PPC members also reviewed a revised draft of a background paper on academic freedom that will serve as the union’s statement, once it has been vetted through members at the higher education conference in Portland, Ore., March 31. AFT legislative director Tor Cowan provided an overview of what higher ed can expect from Congress (a reauthorized Higher Education Act, for one thing). PPC leaders also were briefed on Department of Education moves to execute some of the Spellings Commission on the Future of Higher Education recommendations on accreditation.

The following week, the AFT executive council met in Las Vegas to discuss an agenda for improving student achievement. Parent and public concern about student discipline and achievement have helped to create “a gathering storm,” said AFT
executive vice president Antonia Cortese. The council also heard from Michigan Gov. Janet Granholm, who discussed the havoc wreaked in her state by the loss of manufacturing jobs. Her job, she said, is to “deliver the message that the world has changed and that means we have to invest more in our education
system.”

The ruling is based on the court’s interpretation of a constitutional amendment Michigan voters passed on Nov. 2, 2004. That amendment states: “To secure and preserve the benefits of marriage for our society and for future generations of children, the union of one man and one woman in marriage shall be the only agreement recognized as a marriage or similar union for any purpose.”

After that vote, state Attorney General Mike Cox announced that the amendment invalidated domestic-partner benefit plans. Pride at Work, an AFL-CIO coalition, and numerous state employees from the University of Michigan, Wayne State University and Michigan State University, went to the Circuit Court seeking a summary judgment on Cox’s interpretation.

The court ruled that the plans came as a benefit of the employment agreement, not as a benefit of marriage, and so were not affected by the amendment.

Cox appealed and the appeals court decision upheld his view. It found that in establishing eligibility for the benefit plans, the public employers in most cases required proof of a domestic-partner agreement. That proof stands in opposition to the “plain language” of the amendment, said the court.

The court took pains to point out that its decision was not a judgment of the “lifestyle or personal living decisions of individual citizens.” Rather it was about whether the public employer could enter into an agreement where its provision of benefits is determined by its recognition of personal decisions that violate the new state policy. This distinction seems to open the door to employers providing the benefits based on criteria that don’t conflict with the marriage amendment.

HOW TO REPLACE IT

The AFT Michigan-affiliated unions at UM, WSU and MSU have contracts with same-sex domestic partner benefit provisions, says Alyssa Picard, a staff representative at the state federation who is a former president of the Graduate Employees Organization/AFT at the University of Michigan. She notes that the number of people who use the benefits is “very, very, very small.” The question for these unions is, “What do we replace it with?”

Julie Robert, grievance chair of GEO at UM, says that the contract ratified last year has language allowing for the reopening of negotiations on this issue in the event that benefits were taken away by state policy. “The university has said it is committed to maintaining the benefits,” she says.

The Lecturers’ Employees Union at UM is currently in negotiations for its second contract. “LEO is very concerned about the impact of recruiting top-notch faculty to the University of Michigan when it’s located in a state where the public and political mood is so racist and homophobic,” says LEO president Bonnie Halloran.

One option, says Picard, is to explore an approach known as Plus One or Plus Two, which comes from the corporate world. It allows any adult to name any other adult—spouse, adult child, parent, sibling, roommate, etc.—as the “plus one.” (Children are still eligible as dependents, as usual.) Because it completely avoids the question of how the people are related to each other, it is not “similar” to marriage.

As the consequences of the decision unfold, “AFT Michigan will not stand idly by,” says David Hecker, AFT Michigan president and an AFT vice president. “Through any means necessary—through court actions, through collective bargaining—we will do everything possible to ensure that same-sex headed families are not discriminated against.”

When state legislatures convened this year, there were current and former AFT members on the roll call, including Wisconsin’s new Senate majority leader, Judy Robson, a former nursing instructor at Blackhawk Technical College in Janesville.

Altogether, there are six current and former AFT members serving in the Wisconsin Legislature, including Robson. The others are state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout and state Reps. Spencer Black, Kim Hixson, Cory Mason (a former AFT-Wisconsin staff member) and Barbara Toles.

MEA-MFT member Doug Cordier, elected to the Montana House in November, joined 11 of his MEA-MFT brothers and sisters in the Legislature: Reps. Elsie Artnzen, Gary Branae, Jill Cohenour, Robyn Driscoll, Ron Erickson, Wande Grinde, Robin Hamilton, John Parker, Holly Raser and Veronica Small-Eastman, and state Sen. Sam Kitzenberg. MEA-MFT is the merged AFT-NEA state federation.

Keith Fitzgerald and Bill Heller, both members of the United Faculty of Florida, an AFT Higher Education local, were successful in their races for the Florida House.

And in Ohio, Toledo Federation of Teachers member Teresa Fedor is leading state Senate Democrats this year as minority leader.

The poll reveals a strong favorable trend toward unions in recent years. The most recent figures show that 46 percent of those surveyed express positive attitudes toward unions—up 6 percent from just the previous year and up more than 10 percent compared with those surveyed a decade ago.

The positive attitudes also translate into solid support for the Employee Free Choice Act, proposed federal legislation that would make it more difficult for employers to thwart employees’ efforts to form unions. The legislation, which is expected to be re-introduced in Congress this spring with strong bipartisan support, would strengthen penalties for employers who violate workers’ freedom to choose a union, allow a neutral third party to determine a first contract if the management and employees can’t reach an agreement, and enable people to form unions when a majority of employees indicate in writing that they want one.

On the issue of majority sign-up (where the company would recognize and bargain with the union once a majority of workers at the company signed authorization cards, rather than having to conduct a representation election): 50 percent of those polled were in favor of sign-up, 36 percent were against.

The poll also shows strong disapproval of employer anti-union campaigns, which might include illegally firing workers who support a union, or using supervisors to pressure individual employees to vote against the union.

You can learn more about the Employee Free Choice Act at www.aflcio.org/joinaunion/voiceatwork/efca/.