Statewide media is reporting on a hearing held Wednesday by the Senate Compliance and Accountability Committee regarding the MEA’s failure to allow members to resign as per their rights under Michigan’s worker freedom law.

WOOD-TV, The Grand Rapids Press and Detroit Free Press all reported that teachers and other school employees testified about their inability to get information from the teachers union regarding how to opt out.

“My union president told me she didn’t want me to get into trouble with the MEA,” Amy Breza, a paraeducator from Clarkston, told the committee. “I told her you need to talk to my attorney.”

Miriam Chanski, a kindergarten teacher from Coopersville, said “That information was not given to us upfront. It was actively hidden from us.”

Breza and Chanski are both clients of the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, which has filed unfair labor practice complaints on behalf of eight public school employees against the MEA.

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