Trio Fights Michigan Union

A trio of Michigan public school teachers is actually fighting with their union. “The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation brought a suit on behalf of Angela Steffke, Rebecca Metz and Nancy Rhatigan, who were forced to continue paying dues or fees to their union or face being fired,” Derk Wilcox reported in the March/April 2014 issue of the Mackinac Center’s report. “This status would have lasted for the next 10 years under the union’s ‘insecurity’ clause — a dubious collective bargaining agreement hastily enacted on the eve of the right-to-work law [in Michigan] taking effect.”

“When the lawsuit was heard in the Wayne County Circuit Court, the judge there agreed with the union and said that these claims had to be heard at MERC [the Michigan Employment Relations Commission]. The teachers have appealed that court ruling, and the teachers also brought their claims to MERC, where the union promptly argued that MERC didn’t have the proper authority to hear it either.”

“It is a Catch-22. Employees who are deprived of their rights can’t bring their claim here, and they can’t bring it there. The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation has run into this ruse before when it challenged the stealth unionizations of home-based daycare providers and home-based caregivers.”

Malcolm A. Kline is the Executive Director of Accuracy in Academia.

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