A Michigan teachers union is trying to undermine its members’ efforts to use their rights under the state’s new right-to-work law, a conservative nonprofit group said Thursday.
The Mackinac Center charged that the Michigan Education Association arbitrarily changed the address that teachers must mail if they want to invoke their right to opt out of the union under the new state law. The union quietly changed the address two months before the 30-day period during which it accepts the letters.
People who sent letters to the union headquarters in East Lansing received letters in response explaining that the requests would only be accepted if mailed to a separate post office box. The procedural change was quietly announced at the bottom of the “members only” section of the union website and became effective June 3. The union accepts the letters only during August, so a person who missed the announcement also could easily miss the deadline by the time he or she received the letter rejecting the initial request.
“This is a desperate ploy from the MEA to continue its agenda of money over members, power over principle and cash over colleagues,” said Patrick Wright, the center’s vice president for legal affairs. “Rather than trying to win over members by selling itself, the MEA is essentially playing ‘Simon Says’ with those who want to leave. It’s ludicrous for the MEA to try to trick people who want to leave by switching a post office box number.”
A representative for the union could not be reached for comment.
Michigan adopted the right-to-work law in 2013, which prohibits workers from being required to join or otherwise support a union as a condition of unemployment, a standard part of most labor-management contracts. Unions fought hard against adopting it and mounted a failed legal challenge after it was adopted.
Unions fear the laws will mean membership declines, straining their budgets and reducing their political clout. Many make little effort to inform their members of their rights and create red tape for those who do try to invoke them.
Nothing in the Michigan law requires that the teachers’ union accept the opt-out letters only during August. That’s the union’s own rule. Any letter received before or after that period is rejected and the member is deemed to have automatically re-upped his membership. Teachers who thought they had officially opted out have later discovered the union was insisting they pay another year’s worth of dues. The union has even threatened to report members to credit agencies for non-payment.
“MEA believes in the sanctity of contracts — whether they are with a school district or an individual,” then-spokesman Doug Pratt told the Washington Examiner in 2013.
