Message from the Director

The Michigan Employment Relations Commission, the supposed watchdog agency established by PERA, is charged with ensuring a level playing field between Unions and Employers. The reality is this Commission does anything but protect the rights of employees.

The latest example of another slap in the face of Unions is the unilateral decision to notify all fact finders and Act 312 Arbitrators of the Commissions "Amendments to Act 312." Strange. My high school civics class taught that only the legislature has the power to amend the law. Who gave the MERC commissioners this power?

In a letter sent out by the Commission citing the need for fiscal restraint, arbitrators are urged to "conduct proceedings by exhibit only unless prior permission and reasoning is provided by the Bureau Director to support a request for an in-person fact finding hearing." In other words, no witnesses are to be sworn, no testimony is to be taken. MAP believes that this favors the Employers who will most certainly take advantage of this and the current economic climate to exaggerate the financial condition of the City. How can the Union demonstrate that several communities find themselves in economic difficulty more so as a result of bad decisions than from the downturn in the economy?

The letter goes on to tell arbitrators they, "...should remand to mediation a case involving an inordinate number (generally, more than 12 cumulative) of issues. When a case involves more than 12 issues, you should confer with the Bureau Director regarding avenues to reduce expense." Limit to 12 cumulative issues! Nowhere in the Act does it give the Commission this authority. To refuse to arbitrate because there are more than 12 issues combined between the parties not only violates the Act, but it is an abuse of authority by the MERC commissioners.

The same directive goes on to state, "The number of hearings should be correlated to the number of persons in the bargaining unit. For example, the number of hearings for a unit of more than 1,000 members will be greater than the number for a unit of less than 100."

Issues such as health care and pensions are just as complicated, just as important and deserve full debate before an arbitrator for a ten-person group as a thousand member group.

MAPO has been resisting any legislative changes to the Act that have been proposed during this legislative session. Apparently the battle to stop changing the Act has to be fought on a second front, the administrative agency front.

On second thought, maybe we should change the name from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission to the Michigan Employer Relations Commission.

Fred Timpner