‘Goliath’ Unions Complain About ‘David’-Sized Think Tanks’ Worker Outreach Campaign

State-based think tank movement informing public employees they can stop paying union fees now

By Tom Gantert | August 10, 2018

A nationwide battle is underway over state and local government employees, who since June 28, are no longer obligated to pay compulsory fees to a public sector union.

That was the date on which the U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark ruling in the case of Janus v. AFSCME, holding that requiring public employees to pay the fees as a condition of employment violates their First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and freedom of association.

Since the ruling, a nationwide network of free-market think tanks has been reaching out to public employees in unionized workplaces and educating them about their newly recognized rights and freedom to stop paying union agency fees. At the same time, the unions that collect those fees are devising what The New York Times called aggressive recommitment campaigns.

One feature of the unions’ campaigns has been to misrepresent their financial advantage when compared to the state-based think tanks.

For example, the Ohio Education Association recently released a video identifying State Policy Network as part of the campaign to inform government employees about their rights under the Janus ruling.

“Most folks have not heard about the State Policy Network, but it is an $80 million nationwide dark money effort attacking public sector unions and attacking public education,” Nick Gurich, a researcher for the Ohio Education Association, said in the video.

State Policy Network includes dozens of independent organizations that are located in 49 states. The State Policy Network's total revenue in 2016 was $10.3 million, the most recent year financial data is available.

Their education campaigns are aimed at workers organized by several dozen government employee unions in a number of states, and represent just a small part of the groups’ overall activities and budgets.

The Ohio Education Association is just one public sector union, and its video did not disclose that this single labor organization had total revenue of $90.8 million in 2016, according to disclosures required by the U.S. Labor Department.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association is a similar union. It had total revenue of $70.0 million in 2016.

The California Teachers Association told The New York Times that the state think tanks’ national outreach was “bankrolled by the wealthy anti-labor forces looking to get richer on the backs of the middle class.”

The California union reported revenue of $190 million in 2016, according to its most recent filing.

“The Mackinac Center, which the teachers unions have snidely taken to referring to as the ‘DeVos-funded’ Mackinac Center, has sent emails to many teachers explaining their rights pursuant to the Janus decision,” said Larry Sand, president of the California Teachers Empowerment Network. “The California Teachers Association, especially, is in a snit over this, as they seem to think they own teachers and that anyone who has a different take on things should not dare mention it. Also CTA is aghast that Mackinac is spending $10 million on this project. In reality, this is chump change for CTA, which is the biggest political spender in California, spending $20 or so million a year – every year – on ballot initiatives, candidates for state and local office, and lobbying.”

The website MyPayMySay.com is a project of the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, which also publishes Michigan Capitol Confidential. MyPayMySay.com stated that about $10 million would be spent on the national outreach education effort in the first year.

The outreach campaign covers all 50 states. The biggest effect of the Janus ruling is on the 22 states that are not-right-to-work.

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.

A Flip Of A Switch

Not all energy is there when you need it

By Garrick Anderson | August 9, 2018

When you flip a light switch on, you expect an instant result. If everybody flipped a light switch on simultaneously, they would all expect instant results. A key factor that helps to determine whether people get the light they expect is if the electric generation sources that create the power for those many switches are “dispatchable” or not.

Dispatchable sources of electricity are those that can supply the power we need, when we need it. “When” and “how much” are the key concepts, because our power usage is constantly and rapidly fluctuating, and providers need to respond quickly to meet the demand. Dispatchable also refers to the amount of power being supplied, since overproducing in times of low usage is just as inefficient as underproducing in times of need.

Non-dispatchable sources are those that the companies providing electricity cannot control. Renewable energy sources, like solar power and wind power, are not consistent, nor are they controllable. The solar radiation that hits solar cells and produces electricity is affected by nightfall, cloud cover, and the geographical location of the cells. Likewise, the wind does not blow all the time. Wind currents are affected by air density and temperature, which vary throughout the day. And the wind must be neither too strong nor too weak for it to generate electricity.

Hydroelectric power is the most dispatchable source of energy. Flowing water can be made to power a turbine in a matter of seconds and is the most efficient way to produce electricity. Since the water captured behind a dam needs nothing more than gravity to ensure it will spin a turbine, it is available to produce electricity at a moment’s notice.

Nuclear and coal plants are dispatchable in that they are completely controllable. Once running, they affect the grid supply instantly and can be relied on to continue running consistently. These plants are typically used to provide baseload power — the always-on, minimum amount of electricity needed to meet the never-ending demand for electricity in a modern society. They supply the energy that runs our society, regardless of the weather or time of day.

But baseload generators may not always provide enough energy. A hotter-than-usual summer night would, for example, increase the demand for air conditioning. That increased demand would require more energy than normal, and quickly. This is where dispatchable energy comes in. Since nuclear and coal power plants are already meeting the minimum demands, other sources, such as natural gas, must step in quickly. When the amount of electricity a region requires returns to normal, a dispatchable source can be slowed or powered down, preventing overproduction.

Non-dispatchable sources, like wind and solar, do provide some energy. They can charge batteries when the sun is shining or the wind is blowing, and then use this power during times of peak energy usage. For example, the Crescent Dunes power plant in Nevada can hold 10 hours of energy when fully loaded. But solar energy is not equally useful in all areas, especially in a state like Michigan, which has less than half the total number of clear days that states like California, Nevada, Arizona and New Mexico receive.

Renewable energy sources augment the baseload power supplies of nuclear and coal, but since we can’t control the weather, they are not reliable sources of energy. To ensure that the lights come on with the switch is flipped, it’s best to have power sources that do not depend on the weather.