This Labor Day weekend is more important to me than usual. While I will certainly be enjoying a hot dog or two with my wife and three young kids, I am also Facebooking, e-mailing and calling to make sure that my co-workers hold firm in support of our union - the Michigan Education Association.
I am a new local association president in a largely-Republican area of south-central Michigan. The summer has been busy. We finished negotiations on a three-year contract with good health care and small pay raises during the month of June. In July, I attended the NEA annual meeting. This month, I have been visiting members' homes, churches and activities to spread the word about the importance of our union.
I have to say that the results so far have been good.
Adrian Telegram: Teachers Stay in Union
My involvement in union organizing was almost accidental. At the very start of my second year of teaching, I was sitting with about 70 colleagues watching an otherwise mundane beginning-of-the-year local association meeting when the local president said she needed a high school teacher to serve as building rep. Mary, the teacher sitting next to me, gave me a poke and said, "You should do it." She was a little bit too loud and everyone heard it. It was early in the morning. I wasn't quite awake and I blurted out, "Oh, okay."
During the fifteen years since, I have served as building representative, county vice-president, county election chair, region election chair, coordinating council unified bargaining chair, state MEA delegate, national NEA delegate and now, local president. Oh, and I married my sweetheart from Wisconsin, watched the birth of my son and twin daughters and taught at the elementary, middle AND high school levels in my small rural district. I love my co-workers and fellow union members.
It has been a fantastic career punctuated by some pretty un-fantastic events up the road in Lansing, Michigan. In December of 2012, I stood on the streets of Michigan's capital and watched as right-to-work became the law of our state. I remember vividly the power of the pipe fitters marching by as they banged pieces of two-by-four against empty plastic paint buckets. I remember a state senator I know looking down at me from the third floor as I chanted his name. And I remember tear gas. Hehe. It was a just a whiff from a distance, but I can check that one off the bucket list.
This year, the right-to-work law is fully operational. Consistent with practice prior to right-to-work, Michigan Education Association members with post-2012 contracts can opt-out during the month of August.
This means that I have been reminding my members of the reasons that they should support our local. There are many reasons. We have a history of negotiating good contracts. We have three years of small pay raises ahead of us. We have preserved steps and columns in our contract. We have joined with all the other locals in our county to create a health care consortium that increased benefits and decreased costs for members and the districts we work for. We maintained full health insurance coverage for members following passage of Michigan's "rape insurance" law. In short, we are responsive to our members' needs.
The opt-out window for our teachers ends on Sunday. So far, I have had one member opt-out and that member has very real financial difficulties. I intend to keep communication open with this co-worker and I honestly believe that she may return when her family's financial situation improves.
Happy Labor Day weekend everybody. Eat some hot dogs and organize.