Michigan Union Facts

Total Reported Union Members	2,257,330
Assets	$ 1,604,016,630
Receipts	$ 868,014,757
Disbursements	$ 866,213,095

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Percentage of Workforce Unionized in 2005

Non-Unionized  Unionized

80%  21%

Historical Percentage of Workforce Unionized

Government Employee Unions
Each year, public sector unions cost Michigan residents millions of dollars by driving state budgets well beyond responsible spending.

Government Employees	495,030
Percent Unionized	58 %
Average Government Employee Salary	$ 44,759

Michigan’s reputation as a highly unionized state extends to its public sector work force. And while labor officials representing public employees wield a great deal of influence in state politics, those from the teachers union are uniquely powerful. From lobbying to insurance subsidiaries, the Michigan Education Association has racked up a giant bill for both taxpayers and its own members.

Public Employees: Lobbying Their Own Employers
Public sector union officials are unique in that they can spend money directly lobbying their members’ bosses. Financial records show that public employees unions do just that in Michigan, where they have collectively spent millions of dollars in lobbying expenditures -- that’s money that originally came from the taxpayers, now stuck with the bill for the increased costs of public sector union labor.

Leading Michigan Public Employee Union Lobbying Disbursements, 2000-2005:

Michigan ’s Giant MESSA
Since 2000, Michigan teachers unions (and their subsidiaries) have spent more than $4.75 million to lobby politicians for causes including higher wages and benefits. A political power in its own right, the Michigan Education Special Services Association is an MEA-affiliated insurance administrator. Yet this plan can be far more costly than alternatives for taxpayers and teachers. The Michigan Education Report notes:

Teachers in the Forest Hills district will have to pay a portion of the costs starting next year if they choose to keep a more expensive MESSA plan. Bay City schools could trim $4 million of a projected $7.5 million deficit if all eight of the district’s unions would switch to less expensive insurance. More than 100 employees in the Zeeland schools left MESSA in favor of the West Michigan Health Insurance Pool.

Wages and Benefits: Teachers Vs. Their Unions
Union bosses for public sector employees stick taxpayers with a big bill for pensions, benefits, and wages – but even these don’t match the union’s staff compensation.

In Michigan, public school employees can retire as early as 46 after working a requisite number of years; at 55 with 15 years of service. The top 25 percent of elementary school teachers in Ann Arbor earn $59,845, according to Salary.com (the median salary is $50,456).

But the union staff is doing even better. A Michigan Education Report analysis found:

The average employee of the Michigan Education Association made almost $21,000 more in 2005 than the average Michigan public teacher. Some $26.5 million in wages and salaries was paid out to 341 employees of the labor union, for an average salary of about $77,750. The average teacher in Michigan earned about $56,970 last year.

MEA Culpas
The MEA’s deep pockets have proven attractive to embezzlers:

• The National Legal and Policy Center reported in July 2006: “The trail of locating stolen funds sometimes can lead through a loan application. That’s the way it was in the case of the Copper Country chapter of the Michigan Education Association. Susan Lynn Gregg, 36, a former secretary of the chapter, located in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, pleaded guilty in U.S. District Court on July 10 to making a false statement on her application. The loan, for $29,000, was intended to cover the disappearance of $178,000 from the union’s coffers over the course of 1999-2005.”
• The Traverse CityRecord-Eagle reported in November 2005: “A former Northern Michigan Education Association treasurer is accused of embezzling over $40,000, including a number of cash advances at casinos made on the organization's credit cards. Ricky Dean Conway, 44, of Buckley, is charged with three felony counts of embezzlement over $1,000 and under $20,000 from incidents between 2002 and 2004 while he served as the organization's treasurer.”

Right To Work
Michigan is not a 'right to work' state. Employees in a unionized company can be forced to pay "agency fees" to the union, even if they refuse to be union members.