The Ferndale school district's collective bargaining agreement made headlines recently because it gives preference to applicants of "the non-Christian faith."
Under media scrutiny, Ferndale officials said they "somehow missed" the discriminatory language. Fortunately, they have now removed it.
Research on the relationship between cigarette smuggling and tobacco excise taxes by Mackinac Center scholars was cited recently by Time, CBS News and The Washington Post.
The research was also the focus of this New York Post editorial and was featured on Northwest Public Radio and in Bloomberg and the Arizona Republic.
A clause in the teachers’ contract at Ferndale Public Schools discriminating against Christian employees that gained national and international media attention has been scrapped. Michigan Capitol Confidential broke the story, and media are now reporting the clause has been removed.
(Editor’s note: This commentary by Ray Arthur, a 35-year teaching veteran from Petoskey, originally appeared in The Detroit News on March 19, 2014.)
As I studied Michigan’s right-to-work law in March of 2013 and looked ahead to my retirement this coming June, I began to weigh the pros and cons of my 34-year membership in the Michigan Education Association.
(Editor’s note: The following statement was submitted by Executive Vice President Michael J. Reitz to the Michigan House Committee on Criminal Justice as it begins consideration of House Bills 5230 and 5233.)
The Mackinac Center is well known in Michigan for recommending tax, fiscal, labor and education-related policies that advance the principles of self-government and a free-enterprise economy. The Center is less well known for its scholars’ views on civil and criminal asset forfeiture laws. Among other places these views were articulated in a 1998 study published by the Mackinac Center, “Reforming Property Forfeiture Laws to Protect Citizens’ Rights,” authored by Donald J. Kochan. The study offered a list of specific recommendations, most of which are still relevant. The following excerpt from that report articulates the principles that underlie the Center’s views on this issue:
On public television’s weekly Off-the-Record program last week, state Rep. Mike Shirkey, R-Clark Lake, discussed Michigan’s new right-to-work law as being successful based on business expansion inquiries made to the Michigan Economic Development Corp., the state agency that awards special tax breaks and subsidies for corporations and developers. Yet both history and employment data shows that kind of information says little about the economy.
Several bills related to brewers, restaurants and bars were recently passed by the Legislature. While all are pushing the rules in the right direction, there is no reason the state should not allow for more freedom on these legal products.
The most significant proposed laws are as follows (all have passed the Legislature nearly unanimously and are headed to the governor):
Michigan Capitol Confidential reports today that a list including the names of employees who have exercised their worker freedom rights at Hurley Medical Center in Flint and opted out of the union has been reposted by the union on a bulletin board in a public area near the hospital’s cafeteria. The list, seen by those whose names are on it as a union intimidation tactic, was first posted three weeks ago. Hospital administration appears to be ignoring the contract it signed with the union in question and refuses to intervene in the bullying.
Michigan Capitol Confidential reports that the Service Employees International Union, which took $34 million in forced dues from home-based caregivers as part of its dues skim, has received the second biggest campaign finance violation fine in state history.
A Coopersville kindergarten teacher who resigned from the Michigan Education Association under the state's worker freedom law says she is glad her ordeal is over, but is concerned for her colleagues, according to a story in The Grand Rapids Press.
"I am very thankful that the MEA has finally recognized my right to opt out, but my settlement doesn't bring justice to the thousands of other teachers in my position in West Michigan and across the state of Michigan," Miriam Chanski, who along with Petoskey teacher Ray Arthur is now free from the MEA, told The Press.
Manny Lopez, managing editor of Michigan Capitol Confidential, was a guest on “Money With Melissa Francis” on Fox Business this afternoon, explaining why corporate welfare for film makers is unfair to the taxpayers from whom the money is taken.
You can read more about Michigan’s film subsidies here.
As auto manufacturing has shifted to the South, the UAW has made a push to begin unionizing workers in right-to-work states.
The words and actions of union officials are interesting compared to states where workers are still forced to pay money to the union.
The minimum wage has been in the news a lot lately due to proposals at the state and federal levels to increase it and because of a February Congressional Budget Office report on the subject.
Among all the policy subjects up for debate, there is perhaps no easier conclusion to draw than that minimum wage mandates are jobs killers.
A Boston Herald editorial on a $1 per pack tax hike on cigarettes in Massachusetts cites Michael LaFaive, director of the Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, who warned that an increase would lead to more tobacco smuggling and less state revenue.
The editorial references an interview LaFaive did with WBUR last year, indicating that the tax hike would cause the cigarette smuggling rate in Massachusetts to more than double from 18 percent to 43 percent. The state is now reporting that it is losing up to $246 million a year in cigarette taxes and $49 million a year in sales tax due to cigarette smuggling.
“We’re looking at Ohio. We’re looking at Missouri. We’re looking at Kentucky. The fire of worker freedom is shining brightly, and it is spreading.”
Those were among the comments of Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio at a panel discussion on right-to-work Saturday held at CPAC near Washington, D.C., according to Huffington Post.
State and national media are reporting on the victory of two Mackinac Center Legal Foundation clients over the Michigan Education Association in their fight against the union to exercise their worker freedom rights.
The Detroit News, Detroit Free Press, National Review Online, WZZM-TV13 in Grand Rapids, MLive, The National Law Review, the Washington Examiner and the Petoskey News-Review all reported on the union giving up in its battle to force teachers Miriam Chanski of Coopersville and Ray Arthur of Petoskey to pay union dues. Patrick Wright, director of the MCLF, also discussed the matter on “Capital City Recap” with host Michael Cohen on WILS AM1320 in Lansing and on "The Frank Beckmann Show" on WJR AM760, and Labor Policy Director F. Vincent Vernuccio was interviewed about the matter by National Review in Washington, D.C.
Senate Bill 783, Let landlords ban medical marijuana use: Passed 31 to 7 in the Senate
To prohibit the use of medical marijuana on any portion of private property that is open to the public, or where it is banned by the property owner. The bill would also permit a landlord to refuse to rent a residence to someone who uses medical marijuana on the property. Because the bill amends an initiated law adopted by the people, it requires a three-fourths supermajority vote in the Senate and House.
What could your household do with an extra $240 per year?
A new study estimates that Illinois electricity consumers have saved $37 billion from 1999 to 2013 as a result of increased electricity and natural gas competition. That works out to a total savings of $3,600 per household, or $240 annually. Illinois now boasts the lowest electricity prices in the Midwest.
Detroit's pension woes are in the news, but municipal employees around Michigan should not presume that their pension systems are secure.
Indeed, in most Michigan cities the underfunding problems are worse than those in Detroit.
On paper, the unfunded liabilities for Detroit's police and fire system are $147 million, and its general employee pension system underfunding comes to $838 million. That translates into 96 percent and 77 percent funded, respectively. That is, for every dollar in pension benefits earned by an employee, the city has an average of 87 cents saved.
Senior Legislative Analyst Jack McHugh was part of a roundtable discussion on “The Tony Conley Show” on WILS AM1320 in Lansing Tuesday, discussing wasteful government spending and how Michigan can use the tax dollars it takes from us more wisely and more efficiently.
The best tax systems include low rates, a wide base and limited exemptions that minimize the distortions caused by policy, while easing the burdens of paying the tax.
But many of the provisions that make the tax code so complicated are advocated for, and relied upon, by a variety of special interest groups, meaning changing the system is extremely difficult.
The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press are both reporting on a lawsuit filed by the Mackinac Center Legal Foundation on behalf of Susan Bank, a 39-year teaching veteran who is being threatened by the Michigan Education Association because she chose to stop paying union dues under Michigan’s right-to-work law.
House Bill 4168, Repeal mandate for sheriffs to kill unlicensed dogs: Passed 36 to 0 in the Senate
To repeal a 1919 law that requires county sheriffs to locate and kill all unlicensed dogs, and which defines failure to do so as nonfeasance in office.
Bradley A. Smith, a member of the Mackinac Center’s Board of Scholars and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission appointed by President Clinton, writes in a Wall Street Journal commentary that the media’s lack of coverage of the IRS scandal “betrays a remarkable, if not willful, failure to understand abuse of power.”
One could hear several varieties of apocalyptical claims while Michigan was in the process of becoming the 24th right-to-work state in the nation.
Rep. Sander Levin called it "frightful ... for the people of the state of Michigan and for the middle class." The Associated Press said it was a "devastating and once-unthinkable defeat to organized labor." And one union in Michigan claimed it was "a violation of the prohibitions against involuntary servitude." In other words, a form of slavery.
