Make your voice heard at the Capitol Wednesday

Some 10,000 people will be in Lansing on Wednesday April 13 to protect the working poor and middle class at the We Are the People Rally.

The rally is being organized by the Michigan State AFL-CIO, AFSME and Working Michigan. To accommodate working people who work different shifts, it will run from 1-6 p.m., and because of that, new people will be arriving all day. Last month more than 5,000 were at the Capitol for the “Storm the Capitol” rally. The numbers were actually more than that because, like what will be happening Wednesday, people were coming and going all day.

Various labor groups are also sponsoring buses, and that information can be found on the Facebook event page. The union-busting attempts by the Republicans have rallied people to the side of labor. In fact, polls are showing that Americans strongly oppose efforts to strip unionized government workers of their rights to collectively bargain.

Because of that over-reach, many non-union people have joined the protests all over the country, so to help those people get to the rally, plus gas approaching $4 a gallon, a page has been set up for people who want to car pool or share a ride.

There are also some interesting committee meetings they can take in while they are in the Capitol, and all committee meeting are open to the public and citizens can speak.

The House Education Committee is meeting at 9 a.m. in Room 519 of the House Office Building (HOB), 121 N. Capitol, across from the Capitol, and the subject of the hearing is an overview of teacher tenure in the State of Michigan.

The Senate Appropriations Sub-Committee on Higher Education is meeting at 12:30 p.m. in the Senate Appropriations Room on the 3rd Floor of Capitol Building. The committee will be discussing the Higher Education Budget, as well as the popular MSU Cooperative Extension Service program.

The Appropriations Sub-Committee on K-12 public education funding is meeting at 11 a.m. or right after the Senate session in the Senate Appropriations Room on the 3rd Floor of Capitol Building. Testimony will be held on the School Aid budget.

LIVCO Democratic Party seminar debunks anti-union lies

The Republican Party and the rightwing are spinning out of control to put out misinformation on the recently introduced federal Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) that removes some of the obstacles to forming unions. The Livingston County Democratic Party is sponsoring a seminar to debunk some of those lies, myths and misinformation.

Brent Gillette, the national field director for the Michigan AFL-CIO, will speak at the LIVCO Democratic Party headquarters at 7 p.m. Tuesday. The party HQ is located at 10321 Grand River Ave. Suite 600 in Brighton 48116.

The bill simply allows employees at a worksite who want a union to sign a card clearly indicating support for a union, and the company is required to recognize the union when a majority of workers indicate they want it. Under current law, even if a majority of workers indicate they want collective bargaining representation, management can call for an election, which simply gives them time to call in professional union busters.

Employers have unfettered access to employees leading up to the election where they threaten to fire the main organizers and even bluff that the company will close if it unionizes.

The biggest GOP talking point is that the EFCA will take away the “secret ballot.” Simply not true. The EFCA simply takes that power out of the hands of management and puts it into the hands of the employees. The employers can petition for a “secret ballot” election anytime.