![[Photo of Paul Kersey]](/media/images/people/PKersey-MED.jpg)
Paul Kersey is director of labor policy at the Illinois Policy Institute and served as director of labor policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy from September 2007 to May 2012.
Kersey holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics from the University of Michigan-Dearborn. In 1993, he received his Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois.
After practicing law in Livonia, Mich., for several years, Kersey served on the staff of the U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform and Oversight Committee. He then spent three years at the National Right to Work Committee as director of state legislation. In that role, he analyzed and responded to labor legislation in all 50 states.
Tools
By Paul Kersey
Advice for Gov. Snyder
Forced to make a snap decision with little guidance, a legislator could do a lot worse than to find out what proposal government union officials object to the most and vote for that. … more
Burn Notice
The union establishment's position of influence and privilege is liable to become more and more precarious unless they can re-establish themselves in the private-sector workforce — which may be why a labor board appointed by an administration that benefited mightily from union support is going to great lengths to help unions out in any way they can. … more
The Return of the Company Union
A weakened union that is overly compliant with the company's priorities is what used to be known as a "company union," and unionists used to treat them with suspicion if not contempt. But that was when the union movement was a genuine worker movement. … more
All The Cool Guvs Are Doing It
Rick Snyder has yet to tackle collective bargaining directly, but he has taken a pretty firm line on government employee benefits something that’s bound to make union officials in Michigan uncomfortable. … more
Two Governors
Leaders of our fellow upper-Midwestern states are starting to zero-in on government employee unions. It will be interesting to see if Michigan's incoming governor takes a stand on this issue. … more
Exactly What Unions Are Expected to Do
Government employees have every right to lobby and hire lawyers, but the public is not obligated to give in to their wishes or pay for those lobbyists and lawyers. … more
Right-to-Work: Resistance Is Feudal
The notion of "fundamental privileges" that government cannot withdraw without causing some sort of "disruption" is antithetical to republican government, though it would fit well in a feudal society, with its complex web of privileges and obligations that tied individuals to their stations in life. … more
How to Swipe $200K From Your Union
A UAW Local's bookkeeper cut herself an extra paycheck every week for four years. It would seem union financial reporting standards could afford some tightening up. … more
Governor's Picks for the Civil Service Commission Will Matter
Snyder has promised “customer oriented” government. If he wants to influence how state employees do their work on a “retail” level, or address state employee compensation, he will need to pay attention to this panel, be patient and put serious thought into his CSC appointments when they come up. … more
Mike Barone Gets It
Government employee unions have morphed into a permanent, taxpayer-funded lobby for big government. Any movement, like the Tea Parties, that wants to reduce the scope of government will need to confront and defeat government employee unions — and if they are to have any lasting success, it will be essential that government employee unions lose taxpayer funding. … more
Go for the Movie, Stay for the Audience Reaction
Well-meaning progressives may hope that the teachers unions will embrace reforms at some point, but by now they should realize that the chances of that happening are infinitesimal. Failing that, they face a stark choice between allowing public schools to continue to fail, or confronting a teachers’ union movement that is both one of their most important creations and most generous political benefactors. Davis Guggenheim has shined a light on the progressives’ predicament. It will be interesting to see how they handle it. … more
Pocket Full of Kryptonite
The problem isn’t individual teachers, it’s a larger system that protects mediocrity and incompetence, and elevates political correctness over the fundamentals of reading, writing, math, science and history. And teachers unions like MEA have been both the strongest defenders and the largest beneficiaries of this system. … more
A Little Good News for Kids and Taxpayers
Taxpayers and students won a small but potentially very important victory Friday when administrative law Judge David M. Peltz found that the Legislature did not give unions the authority to sidetrack privatization of non-instructional services by school districts. … more
Reconsidering Worker Rights
Federal labor law isn’t supposed to provide for workers to be unionized after the company makes an agreement with a union. Union representation is supposed to be the workers' own choice. … more
Ain't No Party Like a Chrysler Party
Last night, Channel 2 News in Detroit busted a group of about half a dozen workers at Chrysler's Jefferson North plant drinking and smoking pot during their lunch break. Do we really need TV cameras to prevent UAW workers from getting buzzed on their lunch breaks? … more
Storm Front
If anyone in Lansing is serious about helping Detroit, this would be a good time for a bill that would suspend collective bargaining for government employees in the city, so that Detroit's leadership can make the tough choices and make the most of the resources it has. … more
Studying Right to Work
A new poll shows 51 percent of likely voters in Michigan support right-to-work. … more
It Would Be a Living...
New non-union auto jobs in right-to-work Mississippi pay $15 an hour and even in a tough economy they are relatively easy to find. … more
Snyder the Tax Cutter?
If Rick Snyder really wants conservatives and tea party activists in his corner and energized, and if he really wants to reinvent Michigan next January, the next step will be dust off one of his own position papers and show some leadership on business tax relief. … more
...And a Few More Questions for Virg
Mayor Bernero, last week during an interview with Paul W. Smith, you made the case that as governor you would have a better chance of developing good working relationships with government employee unions based on your experience as mayor of Lansing. … more
Another Question for Snyder
Why do you think morale is so low among unionized government employees? … more
The Defendants Plead Guilty, Your Honor
In two separate cases over the last month, two Michigan union officials pled guilty to violations of federal law. … more
Bob King's First Amendment
Actually, workers ought to have the full range of First Amendment rights — to join a union, to not join a union, to contribute to causes they believe in, to withhold support from causes they don’t believe in, and to hear speech that is not screened by union officials first. … more
Mike Bouchard and Right-to-Work Legislation
Whether Mike Bouchard is acting out of principle or pragmatism, one can only hope that more gubernatorial candidates follow his lead. … more
Selective Disclosure
There is no reason, aside from political calculation, why unions should not be subjected to the same level of scrutiny as political parties, companies, or issue groups like the Chamber of Commerce. If anything the scrutiny should be even closer because so much of their funds are drawn from union dues that workers must pay or lose their jobs. … more
Big Waste, Bad News
Two bills are working their way through the House of Representatives in Lansing that would change the process of binding arbitration, which is used to resolve contract disputes between local governments and their employees. One of these bills is, at best, a complete waste of time. The other is just a lousy idea. … more
The Man Who Would Be (Bob) King
Does the UAW need another association with a failed automaker? … more
Throwing Down the Gauntlet
Michigan would benefit from having a few elected officials with the nerve to issue the sort of challenge that Gov. Christie has made. … more
A Tale of Two Counties
Here we have two very similar, fairly wealthy counties; one engages in collective bargaining with its employees on rules similar to Michigan’s Public Employment Relations Act, the other doesn’t. One is coping with the recession well, the other is struggling with political infighting. The implications for Michigan are hard to miss: A lot of local governments in Michigan would be better off without collective bargaining. … more
A Law Unto Itself
Whether the standards that the community establishes for police officers be strict or lenient, the setting and enforcement of standards for police conduct is a duty that must be performed by local officials under the scrutiny of citizens themselves. Oversight of law enforcement is a role that should never be bargained with a union or delegated to arbitration. … more
Live From New York, It's Saturday Night Labor!
The abuses of power perpetrated by government employee unions are well known and established enough to serve as comedic fodder nationwide. … more
The MEA President Lays on the Guilt Trip
At bottom, Michigan Education Association President Iris Salters’ latest commentary in The Detroit News is an attempt to lay a guilt trip on Michigan taxpayers, essentially saying, "If you really cared about your children you’d send us more money." This sort of manipulation can be annoying when it comes from an acquaintance. When it comes from the president of a multimillion dollar government employee union and lobbying group, it’s bound to be expensive. … more
Is This the Death Blow for the Living Wage?
Municipal living wage ordinances are on very thin ice. … more
Checking on the UAW
The LM-2 forms for 2009 are up on the Department of Labor website. Let’s look at some of the highlights. Up first, the United Auto Workers. It was a tough year all around for the crew at Solidarity House: … more
But I Thought That Went Without Saying ...
Right-to-Work is on the minds of a lot of people who make their living paying close attention to Michigan politics. … more
Intellectually Bankrupt
One reads and rereads Hoffa’s musings in vain for some hint of a solution to the state’s problems — even a misguided one — but there is none. Hoffa has no answers. … more
Unfinished Business
The actual competitiveness of the Big Three never rated highly as a value for the government’s restructuring of the industry, and the UAW has shown it is prone to act cavalierly towards those same companies as they struggle back toward profitability. … more
Becker Appointed to NLRB
If we are to treat the workplace as political rather than as an economic arrangement, its politics ought to be fully democratic, respecting the rights of all interested parties to speak. … more
'Cause You Know It Don't Matter Anyway
There is a bitter irony in seeing the president of the state’s most powerful union lecture the people of Michigan about decisions she disapproves of from her perch in one of the safest jobs in the state. … more
Local Officials Call for Help
If Michigan wants to recover from its economic doldrums, it would help if local governments could get their finances back in balance. And if local governments are going to balance their books, it would help if they could get some relief from labor laws that empower unions at the expense of taxpayers. … more
Union Corruption Update
Recent charges and guilty pleas involving union officials. … more
Quick! Change the Subject
Teamsters President James Hoffa would love to manipulate Tea Partiers for his own purposes. … more
Nicely Played, MEA!
The MEA gave up nothing in the "Race to the Top" deal. They made no concessions in terms of teacher compensation or performance. They may — depending on just how the law is interpreted — have made privatization, which has saved school districts and taxpayers across the state millions of dollars a subject of collective bargaining again. Oh, and the state hasn’t gotten a nickel in federal funds so far. … more
35, 34, 33...
Wages for state employees have gone up half again as fast as they did for workers throughout the state. Certainly they can afford to go without an across-the-board raise this year. … more
36 Days
The bottom line is the Legislature has always had the authority to prevent pay raises authorized by the CSC, and collective bargaining agreements between the state and unions representing its employees have always been subject to the Legislature’s acquiescence. … more
37 Days
The process of collective bargaining cannot be allowed to trump the will of the people or the public interest; otherwise, our representative government is in danger of morphing into a plutocracy controlled by government employee unions, who could use collective bargaining to lead the rest of the state around by the nose.
We have 37 days to restore fiscal sanity in Michigan. … more
We have 37 days to restore fiscal sanity in Michigan. … more
Kermit the Frog Meets the Underpants Gnomes: Ron Gettelfinger's Pitch for Green Auto Jobs
The UAW chief tells us that there are 190,000 new automotive sector jobs about to be created, and we can have them all right here if Republicans and Democrats do…something. What exactly Gettelfinger hopes they will do isn’t spelled out or even hinted at but it probably involves gobs of taxpayer money. … more
Don't Look Now
The important thing is that the leadership of the GOP in Lansing thinks, at a minimum, that it can score political points by promoting right-to-work protections, which is a big shift for a state in which unions have held sway for so long. … more
Give. It. Up.
Binding arbitration isn’t a last resort in EFCA: It’s the specialty of the house. … more
Whatever
If you had the UAW’s record, you’d be tempted to hide behind a great man’s rhetoric of 40 years ago, too. … more
Welcome to Bizarro World
It is a bizarre world indeed when the MEA claims to be the taxpayers' champion. … more
Respect My Authoritah!!!
While labor law can be complicated and intimidating, school districts and the public should take a union’s claims about its own authority with a proverbial grain of salt. … more
At Ford, Grievances Are Job One
Since UAW workers are looking forward to profit sharing, it shouldn’t come as a shock if the company restores some perks for its white-collar work force as well. … more
Senator Prusi's Bright Idea
Prusi says: "If they're negotiating out of fear, then they don't belong at the negotiating table."
He has a point. … more
He has a point. … more
Anybody Got a Sword?
Sometimes the best answer to a complex problem is the simplest one. … more
Creatures of the State
The American labor movement reached what may prove to be a critical milestone last year when government employees, for the first time ever, made up a majority of union members. … more
Bishop Unveils Reform Proposals
A quick take on the Senate GOP's reform plans for Michigan. … more
Cadillac Hacks
Okay, it’s a cynical deal, but union workers can at least take comfort in knowing that their unions are looking out for them, right?
Well, maybe not... … more
Well, maybe not... … more
Busted
Investigations by the US Department of Labor Office of Labor Management Standards led to two officials from AFSCME Local 100 in Pontiac being brought up on charges from the embezzlement of nearly $40,000 of union funds. … more
MASStroturf
You see a lot of union members at political rallies. One can’t help but wonder how many are genuine volunteers who are motivated by support for the union’s agenda, and how many are there for the money. … more
Union Corruption Update
Nevada contractor pleads guilty to bribing Michigan union official. … more
We're Not in Kansas Any More
And we've never been anywhere quite like Pandora. … more
While I Was Away
Catching up on a couple of items left over from before my Christmas vacation. … more
Rebutting Gaffney on PA 312 and Binding Arbitration
A point-by-point rebuttal of AFL-CIO President Mark Gaffney's defense of PA 312, which establishes that bargaining impasses between local governments in Michigan and unions representing police and fire department personnel will be resolved via binding arbitration. … more
Stop the Madness!
Before Detroit Public Schools can return to some degree of effectiveness — let alone excellence — the sheer craziness of its labor relations strife must be resolved one way or another, and that means that DFT, or at least the radicals in DFT who are pushing for a strike, must be confronted and made to pay a steep price for their incompetence and recklessness. … more
Um, What's the Opposite of "More"?
One might think Detroit public school teachers are grossly overcompensated and overprotected, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a legitimate beef with union officials who promised them “more, more, more” without bothering to ask where it would come from. … more
Relationship Problems
The already problematic relationship between the State of Michigan and the Service Employees International Union is becoming more and more troubling as SEIU Local 517M reached terms for changes to their contract with the state of Michigan. As we have reported on this blog, another SEIU subsidiary, the Member Action Services Center, received $2 million in refundable MEGA tax credits last month. … more
The MEA's LM-2 Report for 2008-2009
The MEA's 2008-2009 LM-2 report at your fingertips. … more
Tidbits From the MEA's Recent Financial Report
The union is slightly less bloated, but its top officers are still doing pretty well. … more
SEIU/MASC: Curiouser and Curiouser
MEDC moved fast to secure a union operation for Michigan, but did it really need to? … more
What's Hiding Under the MASC?
The Michigan Economic Growth Authority has granted a $2 million tax credit to the Service Employees International Union that appears to be "refundable," meaning that it's actually a cash subsidy if this union operation has no tax liability. In that case, Michigan taxpayers would be paying for an SEIU office that could also be used for union organizing or political activism. The MEDC's response to persistent Mackinac Center attempts to confirm this has been, well, unresponsive. … more
What The...?
The value of MEDC itself is dubious and this grant to SEIU is especially so. … more
From South Detroit to Shockandawe
A pattern of sorts is starting to emerge: When one hears numbers of “jobs created or saved” by various government programs, it appears to be more and more likely that such numbers were pulled by someone out of the vicinity of his or her own back pocket. … more
Are Detroit City Retirees Being Taken Advantage Of?
This wouldn’t be the first time Detroit city employee unions turned a blind eye toward graft. Did the unions ever register any protests about how the boards operated? … more
No Thanks, I'm Full
Obesity is a real problem, but if there’s a public health problem that can be addressed with the sort of top-down, one-size-fits-all approach that is typical for government, obesity is not it. … more
