Capitol News

Both of Michigan’s largest teachers’ unions have seen membership levels decline in recent years. The decline coincides, according to Michigan Capitol Confidential, with the passage of the state’s right-to-work law, which passed in 2012.

The right-to-work law made union dues and fees optional for those who work where there is organization by a union. These dues and/or fees are no longer considered a condition of employment, and educators can now opt out of paying.

Michigan Capitol Confidential reports that the Michigan branch of the American Federation of Teachers union represents teachers in Detroit and Dearborn school districts and some other workplaces in the state. There were 28,038 members, including agency fee payers, in 2011, but by 2019, there were just 18,479. 

The Michigan Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has also seen its membership drop. That decline is steeper than for the AFT-Michigan union, with 117,265 members in 2012 and now 78,475 members in 2019.

According to Michigan Capitol Confidential, the Michigan Education Association worked to get the word out to members about the benefits of being part of the MEA and telling school districts that the new law did not apply to existing contracts, which did not give school employees an option to refuse to pay fees or dues until the existing contracts expired.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation noted that the MEA and AFT-Michigan are not the only unions that have seen changes since the passage of the right-to-work law.

The Mackinac Center Legal Foundation represented Ronald Robinson, an educator from Ann Arbor schools who chose to opt out of paying union dues and fees and resigned his membership in the MEA, but who said that the organization still tried to force him to pay fees during 2015-2016. 

In the same notice about Robinson’s case, they noted that the Ann Arbor Education Association and the school district extended a union security agreement through 2016, but revised the then-accurate collective bargaining agreement in 2014 and 2015, which terminated the existing agreement and renegotiated something new.

In April 2018, Robinson got a win through the Michigan Employees Relations Commission. The MERC said that Robinson had ended his membership and was not obligated to pay dues and the union’s demands that Robinson pay during the 2015-2016 school year were unlawful.