The following guest post was written by Ron Bieber, president of the Michigan AFL-CIO. You can sign up to receive legislative action alerts from the Michigan AFL-CIO HERE. You can also follow them at facebook.com/miaflcio, twitter.com/miaflcio, and twitter.com/ronbiebermi. Enjoy. Lame duck sessions are when bad bills happen to good people. That’s been true in Michigan after every major election since […]

What started out as a typical lame duck session where legislative Republicans ram through scads of laws aimed at harming workers, restricting voting access, and benefitting corporations has started to calm down in the waning three days of the current session in Michigan. After backing down from diminishing the retirement benefits of first responders and teachers, it appears that other […]

As I wrote about earlier this week, one of the more outrageous things being pushed through during the Michigan legislature’s lame duck session is a 13-bill package that would “end post-retirement health care for new local government workers and generally force existing workers and retirees to pay 20% of their post-retirement health care costs”. This was the first time that […]

Last week I wrote about Michigan Republican Attorney General Bill Schuette’s federal lawsuit to deny you being paid overtime if you are a low-paid salaried worker. However, Schuette isn’t the only Michigan Republican who wants to stop the new federal law from taking effect. MI-07 Republican Congressman Tim Walberg is also getting in on the act. Last week he introduced […]

This is the fourth and final installment of a four part series about workers who are directly impacted by the crucial fight to make earned paid sick time required by law. (Part 1 is HERE, Part 2 is HERE, and Part 3 is HERE.) Last year, the group MI Time to Care launched a petition drive to put earned sick […]

This is the third of a four part series about workers who are directly impacted by the crucial fight to make earned paid sick time required by law. (Part 1 is HERE, Part 2 is HERE and Part 4 is HERE.) Last year, the group MI Time to Care launched a petition drive to put earned sick time on the […]

This is the second of a four part series about workers who are directly impacted by the crucial fight to make earned paid sick time required by law. (Part 1 is HERE, Part 3 is HERE, and Part 4 is HERE.) Last year, the group MI Time to Care launched a petition drive to put earned sick time on the […]

This is the first of a four part series about workers who are directly impacted by the crucial fight to make earned paid sick time required by law. (Part 2 is HERE, Part 3 is HERE, and Part 4 is HERE.) Last year, the group MI Time to Care launched a petition drive to put earned sick time on the […]

In his never ending crusade to harm people who aren’t wealthy and well-connected, Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette, shown here sweeping up horse manure, joined a lawsuit against the federal government with twenty other states to stop new labor rules requiring businesses to pay overtime to white collar workers who make less than $913 a week or $47,476 a year. […]

The following guest post was written by Rebecca Thompson. Thompson is a native Detroiter and the Executive Director of Good Jobs Now, a partner of the Center for Popular Democracy. The organization fights for economic and social justice for low wage workers and Detroiters. She lives on Detroit’s east side. Enjoy. Today marks the 78th anniversary of the Fair Labor […]

The anti-labor group Protecting Michigan Taxpayers (PMT) was formed in 2012 as a front group for anti-union forces who wanted to defeat Proposal 2 which would have enshrined collective bargaining rights for workers into Michigan’s state constitution. The group had been dormant since their victory in November of 2012 but was resurrected last spring to push a ballot initiative of […]