have had to abandon local public school bargaining units for lack of support.

In its winter 2013 newsletter, Operating Engineers Local 324 used the derogatory term “freeloaders” to identify 19 members who had opted out of the union under the right-to-work law. At that time, Business Manager Doug Stockwell said the union had “weathered the storm” with right-to-work.

Michigan Capitol Confidential broke that story and it went on to receive national media attention.

By the summer of 2014, that list of “freeloaders” had grown to 503 members. And Stockwell’s tone had changed. Now, the union official talked about “walking away” from public school bargaining units that simply no longer wanted to support their union.

“[W]e are now just starting to feel the effects of the Right to Work legislation,” Stockwell wrote in the Summer 2014 newsletter. “There comes a point in time where it is just not cost effective to continue to support a bargaining unit that does not support the Union that represents it. With that being said, we have had to make the difficult decision to walk away from representation of several of these public school groups as we simply cannot afford to do so without any dues money being paid in to cover legal and other representation costs.”

But another union tells a completely different story under right-to-work.

In 2012, the Roscommon Teachers Association decertified from the Michigan Education Association and became an independent union. After two years under right-to-work, Roscommon Teachers Association President Jim Perialas said that at the next meeting they are expected to certify that all 67 teachers are union members. Perialas said three teachers left the union in 2013 but came back this year. Perialas said the union didn’t publicize that the three members left.

“We don’t treat them as members gone forever. We do what we can to try them win them back,” Perialas said. “We feel we provide a great benefit for our members and nobody is forcing them to be a part of our union.”

Perialas said this year the union voted to lower dues from $600 to $500 a year.

Michigan Education Association President Steve Cook has continually referred to union members who opted out as “freeloaders.” The MEA has also sent collection agencies after union members who haven’t paid their dues. Last year, 10 percent of teachers eligible to opt out of the MEA under right-to-work did so, and another 8 percent did the same this year.

F. Vincent Vernuccio, director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said Operating Engineers Local 324 “should be talking about the benefits it gives its members instead of trying to intimidate and harass them. Under right-to-work the good unions will continue to thrive and possibly pick up numbers. The bad unions would rather intimidate their membership than prove their worth.”

Gary Casteel, the southern region director for the United Auto Workers, was quoted in The Washington Post over the summer saying he preferred organizing workers in states with right-to-work laws.

"This is something I've never understood, that people think right-to-work hurts unions," Casteel told The Post. "To me, it helps them. You don't have to belong if you don't want to. So if I go to an organizing drive, I can tell these workers, 'If you don't like this arrangement, you don't have to belong.' Versus, 'If we get 50 percent of you, then all of you have to belong, whether you like to or not.' I don't even like the way that sounds, because it's a voluntary system, and if you don't think the system is earning its keep, then you don't have to pay."

Patrick Semmens, vice president of the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation, said: “For decades, union officials have relied on coercion to survive. Right-to-Work should serve as a wakeup call and encourage them to be more responsive to their members’ needs. Just like every other institution that relies on voluntary support, if they cannot get by, then they need to change what they do. No one blames the customers if a store goes out of business, so why should union bosses blame workers if the union fails to attract members?”

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Parents Speak Out on Effort to Halt School Choice

Legislators pushing charter school moratorium ignore public 'Schools of Choice' in areas they represent

By Anne Schieber Dykstra | September 20, 2014

When several state lawmakers spoke Sept. 18th in support of a moratorium on new charter public schools, they seemed to be overlooking what is going on in their districts.

Rep. Ellen Cogen Lipton, D-Huntington Woods, described choice as a myth.

“Does that parent have the means to actually transport that child to another school, if they even have a working, functional car? Is there a bus system that exists? There are so many areas in which the choice is really Hobson’s choice. It’s a choice of theory but it really doesn’t exist,” Rep. Lipton said.

Rep. Cogen Lipton and Rep. Sarah Roberts, D-St. Clair Shores, are introducing legislation that would prevent the opening of new charter public schools until more laws are in place on charter school governance, transparency and accountability. Standing with them in support at a press conference were Reps. Jeff Irwin, D-Ann Arbor, and Charles Brunner, D-Bay City, All four of them have successful charter public schools in their districts and active school choice programs through which parents can chose to send their child to a conventional school outside their assigned district.

A 2013 Mackinac Center study found that nearly as many students attend a district other than the one to which they’ve been assigned under Michigan’s Schools-of-Choice law as do attend a charter public school.

Rep. Roberts represents the district encompassing Lakeview Public Schools. This year, 45 percent of the district’s 4,010 students are non-residents. Often, non-resident students trade the convenience of a nearby school because they feel they can get a better education miles away.

Irving Bailey was looking for a conventional school alternative for his daughter but was lucky to find one less than a mile from his Detroit home in a charter public school, Jalen Rose Leadership Academy. Bailey’s daughter is a high school senior now looking forward to studying engineering and communications in college.

“It’s been a great opportunity for her. She’s done internships. I like the small classroom settings and the hours, 8:30 to 4. She’s doing well maintaining a 3.5 to 3.8 grade point average,” he said.

Bailey said the conventional schools have improved, but he removed his daughter four years ago because of poor communication, lack of homework and assignments, teacher absences and large classes. He doesn’t see a need to for a charter public school moratorium.

“I can get any information I need from the school. I don’t think they’re hiding anything. I have not seen any misuse of money. In fact, they’ve expanded the building,” he said.

Also commenting on the moratorium is the board president of Hinoki International, a charter academy that could be negatively affected. Hinoki is seeking a new authorizer after its recent authorizer, the Livonia Public Schools, pulled the school’s lease just before the 2013-2014 school year ended and announced it was starting a competing program. Hinoki was unable to find a facility on the short notice, losing its students and eventually its charter authorization.

“While Michigan's laws governing schools may need improvement, those changes can certainly be hammered out without halting the ongoing process of development of innovative new schools to serve Michigan students. Does the government shut down auto factories while it decides how to improve car safety?” Anne Hoogart writes in a letter she has mailed to legislators who were at the moratorium announcement.

Charter school authorizers have proposed their own set of standards and Rep. Roberts says legislators would be open to that, but also compared it to “having the fox watch the hen house.”