Dégagé Ministries provides a “safe, Christian alternative to the streets” for many hard-luck cases living in the Heartside neighborhood of downtown Grand Rapids. With an $850,000 annual budget, it helps provide blankets, meals, shelter and more for those who can’t provide these necessities for themselves. Dégagé is currently funded entirely by private donations and not government help, according to executive director Marge Palmerlee.

One of those private donors is Ritsema Associates, a construction contractor headquartered in nearby Grandville.

“Your company has supported us both financially and with numerous in-kind donations for which we are very grateful” wrote Palmerlee in a recent letter to Bill Ritsema, president of Ritsema Associates. She felt moved to write the letter because some Dégagé patrons are being hired by Big Labor bosses as part of an “aggressive public information campaign” aimed at trashing the reputation of Ritsema Associates.

Though hired by the Michigan Regional Council of Carpenters to hold up signs and pass out fliers denouncing Ritsema all over the city, few of those doing the demonstrating have ever been carpenters at all and don’t appear to have any clue that the company they are protesting has generously supported a local ministry that often provides a safety net for them specifically or people like them.

Starting this summer, the MRCC began to hold daily demonstrations outside of the businesses, hospitals and schools that hire Ritsema to do construction work. None of Ritsema’s employees are MRCC members, and the union does not claim to represent the employees of his customers. Yet, the MRCC says the demonstrations are part of a “labor dispute” directed at Ritsema because of the MRCC’s assertion that the company does not pay “area standard wages.”

The union does not provide any factual evidence to support this charge. And, given that they do not appear to represent anyone involved the business transactions that they are attempting to interfere with, they have also provided no explanation for why they should be considered an authority on what the pay scales should be. As noted in a previous MichCapCon.com story on this matter (see “Fake Dispute: on page 17 of this issue), nearly 80 percent of Michigan’s construction workers are non-union, making it unlikely that the MRCC is an accurate source of data regarding what a “standard” wage for the work should be.

Ritsema is aware of no labor dispute with any of his employees, whom he calls a “great group of guys,” and says that since his father founded the company in 1955, no effort has ever been made to unionize its workforce. He suspects that the “standard wages” accusation by the MRCC isn’t really the issue, noting that the MRCC started making trouble for him shortly after he successfully outbid unionized contractors for a job in Indiana.

“This is one of the most bizarre, one of the most disingenuous campaigns that we have seen anywhere in the country,” said Chris Fisher, president of the Associated Builders and Contractors of Michigan. “It is based on zero facts, and it is really shameful to see the lengths to which these union bosses are willing to go in our state.”

ABC-Michigan is a subsidiary of a national trade industry group for merit shop (non-union) construction contractors.

Palmerlee agrees with Fisher.

“It’s sad that they can come in and spread lies about a company that has been around for years and years and is reputable,” she said. “They care about the community. Ritsema has been a wonderful partner with us.”

An MRCC member managing one of the crews of demonstrators confirmed that demonstrators against Ritsema are paid hourly wages by the union.

“That’s so ironic,” says Palmerlee. “Nobody who is picketing is an actual carpenter, and they’re paying them a flat rate per hour to walk the picket line. Where are the actual carpenters?”

Palmerlee says the ministry does allow local employers to come into the facility and recruit day laborers, but that such recruiting is limited to work that is clearly “helping” and not “hurting” the community. She says that this ability to be choosy is one of the best things about being a private institution. So when the union asked to recruit in their building so as to “picket a local company,” Dégagé drew the line and refused.

In her 13 years of working with and helping Dégagé patrons, Palmerlee says she has never seen anything like this happen before.

“It really baffled me. I still find it appalling that the union would come in and do that.”

Undeterred, the MRCC appears to have approached and recruited Dégagé’s patrons while they were outside of its building. Palmerlee is very clear that her patrons have a legal right to take the jobs and that it is not her role to discourage them from making money if the union is offering it.

However, when asked about the role of the carpenters union and what it is paying her patrons to do to one of her ministry’s very good friends, she has another take:

“It’s legal,” she says. “But it’s despicable.”
(See related story "Michigan Carpenters’ Union Constructing a Fake Dispute.")

The original version of this story was posted online on Feb. 16, 2011.

The financial secrets of state government were opened up just a bit more this week when a detailed accounting of expenses for the Michigan House of Representatives was posted on the House’s official website. Included in the “Financials” module is a listing of the names and salaries of each House employee. While individual lawmakers in the House have posted this information in the past, this is the first time in Michigan Legislative history that the public has been granted 24/7 online access to such information for every office in one of the state’s Legislative chambers.

In a news release, new House Speaker Jase Bolger, R-Marshall, said that this should be just the start of more openness in government.

“As we adopt the government reforms necessary to set Michigan on the right path for the future, we will be calling on local municipalities and school districts to be more transparent with the voters,” Bolger said. “We should not ask others to do something that we are unwilling to do ourselves. Our finances are now readily available for review and I encourage all other taxpayer funded units to join us.”

For most levels of government, the state FOIA law requires that the names and salaries of political appointees and other public employees be released to any person who files a request. But FOIA specifically exempts the House, Senate and Office of the Governor from this requirement. The House and Senate have often granted specific requests to anyone wishing to see the salary data, despite the FOIA exemption, and Bolger has decided to advance this policy one step further. The House data is now posted online for anyone who wishes to see it, and the new policy will be to update the online salaries and the other House financial data on a monthly basis.

For almost two years, Republican Rep. Pete Lund of Shelby Township has been proposing to abolish the special FOIA protection for state politicians. He applauded the Speaker’s decision to be open with information that the House is legally entitled to hide from public scrutiny.

“I am happy that the House Republicans are again taking the lead on transparency,” said Lund. “Soon I hope to introduce my bill that will require the three branches of the state government to open their books to the public.”

Last term, Lund’s bill proposing to lift the FOIA exemption as it applied to the staff names, salaries and other financial details of state politician offices was not given a hearing in the House, which was then controlled by Democrats. Ari Adler, spokesman for Bolger, says that the new leadership has not yet considered whether the House will push to pass a bill that revises the FOIA exemption.

During the 2010 election campaign for governor, then-candidate Rick Snyder said he would sign a bill like Lund’s if one reached his desk. His Democrat opponent, Virg Bernero, also said he would sign such a bill.

Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, is one new lawmaker who didn’t wait for the House policy to change: The names and salaries of his staff were posted earlier this year. While he says that some lawmakers were mildly concerned that posting this information could lead to uncomfortable questions from nosy constituents, he welcomes scrutiny of his spending.

“I WANT people to question these details,” he said. “We should have an ‘open kimono’ policy when it comes to spending taxpayer dollars. I am exceedingly proud that the Speaker posted everything online.”

Fellow freshman Rep. Earl Poleski, R-Jackson, posted his staff names and salaries very shortly after Shirkey, and agrees with the policy of the entire House following along.

“People want to know where their money goes and what their public servants make,” he said. “This is a small way that we can do that.”

Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, was the very first lawmaker in Michigan history to post the names and salaries of his staff online, setting an early standard followed by many other trendsetters such as Lund, Shirkey, Poleski – and now Speaker Bolger.

“I am supportive of Rep. Lund’s efforts to make more information from the Legislative and Executive branches more available to the public through FOIA,” said McMillin. “It is the 21st century and the government needs to stop trying to hide its activities from the taxpayers – particularly how their money is spent.”

The Michigan Senate has not posted names and salaries under previous leaders. Amber McCann, spokeswoman for new Senate Majority Leader Randy Richardville, R-Monroe, said that the Senate is now working on its own revamping of the official website. Some financial details regarding the Senate’s operations had been available in the past and no decisions have yet been made regarding how much more the upper chamber may be putting up when the new website is ready.

Names and salaries are some of the most interesting details, but not the only valuable items now available from the House website. Also included are details about health care policies available to House employees and detailed expense reports for the House.

There is even a separate expense report for the House Fiscal Agency. The fiscal policy analysis arm of the House of Representatives was rocked by scandal in 1993 when a Detroit News investigation ultimately exposed the director and his staff for diverting nearly $2 million from the HFA to a variety of personal and other illegal causes. Amongst the revelations were payments to HFA director John Morberg’s live-in girlfriend, unapproved bonus payments to other staffers, purchases of weapons for fighters in the civil war then raging in the Balkans, and more. Federal investigations and felony convictions soon followed for Morberg and others.

And yet, despite the rise of the Internet age shortly thereafter and several different House Speakers since 1993, it has still taken until 2011 for the House of Representatives to post the HFA’s expenses where the public can take a look at them.

Today, any taxpayer can go online at any time of day or night and learn that Mitch Bean, the current director of the House Fiscal Agency, is paid $126,218. He is the highest-paid House employee on the list. If Bean or any other House employee receives a raise, the Speaker has pledged to reveal that change in the next monthly filing of the House’s financial information.

But the FOIA exemption is still in place and it allows this House Speaker or any who follow him the legal authority to kill this new openness policy. Little warning was given before Bolger made the abrupt change in policy this week. In the event of another scandal at the HFA or any other office, the House’s financial information could be removed from the Internet as suddenly as it went up.

The original version of this story was posted online on Mar. 12, 2011.