WASHINGTON — All over Michigan, public employee unions are scrambling to cement long-term contracts with school districts, higher education institutions and local units of government before the state’s right-to-work law takes effect Thursday. In doing so, unions have once again
WASHINGTON — All over Michigan, public employee unions are scrambling to cement long-term contracts with school districts, higher education institutions and local units of government before the state’s right-to-work law takes effect Thursday. In doing so, unions have once again stirred the wrath of GOP lawmakers.
The law will prevent unions from including “union security clauses” in their contracts that require employees to pay fees covering the cost of their representation regardless of whether they choose to be a dues-paying member. Because the law doesn’t apply to contracts already in place, public employee unions have had a window since its passage Dec. 11 to bargain with their employers.
Some have secured contracts that will delay the law’s impact for a decade.
Lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature are incensed by what they see as efforts to circumvent the law and are considering severe financial sanctions for educational institutions that participate.
“There’s some pretty frenetic activity going on where unions are trying to secure long term contracts to throw their members under the bus and prevent them from having a choice,” said Republican state Rep. Mike Shirkey, a key sponsor of the right-to-work law. He said supporters didn’t have the votes necessary in December to make the law effective immediately, but didn’t anticipate at the time that unions would resort to “acts of desperation.”
Union leaders say it’s unreasonable to expect them to follow a law before it’s actually in place. “For politicians to attempt to enforce a law not yet in effect is no different than them deciding to lower the speed limit to 60 miles per hour starting this summer, but ordering police to start issuing speeding tickets to motorists driving 70 miles per hour starting tomorrow,” Steven Cook, president of the Michigan Education Association, said in a statement.
Although Michigan is the 24th state to pass a right-to-work law, the move was a shock because of the state’s relatively strong union presence and central role in the modern labor movement.
Some of the public employers involved are using lengthy contracts to make overt political statements against the legislation, especially in areas of the state that are dominated by Democrats. In the Ann Arbor area, the Washtenaw County Board of Commissioners passed a resolution Feb. 20 formally condemning the right-to-work legislation as “designed to weaken labor unions and their ability to serve their members” and urging swift repeal. The resolution also directed the county administrator and director of human resources to engage in expedited negotiations with the county’s labor unions.
On Wednesday the Board of Commissioners approved 10-year agreements with unions representing about 700 county employees. Commissioner Andy LaBarre, who authored the resolution, said unions approached the county about expediting the bargaining process and the county was proud to accommodate them. “The unions have been ready and willing,” he said. “We all agreed this rather abhorrent thing presented us both with a deadline we should meet.”
LaBarre said the new bargaining agreements dramatically reduce retiree health care and pension costs and are good for everyone, from taxpayers to the union members who make up the county’s rank-and-file workforce.
“They’re hearing from their membership that it’s going to have a really negative effect on their workforce when you’ve got the vast majority of folks paying for the benefits and then others tagging along for free,” he said.
The length of the contracts is helpful, LaBarre said, because it will provide the county with a greater-than-usual level of stability and certainty about its personnel costs over a 10-year period.
Republicans in the legislature are not buying the business case for long contracts and have decried the moves as desperate and politically motivated. On Tuesday, House budget panels approved proposals for higher education and K-12 that would reduce state aid for institutions with new collective bargaining agreements, unless they can prove the contracts will significantly reduce their costs.
Higher education institutions could lose as much as 15 percent of their expected state funding. This includes $27.5 million at Wayne State University in Detroit, which has approved an eight-year contract with its faculty, and $47.3 million at the University of Michigan, which has reached tentative five-year agreements with five of its unions.
A similar bill targeting community colleges was passed by another House panel Thursday.
Shirkey said the budget measures are appropriate as part of the state’s ongoing efforts to use “performance funding” to promote best practices. “We see this as a non-best practice, that is, setting up a very long-term contract that is financially irresponsible,” he said. “Who can predict what the future will hold eight, 10 or 12 years down the road?”
Wayne State University ratified an eight-year contract Wednesday even as the legislature threatened to respond by pushing its state aid down to a level last seen in 1987. Moving forward with the contract was a difficult decision, President Allan Gilmour said, but the right decision because of the contract’s value to the university and uncertainty about whether the threatened reductions will actually become law.
