Despite Right-To-Work Laws, Unions Find Ways Make Workers Keep Paying

Michigan courts shut down one such tactic, but unions try others

By Jack McHugh | April 16, 2018

The Michigan Supreme Court has finally closed the door on a tactic the state’s largest teachers union has used to prevent school employees from exercising one of their legal rights at any time. The Michigan Education Association only allowed workers to opt out of paying union dues or fees during what it called an “August window,” and then erected obstacles to doing so.

The court ruling comes nearly five years after the March 28, 2013, effective date of Michigan’s right-to-work law, which says that nobody can be compelled to pay a union as a condition of holding a job. But from the start, unions have tried a number of schemes to make it more difficult for a worker to opt out of paying.

The MEA’s August window requirement is the best known version, but unions are using others methods to blunt the effects of the law. For example, the Teamsters and some other unions only allow an employee to opt out during a 15-day window near the anniversary of when that person took a job in a unionized workplace. Few workers can identify the exact day they began working for their current employer, much less the date on which they presumably signed a union form.

People who work in government offices face unique obstacles to leaving their union behind. If a state has a public sector collective bargaining law, as Michigan does, and it makes changes to that law, a government employee union may ask workers to sign a new dues authorization form. Buried in the form’s small print may be what amounts to a personal contract in which the employee agrees to keep paying the union even after leaving the union under the prerogative granted by the right-to-work law.

For example, a Teamsters local in Dearborn got city maintenance workers to sign a dues withholding agreement form that states: “This authorization is voluntary and is not conditioned on my present or future membership in the Union.”

By signing this form, the worker becomes obligated to pay the equivalent of dues and fees, even though the right-to-work law prohibits employer-union contracts that make dues payment a condition of employment. These former, furthermore, often constrain the period during which an employee can exit the personal contract.

Union shop stewards who present line workers with a form that, they say, needs to be signed, are unlikely to inform them of the subtle but significant difference. The employee who signs it is entering a personal contract with the union and not merely authorizing the employer to continue withholding dues and fees.

According to Mackinac Center Legal Foundation attorney Derk Wilcox, the Legislature should pass a law that either restricts such practices, or requires that unions fully inform workers of what obligations such agreements impose. In an email he reported:

“Dues withholding agreements by public employers are authorized by state law, and can be restricted by state law. Additional provisions that require employees to pay them even if they are not union members should either be prohibited, or at least clearly labeled as a waiver of the employees’ rights — and something that they are not required to sign.”

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.

Latest Test Scores Show Charter Schools Closing Gap

Charter public schools more likely than conventional districts to enroll low-income students

By Evan Carter | April 14, 2018

Public charter schools in Michigan are closing the performance gap with conventional district schools in some subjects, according to recently released results from a national assessment test that was given last year. This is happening even though students at charter schools are more likely than their peers in conventional public schools to come from a low-income household.

In 2017, the average reading score of fourth-graders who took the National Assessment of Education Progress, or NAEP, was 218 for both public charter school and traditional public school students. The year’s math results on the standardized test indicate that the average charter student scored 232, while the average conventional public student scored 236.

For both fourth-grade reading and math, the scores of charter students have stayed the same or improved in every assessment since 2009. At the same time, the scores of students at conventional public schools have remained roughly the same.

The 2017 results also showed a marked improvement for charter students in the eighth grade. The average reading score of a charter student was 259, while the average score of a conventional public school student was 266. In math, the average score of a charter student was 272, while the average score of a conventional public school student was 280.

Eighth-grade reading and math scores for charter students has risen since 2009, with math scores improving from 251 to 272 by 2017. Reading scores have improved from 244 in 2009 to 259 in 2017. The scores of conventional public school students have largely been static since 2009.

The NAEP, which is administered by the U.S. Department of Education, tests students in select grade levels in arts, civics, math, reading, technology and engineering literacy, U.S. history and vocabulary.

While the NAEP tracks socioeconomic data, it does not weight test scores based upon a student’s socioeconomic background. In Michigan, nearly 75 percent of charter school students are eligible for a free or reduced lunch, while 48 percent of traditional public school students are eligible for the subsidy, according to data from the Michigan Department of Education.

Ben DeGrow, the education policy analyst at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, said he believes the new test results disprove claims that charter schools are failing students in the state.

“Those who want to blame charter schools for Michigan’s academic woes have the story exactly backwards,” DeGrow said. “The evidence keeps mounting that the charter sector is taking great strides forward to help students learn more.”

William DiSessa, a spokesperson at the Michigan Department of Education, told Michigan Capitol Confidential that the most recent NAEP results show that traditional public schools in the state have room to improve.

“While Michigan’s NAEP scores have ticked-up slightly and we’ve gone up in the state rankings, we know there is a lot more work to do,” DiSessa said in an email. “Michigan is not yet where it needs to be. There is a Top 10 in 10 plan, we need to stick with it, and give our students and educators the opportunity to keep improving.”

DiSessa declined to comment on the improved scores for public charter schools.

Dan Quisenberry, the president of the Michigan Association of Public School Academies, said in a statement that he believes the latest NAEP results show positive results by charter schools.

“The NAEP scores are further confirmation that Michigan’s charter schools are certainly moving in the right direction when it comes to student achievement, particularly in fourth-grade reading and math," Quisenberry said. "This is an important scoreboard, and it confirms what other data sets have shown — that charter schools are leading the way.”