Tag: MEA

Take for example one of the new Michigan Board of Education members, elected in 2012 for an 8 year term.  Michelle Fecteau, is (according to the state's site) currently the Executive Director of the Wayne State University Chapter of the American Association of University Professors.  The site also notes her position is "jointly affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers," making her recent actions straight up incestuous. As reported by EAG:

"But that's not stopping one board member, Michelle Fecteau of Detroit, from using her position to try to intervene on behalf of a local labor union that's negotiating a contract with a privately-operated charter school.

This is an unusual situation in more ways than one. First of all, Cesar Chavez Academy in Detroit is one of a very few charter schools in Michigan with union teachers. The staff was converted last year through an ongoing campaign by the American Federation of Teachers.

But the Chavez union and the charter operator have yet to come to a contract agreement. That's not surprising, because many of the items that teachers unions bargain for tend to have a paralyzing effect on schools, allowing them less flexibility to make academic inroads. It's hard for a charter school to maintain the positive characteristics of a charter school with union rules and pay scales in place."

What a shame that the MIGOP wouldn't spend more than $265 cash and $16.95 worth of food in 2012. Charter Schools work better in many cases because the rules don't hamstring innovation and proper resource allocation.  Fecteau's efforts are designed to make them fail, and drive students back to an imploding public school system.

The foundation explains:

"The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation is filing a lawsuit on behalf of Miriam Chanski and several other plaintiffs against the Michigan Education Association over the union's misreading of Michigan's right-to-work law. The union is enforcing an outdated policy referred to as the "August Window," which limits members' ability to exercise their first amendment rights to one month out of the year.  .. "

"On March 26, 2013 WB-RC officials offered a $10,000 buyout for any qualifying teacher who left the school district that year, an incentive superintendent Dan Cwayna said the district had used in the past to encourage needed staff reductions.

While its not clear when Erickson's employment was terminated, the union's action suggests he was still on the payroll when the buyout was offered and accepted it.

The school district declined to pay him the money, prompting the union's action."

As August rounds the mid-mark, any Teachers in Michigan wishing to terminate dues paying to the union they might feel does NOT represent them should take note. The MEA is going to make it as hard as possible to consider your options.  The statement by MEA President Steve Cook that the union would use

"any legal means at our disposal"

Cook should note that some of those within the union might well have been willing to wait and see if the union would attempt to be more representative, given the circumstance.  Instead, it doubles down, and drives home the reason that Freedom-To-Work is now law; that an out of touch overpaid political machine exists within its (the MEA's)ranks. Cook is an example of lousy leadership that has no expectation of capitulating to law or common sense with regard to the treatment of those who pay his six-figure income.

OK. Fine.

For those of you who feel pressured to make that decision within the next two weeks?  The Mackinac Center has provided a means by which you can tell Cook to go to the back of the lunch line. A prepared and downloadable opt-out letter that tells him where to stuff it. (here is a sample I did in 30 seconds)

Epic fail.  Then again, it should not come as much of a surprise.. they're programmed to fail from K-12.

Spoken like true Michiganders... all it takes is other peoples money moving free markets to unnatural settings for appeasing their altruistic wants.

"We know it's important for us ... to get these young people before prospective employers," Mike Finney, CEO of the Michigan Economic Development Corp., said Monday at Gov. Rick Snyder's 2013 Economic Summit in Cobo Center here. "We're starting to scale that up. We've got to start facilitating the connectedness to make these things happen."

The effort, based on a pilot program that aims to connect qualified technical school graduates with open jobs, is an extension of the governor's efforts to boost job creation, lower an unemployment rate hovering around 9 percent and encourage the state's business community to take a leading role in spurring economic growth.
...

In an interview, the governor said economic development is about more than extending "tax credits. It's about people helping people." And the traditional system for matching the supply of talent to demand in the private sector "is broken, and it's not just broken in Michigan. It's broken nationally."

In that, the relentlessly positive Snyder sees opportunity. There's opportunity to keep graduates of Michigan's colleges and universities at home; opportunity to attract talent from other states if Michigan can develop a program to connect talent to employment; and opportunity to leverage the promise of a recovering economy.

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