Putting Kids First -- NOT!

I could not believe it when I saw the email notification yesterday of a newly proposed bill in the Michigan House:


House Bill 4533 (Allow teachers union to bargain for privatization ban ):

Introduced by Rep. Andy Meisner on March 27, 2007, to repeal a law that prohibits teachers unions from including making an issue subject to negotiations third party contracts for noninstructional support services, as when a union seeks to include a provision in a school district’s contract with employees that bans the district from privatizing bus, custodial, or food services.

Details and Comments: http://www.michiganvotes.com/Legislation.aspx?ID=52934

As I was scrambling today to find time to make a blog entry about this, I discovered that Rob Lawerence from Birmingham had already written a wonderful piece! You can read it here.

To save time, I stole this from his blog:

Apparently, Representative Meisner believes it’s more important to handcuff districts that explore different options to support the continued employment of teachers. What could motivate him (campaign contributions) to propose this foolish bill? What good (contributions for Meisner) could it possibly do for children, school districts, and teachers? Send Representative Meisner a note ( andymeisner@house.mi.gov) - tell him HB 4533 is bad idea, it’s bad for teachers, bad for kids, and bad for Michigan. Make sure you contact your district representative to tell them how you feel about this too!

==> Mike.