Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio writes about Proposal 2 in The Daily Caller, explaining how it would undo reforms and cost taxpayers as much as $1.6 billion annually and override some 170 state laws.
The proponents of Proposal 2 made the rounds claiming that collective bargaining has been put in other states' constitutions and therefore Proposal 2 was nothing new or radical.
Their statement was meant to mislead. While some state constitutions allow collective bargaining, no other state constitution allows collective bargaining agreements to override state laws related to “wages, hours, and terms of conditions of employment,” a very broad term that includes matters as trivial as the price of candy bars and soda at work.
It hardly came as a surprise last week when Jacques Barzun shuffled off the mortal coil. He was, after all, 104. But his legacy as an anti-statist is grand.
Barzun’s death presents a renewed opportunity to discuss his important contribution to cultural history. His magnum opus, “From Dawn to Decadence, 1500 to the Present: 500 Years of Cultural Life,” published in 2000, summarizes nearly 75 years of observations culled from in-depth and astute reading as well as rubbing shoulders with some of the best thinkers and artists of the 20th century.
In its October newsletter, the Michigan Education Association wrote that Proposal 2 “…goes beyond just protecting collective bargaining. It protects the middle class and working families, giving them a chance to negotiate for fair wages and benefits and the ability to support themselves.”
The term “collective bargaining” is used in the Proposal 2 ballot language as if everyone knows exactly what it means, yet most people only have a vague understanding of this legal construct. The term is misleading because it leaves out the most important element — mandatory. Economist Charles Baird spelled it out in a recent column:
Proposal 3 on the Nov. 6 ballot, dubbed the “25 by 25' renewable energy standard, refers to a mandate that would force the state’s utilities to produce 25 percent of their electricity sold from “renewable” resources by 2025. These resources, as stated on the ballot, include wind power, solar power, biomass and hydropower.
Mackinac Center policy experts recently discussed several ballot proposals on television, radio and in print both statewide and nationally.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio appeared on “The Tom Sullivan Show” on Fox Business Saturday evening, discussing Proposal 2.
The Service Employees International Union is not a charity. According to its own website, the SEIU is an employee union that exists to win “better wages, health care and more secure jobs” for their members.
So why do proponents of Proposal 4 maintain that the SEIU is spending millions to simply “ensure safe home care”? And why is the union only pushing through this change to the Michigan Constitution now, when a program that guarantees this has been in existence since for over 30 years?
The House and Senate did not meet this week, so rather than votes, this report instead contains several newly introduced bills of interest.
Note: There will be no roll call report next week. The next report will be Nov. 9.
Senate Bill 1290: Authorize refillable beer container sales
Introduced by Sen. Dave Hildenbrand (R), to allow merchants licensed to sell beer and wine for consumption off-premises, and bars or restaurants licensed to sell all legal forms of alcohol, to refill clearly labeled “growlers” (sealable containers of up to one gallon) with beer for consumption off-premises. Referred to committee, no further action at this time.
The proponents of Proposal 2 have been less than forthright lately in their bid to lock into the Michigan Constitution collective bargaining privileges and the ability for union contracts to override state laws.
First, for weeks, the group “Protect Working Families” (formerly “Protect Our Jobs”) listed on its website the “fact” that states outlawing government unions performed “among the worst in the nation” on standardized tests. The problem? Not only was that false, but the five states mentioned all score higher than Michigan on the most widely taken test.
Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was cited in both the Los Angeles Times and The New York Times this week about union political spending Proposal 2, a union-backed initiative that would impact some 170 state laws and cost taxpayers at least $1.6 billion annually.
Just before the 2010 election, an article published here predicted that 88 percent of newly elected state legislators could fairly be described as “political careerists.” In that article a “political careerist” was in-part defined as someone who had been immersed in government before running for the Legislature. Follow-up research put the final tally at 86 percent: 70 of the 81 new lawmakers elected fit the “political careerist” definition.
For most school districts, value is placed highest on teacher seniority. In fact, nearly all teacher union contracts require that layoff, recall and placement decisions be made strictly by seniority. But oddly, several districts appear to value union bosses the most.
Michigan public schools have 4.2 percent more students than in 1992, but the number of non-teaching school employees is up 19.1 percent, an increase that’s four times larger.
The number of teachers here grew 14.2 percent in that time, more than three times larger. The figures are from a just-released study by the Friedman Foundation, a national education reform group, and come from data provided by the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics.
Proposal 3, the renewable energy standard, would constitutionally require Michigan power companies to get 25 percent of the electricity they sell from wind, solar, biomass and hydro by the year 2025. In a direct challenge to the laws of economics, the supporters say it will create jobs and can truly cap rate increases at 1 percent.
The Michigan Press Association has joined the Mackinac Center in expressing concern over the impact Proposal 2 could have on Michigan’s Freedom of Information Act, according to the Detroit Free Press.
The MPA and the Center issued a joint press release on the matter Tuesday.
Derk Wilcox, senior attorney with the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation, participated in a live chat hosted by the Detroit Free Press about Proposal 4 on Tuesday. Wilcox authored the Center’s recent policy brief on Proposal 4, which would enshrine in the state constitution a scheme to force home-based caregivers into a government union. This ploy so far has allowed the SEIU to skim more than $32 million in “dues” from family members who provide care for their loved ones.
Fewer students are graduating on time under Michigan's tougher graduation requirements.
In 2006, the state Legislature passed a law that specified and dramatically increased the number of courses high school students needed to take to graduate. Under the Michigan Merit Curriculum, students are now required to take four credits of math, four credits of language arts, three credits of science and three credits of social studies, along with a few other credits in miscellaneous subjects.
If the constitutional ballot initiative Proposal 2 was merely about establishing the "right" to collectively bargain, it would stop after the first section.
That section reads, “The people shall have the right to organize … and to bargain collectively with a public or private employer through an exclusive representative of the employees’ choosing, to the fullest extent not preempted by the laws of the United States.”
According to a new analysis from the American Community Survey, published by Slate magazine in collaboration with the New America Foundation, in 2010 Michigan had the fourth largest pay disparity between women and men at 62 cents for every dollar, respectively. With neither a regard for employment type and qualification nor the unprecedented unemployment in Michigan, this study can be considered just another propaganda piece for the partisan “War on Women.”
The House did not meet this week. The Senate met for one day.
Y = Yes, N = No, X = Not Voting
Senate Bill 1293, Repeal BCBS tax exemption, regulate like other insurers: Passed 33 to 4 in the Senate
To convert Blue Cross Blue Shield into a “nonprofit mutual insurance company” (technically "owned" by the policy holders), make it subject to the same regulations as regular health insurers, and no longer exempt BCBS from state and local taxes. The bill requires BCBS to spend $1.5 billion in accumulated reserves over 18 years to augment government health programs.
Note: Under the federal “Affordable Care Act” (“Obamacare”) the “social mission” of being the “insurer of last resort” which was the rationale for this insurer's tax-exempt status no longer applies, since all insurance companies would be subject to similar "guaranteed issue" mandates.
In the Detroit Free Press recently, two opposing views about Proposal 4 — the home-based caregivers constitutional amendment — were published, but only one was factually correct.
The article opposing the union power grab was written by Robert and Patricia Haynes and laid out the position they have been forced into. The article in support of the proposal is from Dohn Hoyle, who is Prop 4 spokesman and executive director of The Arc Michigan (and last seen calling Robert Haynes an "idiot"). Hoyle's column is wrong on every single point raised.
About 80 percent of teacher contracts ratified in the last two years do not base compensation on performance, despite a 2010 bill signed into law by Gov. Jennifer Granholm requiring it, Education Policy Director Michael Van Beek told Frank Beckmann on WJR AM760 today.
LG Chem, a battery company based in Holland, Mich., received a $151 million grant through the federal “stimulus” program and another $100 million in promised credits from Michigan taxpayers. Today, the company faces “rolling furloughs” and reports that workers are sitting around playing cards and reading magazines because “there’s nothing to do.”
Does Michigan really need more unelected government entities with the power to hand out corporate welfare? The backers of Senate Bill 1301 seem to think so. The bill would expand the power of government “port authorities” to borrow and engage in “economic development” activities. It is sponsored or cosponsored by Republican Sens. Mike Kowall, Tom Casperson (who chairs the Transportation committee), Mike Nofs, Patrick Colbeck and Mike Green, and Democrat Virgil Smith. (If there is any area where bipartisanship truly shines in the Michigan Legislature, it’s corporate welfare, expansions of which are routinely passed with barely a handful of “no” votes.)
