News Story

MEA Says 8,000 Haven't Paid Dues; Some Teachers Say Union Intentionally Misled Members

Less than six months after the Michigan Education Association boasted of how it retained 99 percent of its membership after the state's right-to-work law went into effect, a union executive testified under oath that about 8,000 members have not filled out paperwork to have dues automatically taken from their paycheck.

Eight thousand people not paying dues is a far greater number than the 1,500 the union claimed were not paying because they exercised their rights and opted out of the union.

In testimony before the Michigan Employment Relations Commission, MEA Executive Director Gretchen Dziadosz said some teachers had not been contacted about the union's dues collection policy and that others hadn't paid because they likely were caught in technical problems the union said it was having.

However teachers across the state say they have received multiple notices from the MEA about its E-Dues policy and been told that if they don't hand over their credit card information or bank account number for dues withdrawal the union will send a collection agency after them.

Coopersville kindergarten teacher Miriam Chanski and Petoskey gym teacher William "Ray" Arthur said they got no information about how to get out of the union, but said the union contacted them repeatedly about paying dues. Chanski and Arthur and a group of other teachers from across the state filed unfair labor practice complaints against the MEA asking that they be allowed to leave.

The MEA dropped its fight to keep Chanski and Arthur in the union and agreed to let them out recently. The cases against the remaining teachers are still pending before MERC.

Allowing two teachers to leave could pose a problem for the MEA in how it deals with the 8,000 union members who have not paid dues this year. MEA Spokesman Doug Pratt was asked on WKAR last fall if the publicity from the unfair labor practice complaints could cause more members to stop paying dues.

"You know what," Pratt said on WKAR. "I think when it comes right down to it, it's who we are as an organization. We deal with contracts. We enforce contracts and when we have a membership form for an individual that says I can opt out in August that's a contract between us and that member."

But Arthur questioned why the August opt-out window was during such an inconvenient time for teachers.

"Why would you have a window in August when teachers aren't even in school; a window that is just 30 days, about 10 percent of the year, during a time they're not working?” the hall of fame wrestling coach said. "In my mind, they purposely kept the opt-out date from the membership to stop the bleeding of the membership and the money."

John Ellsworth, a teacher in the Grand Ledge Public Schools, said it didn't matter to him whether it was 8,000 teacher or eight teachers.

"The MEA should have actively informed its members of the open enrollment period," Ellsworth said in an email. "I think the MEA failed to inform its members of the open enrollment period, and it should have this school year especially because of changes to state law. I think all members deserve to be told when their membership is renewing. I don't mind if the default is renewal, but members should be informed of the open enrollment period so they can opt out if they desire to do so. I think a reasonable remedy for this year is for MEA to offer a special open enrollment period right now and to actively contact members about it. Members could then make an informed decision about whether to stay in the union or to leave it. I think it is reasonable to hold people accountable for agreeing to be in the union so long as they were clearly given the option to decline continuing membership. I don't think that happened this time, even though there was a substantial change in state law."

Ellsworth said there could be many reasons why the teachers stopped paying dues.

"I am quite certain there are a variety of reasons," Ellsworth said. "Some of my peers were upset with the lack of information about the open enrollment period. Some of my peers think the dues are expensive. Some of my peers decided the only pay raise they would get was by not paying dues since their paychecks were diminished and their expenses increased. Some of my peers did not want to sign up for automatic deductions (although recent MEA improvements now allow for one-time online payments)."

Dusty Fairfield, a teacher at Ravenna Public Schools, said in an email he felt sorry for the MEA.

"They (MEA) are sinking fast and they refuse to let go of a fistful of money to grab a life jacket," Fairfield said. "Eight thousand teachers are not paying dues because they have families to take care of. With all the financial cuts made recently, they need every dollar they earn to survive. Homes are being lost. Priorities have trumped being represented by a union. It's a matter of survival for some."

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.

News Story

Who Is Behind The Minimum Wage Increase Drive?

A look at the Restaurant Opportunities Center

A petition drive to put a minimum wage increase on the statewide ballot in Michigan is only superficially about the minimum wage and isn't really Michigan based, says a watchdog group monitoring the issue and the groups behind it.

In fact, says Mike Paranzino, the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), which is actively supporting a minimum wage increase, is really just a labor front group. Paranzino is communications director for ROCexposedan organization dedicated to educating people about "worker centers," which are being organized by ROC. ROCexposed provides a counter to ROC's research, illuminates its funding and highlights the tactics ROC uses against restaurants and restaurant workers.

ROC also is the hub of a coordinated national push for minimum wage increases in multiple states and has established groups to pursue this goal within individual states, Paranzino said. In Michigan, that group is, "Raise Michigan," which is working to get the issue on the statewide November ballot.

In early February, "Raise Michigan" submitted a petition to increase Michigan's minimum wage from $7.40 per hour to $9.50 per hour by 2017. But a week later the group amended the petition language to boost the increase to $10.10 per hour, matching the call by President Barack Obama in his State of the Union address. Michigan Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mark Schauer has suggested businesses be forced to pay an increased wage of $9.25 an hour.

Unlike Michigan's last minimum wage increase, the proposed jump in pay to $10.10 would also apply to the wages of tipped workers and, perhaps more significantly, after 2017 the wage would be indexed to inflation.

A spokesperson for the ROC denied that the organization is a union front group.

ROC-Michigan is an affiliate of the national group, ROC-United. The organizations say they are dedicated to improving working conditions in restaurants, increasing wages and getting restaurants to provide benefits to workers.

Paranzino says the ties to organized labor are clear and there is a clear link to the push for an increasing the minimum wage in Michigan. In the question-and-answer below, he provided some insight into ROC's actions in Michigan and some background about the group:

Q: What's the connection between ROC and "Raise Michigan"?

A: 'ROC Michigan' Director Frank Houston has said the campaign has secured up to $1 million to put the minimum wage increase on the statewide ballot. Of that, we know that $300,000 was pledged by ROC. Where the other $700,000 would be coming from has so far been undisclosed.

Houston is chairman of the Oakland County Democratic Party, and Treasurer of 'Raise Michigan.' Last fall, ROC put out a nationwide job posting, seeking someone to be the leader of the Michigan minimum wage drive. In that posting the drive was described as a multi-million dollar national effort.

Q: What do you mean when you say that ROC is a labor union front?

A: I mean it in the sense that it was union-founded and is increasingly working closely with the unions, particularly the SEIU (Service Employees International Union). In 2003, the New York Press reported that ROC's goals had evolved into efforts to organize the 99 percent of the restaurant industry that is non-union.

Q: Is this minimum wage increase proposal part of an effort during an election year to distract attention from what's going on in Washington, D.C., and particularly Obamacare?

A: Certainly, they can't afford to let the election be about Obamacare, and this is clearly a unified effort in multiple states. I think we just got a great example of what is really happening when 'Raise Michigan' had to go back and change its proposal to $10.10 per hour. They did that because apparently the $10.10 figure is the level that has been set nationally and the way they worded the proposal originally was overruled by those on the national level.

Q: What is the likelihood that a proposal like this one could be passed by the voters?

A: Polling shows that when you just ask people about raising the minimum wage it has a lot of popular support. A majority of voters tend to say: 'That sounds good, go ahead and give these workers more money.' But when you show that the minimum wage increase is a job-killer, such as with the Congressional Budget Office report predicting the loss of half a million jobs, support drops and it polls closer to 50-50.

Q: Has 'Raise Michigan' hurt the chances of the proposal passing in Michigan by aiming too high and indexing the wage to inflation?

A: They may have misfired by doing that. It could make it easier for people to understand that for many workers the increase won't be about making higher wages, it will be about making no wages at all.

Q: If the job-killing aspect of the proposal knocks it down closer to 50-50 in the polls, what arguments against the proposal might push it below 50 percent?

A: I think one down side to the unified multi-state approach is that it could be vulnerable if you can show people who and what the backers of the proposal really are. They are trying to portray themselves as a homespun Michigan movement, when in fact ROC is a New York-based operation with a co-director, who about a year ago was meeting privately at the White House making plans for this.

Also, I think it could be helpful to show that those who are the most likely to be hurt by a minimum wage hike are those workers who have obtained a lesser degree of education; and those are the same people who already suffer the most in terms of having difficulty getting jobs. A lot of people look at the unemployment rate in a state ... but not realize how high it is for those with less education.

ROC Responds

ROC Spokeswoman Maria Myotte was contacted and given the opportunity to respond to Paranzino’s claims that ROC is a labor union front group and that the Michigan proposal is an extension of a coordinated national campaign controlled from outside the state. Myotte denied the first of Paranzino's two assertions.

"ROC United is not a union, nor a union front group," Myotte said. "ROC is a worker center that advocates for fair labor practices for workers within the restaurant industry. ROC-NY was founded at the request of HERE Local 100 after the terrorist attack on the twin towers destroyed Windows on the World — one of the few unionized restaurants in the city — as a way of supporting the restaurant workers that survived the attack. We do not receive funding from unions."

Michigan Capitol Confidential is the news source produced by the Mackinac Center for Public Policy. Michigan Capitol Confidential reports with a free-market news perspective.