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Repeal the Public Employment Relations Act May 18, 2020
Michigan schools and local governments are facing serious financial problems due to the coronavirus. We can help by giving them full control over their employees' wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. That control was taken away in 1965 with passage of Public Act 379, Public Employment Relations Act (PERA), which forced them to engage in collective bargaining.
Public schools and local governments are democratic entities governed by boards, councils and officials elected by the people. They should not be forced by the state to participate in activities that do not contribute to the welfare of their communities. Collective bargaining is a waste of time and money. Labor contracts are a relinquishment of the power the people have granted their elected officials. Local officials and school administrators are fully capable of setting wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment on their own, and their only concern should be maintaining a qualified workforce at the lowest possible cost.
Collective bargaining is not appropriate for government employees.
The National Labor Relations Act, which President Franklin Delano
Roosevelt signed in 1935, applied only to private employers. Roosevelt
explained why collective bargaining made no sense for federal employees
in a
letter to Luther Steward, president of the National Federation of
Public Employees:
In Michigan, citizens cannot even observe collective bargaining sessions. Michigan's Open Meetings Act lists collective bargaining sessions as one of the purposes a public body may meet in a closed session. Nor do elected officials typically attend collective bargaining sessions. In Lansing, the mayor designates the chief labor negotiator. This unelected individual has "charge of the role of the City in collective bargaining contract negotiations." (City Charter) The city council must ratify the contract, but that's just a formality. Agreement has already been reached. There has never been an instance when the council refused to ratify a contract - even a 1992 contract which included a "reduction in force" provision which gave 144 employees a bonus to retire early. Among those who took advantage of the plan were the mayor, city clerk, finance director and budget director.
In Lansing, benefits negotiated behind closed doors have resulted in over $700 million in unfunded pension and retiree health care liabilities.
For some public employees, the state may force a contract upon the employer. Public Act 312, passed in 1969, provides for binding arbitration for public safety workers when negotiations reach an impasse. Arbitrators are assigned by the Michigan Employment Relations Commission - and they can be fooled. After a 1997 arbitration for Ingham County sheriff supervisors in which increased employee contributions were offered in exchange for enhanced pensions, nine supervisors retired within 12 months with pensions $10,000 a year higher than they would have been otherwise.
Before the Public Employment Relations Act was passed in 1965, the law governing public employee labor was the Hutchinson Act, which did little more than ban strikes by public employees. It did not ban collection bargaining, and that's how it should be. Schools and local governments should be allowed to engage in collective bargaining if they want. They just should not be forced to do so by the state.
Send comments, questions, and tips to stevenrharry@gmail.com or call or text me at 517-730-2638. If you'd like to be notified by email when I post a new story, let me know.
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