Tag Archives: Michigan

News

Michigan unionized teachers protest having to contribute to their own pensions

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The Blog Prof is a great Michigan-based blog and the proprieter is all over this story.

Excerpt:

Thousands of teachers are gathering in Lansing today to protest having to pay 3% towards their generous pension and healthcare benefits. Michiganders are waking up to the reality that public employees, and especially K-12 teachers in this state, are enjoying extravagant reimbursement for their services far in excess of the public sector such as 1) higher pay than their private sector counterparts, 2) better job security than anyone in the private sector, 3) healthcare benefits far in excess of the private sector, and 4) pension benefits that are far in excess of the private sector. Fact is, here in Michigan teachers are paid better than any other teacher in the country per unit Michigander income…

Check this out:

And this:

And this:

Remember, I am PAYING FOR THIS NO MATTER WHAT.

Public schools are funded by compulsory taxation that takes money out of my future family’s coffers so that we have FEWER CHOICES about how we have to will serve God by raising godly children. It’s money taken away such that my future wife will have fewer options and opportunities because she will have less to spend as she sees fit. And we will be forced to pay for our neighbor’s kids to learn values that we don’t hold. Ridiculous! I didn’t make this money to give it away to secular leftist indoctrinators with guaranteed jobs and pensions.

Videos

MUST-SEE: Police arrest Christians for distributing the gospel in Dearborn

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I first spotted this story at Hot Air.

Here’s the video:

And read the account by Christian apologist Nabeel Qureshi of Acts 17 Apologetics:

Yes, you heard it here first, folks. David and I, along with Negeen and Paul Rezkalla, were arrested and spent last night in jail. It is a long story which we will elaborate in full detail when we can, and we will post footage when the police give us back our cameras.

But to take the edge off your curiosity, here are some basics: Paul, David, Negeen, and I went to the festival to see and comment on the situation. Thankfully, we recorded every second of our activity at the festival. At one point, we came across a festival volunteer who seemed to take issue with us simply being at the festival. We could tell he had a problem with us, and so we asked “What are we doing wrong?” He said “Put the camera and microphone down, and I’ll tell you.” (By the way, there was more to this conversation, but when you see the footage, I think you’ll see I’m being fair in my summary.) So I obliged, handing the microphone to David and asking him to not record the man. I then approached him and said “No camera, no mic, tell me what we’re doing wrong”, he said “Get away from me!” (or something to that effect). Again, I obliged, and walked away.

About 20 minutes later, to shouts and cheers of “Allahu Akbar!” we were all being led away from the festival in handcuffs. From the brief description we were given by the police of why we were being arrested, it sounds like the festival volunteer said we surrounded him and didn’t give him an opportunity to leave, thereby “breaching the peace.” This is as blatantly false as an accusation can get.

Last year, security lied about us and we got kicked out of the festival. We had it all on tape, so we were able to vindicate ourselves. This year, a volunteer lied about us, and we got thrown into jail. But when we get our footage back, we’ll be able to vindicate ourselves again.

From Jihad Watch, we get Christian scholar David Wood’s report:

Muslims threatened to kill Nabeel and me if we showed up again at Arab Fest in Dearborn, so we went there yesterday. They didn’t kill us. Instead, police arrested us and we got to spend a night in jail (along with two others who were video recording us). Interesting city. I feel a documentary coming on. Title: “Welcome to Dearborn.”

More pictures here.

More eyewitness reports here.

More videos from Acts 17 apologetics.

Details on the planned lawsuit here.

News

Michigan DHS deducts union dues from home-based day care subsidies

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Story here from the Wall Street Journal. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

Michelle Berry runs a private day-care service from her home on the outskirts of this city, the birthplace of General Motors. “The Berry Patch,” as she calls the service, features overstuffed purple gorillas, giant cartoon murals, and a playroom covered in Astroturf. Her clients are mostly low-income parents who need child care to keep their jobs in a city that now has a 26% unemployment rate.

Ms. Berry owns her own business—yet the Michigan Department of Human Services claims she is a government employee and union member. The agency thus withholds union dues from the child-care subsidies it sends to her on behalf of her low-income clients. Those dues are funneled to a public-employee union that claims to represent her. The situation is crazy—and it’s happening elsewhere in the country.

A year ago in December, Ms. Berry and more than 40,000 other home-based day care providers statewide were suddenly informed they were members of Child Care Providers Together Michigan—a union created in 2006 by the United Auto Workers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. The union had won a certification election conducted by mail under the auspices of the Michigan Employment Relations Commission. In that election only 6,000 day-care providers voted. The pro-labor vote turned out.

Many of the state’s other 34,000 day-care providers never even realized what was going on. Ms. Berry tells us she was “shocked” to find out she was suddenly in a union.

This is why the state of Michigan is a dump – it’s not just Detroit, it’s Lansing, and Governor Jennifer Granholm.