Michigan teacher relieved to learn she won’t be pushed back into union

Know your Janus rights: Government employees are exempt from forced unionization

By Jamie A. Hope | April 11, 2023

Like many public sector employees, Traci Hopper was unaware that she won’t be forced back into a union after the end of Michigan’s right-to-work law. Hopper has taught in Michigan parochial and public schools for 32 years, and she left the Michigan Education Association soon after Michigan ended forced unionization in 2012.

Hopper currently teaches AP psychology, criminal law and government at Airport High School in Carleton. She also is a sponsor for the YMCA Michigan Youth in Government program, taking students to Lansing, where they engage in a mock senate session.

But even with that concentration in civics, Hopper did not know until Friday that she will retain her right to free association after the repeal of the right-to-work law. While hundreds of thousands of private sector workers will be forced to join and pay unions following the repeal that was pushed through by Gov. Whitmer and legislative Democrats in March, public sector employees are protected under the Supreme Court’s Janus decision.

More than two decades ago, union leadership engaged in a smear campaign to manipulate members, Hopper told Michigan Capitol Confidential. Uncooperative members were subject to rumors spread by union leadership. When Hopper was a witness in a lawsuit involving allegations that union bosses slandered her colleagues, the situation became so tense, she said, that the principal of her school had to assign a police liaison officer in front of the media center where she worked.

Hopper’s husband died, and she remarried. When she moved and started teaching at Airport High School, she was still required by law to pay union dues. Michigan’s right-to-work law had not yet been enacted, while the Supreme Court’s ruling in Janus v. AFSCME was years in the future. Being forced to pay dues, Hopper was determined to stay informed about the union’s doings, and she attended every meeting.

Union leadership’s protection of underperforming or nonperforming teachers, Hopper told CapCon, made it harder on everyone else.

Right-to-work was signed into law in Michigan 2012. She left her union in summer 2013, while the union was negotiating a new contract with her employer.

Hopper was relieved Friday when CapCon informed her of the public sector exemption — though she believes misinformation from the media and organized labor have left many other teachers and public employees ignorant of their rights. The nation’s high court ruled in 2018 that public sector employees are not required to pay union dues as a condition of employment.

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.

Testimony reveals that National Popular Vote has many critics in Michigan

On an Elections Committee stacked 6-2 for Dems, written testimony comes out even

By James David Dickson | April 10, 2023

A funny thing happened at the March 7 meeting of the Michigan House Committee on Elections.

Testimony was about evenly split over a bill to have Michigan join the National Popular Vote Interstate Compact, an agreement that would pledge Michigan’s votes to the winner of a “national popular vote” as determined by a group of secretaries of state.

The eight-member committee is stacked 6-2 in favor of Democrats, and live testimony was presented so as to create an impression of nearly unanimous support for House Bill 4156. Committee Chair Penelope Tsernoglou allowed only one dissenting voice provided time to speak, according to meeting minutes. Rep. Carrie Rheingans, D-Ann Arbor, who introduced the bill with 34 Democratic co-sponsors, was the first witness to testify.

But written testimony submitted to the committee was less lopsided. For nearly every supporter, there was a detractor.

And while three House Bills — 4033, 4127 and 4128 — received a “favorable roll call” at the March 7 meeting, advancing beyond the committee in a 6-2 vote, 4156 did not receive a vote.

The Mackinac Center’s David Guenthner, vice president for government affairs, submitted written testimony opposing the bill.

Guenthner noted that in the event of a tie, a nationwide recount would be “practically impossible.”

This is important, because only in the event of a tie would the state vote tally for Michigan be the deciding factor. As a tie is all but statistically impossible, the result of National Popular Vote would be disenfranchisement of the Michigan voter.

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