Michigan Senate Raids Public Pensions to Pay for Corporate Tax Breaks

 State­ment of Todd Cook, Direc­tor,  We Are the Peo­ple, Michigan

in response to pas­sage  of Sen­ate Bill 1040, which raises costs and cuts ben­e­fits for pub­lic school employees:

“Sen­ate Bill 1040 is a dis­as­ter for Michi­gan teach­ers, stu­dents and work­ing fam­i­lies.  Lans­ing politi­cians are try­ing to break a con­tract with Michi­gan school employ­ees, tak­ing money out of their pock­ets to pay for $1.8 bil­lion in cor­po­rate tax breaks and give­aways to wealthy CEOs.

“This bill won’t save a sin­gle job or help a sin­gle strug­gling school.

“Instead, it will close off oppor­tu­ni­ties for stu­dents and fam­i­lies, by mak­ing it harder to attract the best and the bright­est to work in our pub­lic schools. The Michi­gan House should reject this awful legislation.”

We Are the Peo­ple is a statewide coali­tion of stu­dents, seniors and work­ers fight­ing to pro­tect Michigan’s mid­dle class families.

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A “Cesspool” Prison in Michigan?

For imme­di­ate release, Wednes­day, May 9

Con­tact:  Roger Ker­son, 734.645.0535

 Coali­tion Files FOIA Request on Pri­vate Prison Com­pany Accused of Sex­ual Abuse in Mississippi

GEO, lob­by­ing to re-open shut­tered Michi­gan facility,also hit with $1.4 mil­lion in fines and penal­ties for under­staffing in New Mexico

Lans­ing:  We Are The Peo­ple Michi­gan, a cit­i­zen coali­tion, filed a Free­dom of Infor­ma­tion Act request with the Michi­gan Depart­ment of Cor­rec­tions today, seek­ing any and all com­mu­ni­ca­tions related to the GEO Group Inc., the con­tro­ver­sial pri­vate prison com­pany cur­rently lob­by­ing to re-open a shut­tered facil­ity in Bald­win, Michigan.

“The U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice inves­ti­gated a GEO youth prison in Mis­sis­sippi, and found doc­u­mented evi­dence of guards hav­ing sex with inmates, inmates rap­ing other inmates, guards rou­tinely beat­ing inmates and using pep­per spray with­out jus­ti­fi­ca­tion,” said Todd Cook, direc­tor of We Are the Peo­ple, Michigan.

“The state of Mis­sis­sippi fired GEO, and the state of New Mex­ico has just imposed $1.4 mil­lion in fines and penal­ties for understaffing.

“Is this what we’re telling com­pa­nies with a record of neg­li­gence and abuse – if you’re kicked out of Mis­sis­sippi and fined in New Mex­ico, you can come do busi­ness in Michi­gan?  We need to get to the bot­tom of this, and that’s why we’re fil­ing a FOIA request today.”

In Novem­ber 2011, Rep. John Bum­stead (R-Newaygo) received an out-of-state cam­paign con­tri­bu­tion from Cloid Shuler, vice pres­i­dent of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment for GEO Group. Days later, he intro­duced HB 5174, which could allow the Florida-based pri­vate prison cor­po­ra­tion to re-open a shut­tered facil­ity it owns in Bumstead’s dis­trict in Bald­win, Michigan.

Michi­gan ended its con­tract with GEO in 2006, after a Michi­gan Audi­tor General’s report found GEO’s pri­vate Bald­win facil­ity was more expen­sive than state-run pris­ons, cost­ing tax­pay­ers as much as $7.5 mil­lion a year.

HB 5174 is still before the leg­is­la­ture.  Accord­ing to a recent report from Gong­wer News Ser­vice, it is yet to be deter­mined whether the bill will allow any pri­vate prison com­pany to bid on a new con­tract with the state, or be exclu­sive to the GEO Group facil­ity in Bumstead’s dis­trict.  An omnibus state bud­get bill, passed by the House, pro­vides for clo­sure of the Ionia Refor­ma­tory and poten­tial trans­fer of inmates to a pri­vate facility.

“It makes no sense to close a pub­lic facil­ity and trans­fer pris­on­ers to a more expen­sive pri­vate prison,” said Cook.  “Espe­cially a com­pany like the GEO Group.”

A fed­eral judge described the GEO Group’s Wal­nut Grove Youth Cor­rec­tional Facil­ity in Mis­sis­sippi as a “cesspool.”  A March, 2012 report by the U.S. Depart­ment of Jus­tice doc­u­ments hor­rific con­di­tions in the facil­ity, including:

Prison staff hav­ing sex with incar­cer­ated youth, and inmates being raped by other inmates.

  • “The sex­ual mis­con­duct we found,” DOJ inves­ti­ga­tors wrote, was among the worst that we have seen in any facil­ity any­where in the nation.”
  • Guards beat youth and used exces­sive pep­per spray as a first response.
  • “[D]eliberate indif­fer­ence” to pris­on­ers pos­sess­ing home­made knives, which were used in gang fights and inmate rapes.
  • Some guards had gang affiliations.
  • No func­tion­ing alarm sys­tem in large areas of the prison.

Also in March, inmates at Wal­nut Grove set­tled a class action law­suit against GEO Group and the state of Mis­sis­sippi, pro­vid­ing that chil­dren and teens would no longer be housed in the GEO-run facil­ity. In April, accord­ing a report on National Pub­lic Radio, the state of Mis­sis­sippi announced it would seek new man­age­ment for three GEO-run pris­ons in the state “in hopes of gain­ing bet­ter per­for­mance and prices.”

GEO has also been hit with $1.4 mil­lion in fines and penal­ties for fail­ure to pro­vide enough cor­rec­tion offi­cers to main­tain secure oper­a­tions in a facil­ity it runs in Hobbs, New Mexico.

“If we give another prison con­tract to a pri­vate com­pany with a record as bad as GEO, it looks like a law­suit wait­ing to hap­pen,” said Cook.  “Why would we expose Michi­gan tax­pay­ers to that kind of poten­tial liability?”

 We Are the Peo­ple is a statewide coali­tion of stu­dents, seniors and work­ers fight­ing to pro­tect Michigan’s mid­dle class families.

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Protect Our Jobs campaign to kick-off signature collection in Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo, Flint, Western Wayne this Saturday

Con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment would pro­tect col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, strengthen Michigan’s mid­dle class

LANSING — This Sat­ur­day, March 24, grass­roots vol­un­teers with the Pro­tect Our Jobs cam­paign will gather peti­tion sig­na­tures at local drive-through loca­tions in Grand Rapids, Kala­ma­zoo, Flint, and Belleville. Work­ing men and women are col­lect­ing sig­na­tures from reg­is­tered vot­ers to place a con­sti­tu­tional amend­ment on the Novem­ber bal­lot that would pro­tect col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, and strengthen the mid­dle class.

“Rebuild­ing our econ­omy means work­ing together to strengthen the mid­dle class, so small busi­nesses can grow and cre­ate more jobs,” said John Arme­la­gos, a reg­is­tered nurse and Trea­surer for the cam­paign. “Now more than ever, work­ers need the right to speak up to pro­tect our wages, our ben­e­fits, and our voice – and that’s what this pro­posal is all about. Michi­gan work­ers helped cre­ate the mid­dle class, and now we need to pro­tect our col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights to help rebuild our economy.”

Over the past year, Lans­ing politi­cians have moved one anti-worker mea­sure after another, doing noth­ing to help put Michi­gan back to work. There are cur­rently more than 80 bills pend­ing in the Michi­gan Leg­is­la­ture that weaken pro­tec­tions for work­ing peo­ple and dis­man­tle col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights. The Pro­tect Our Jobs amend­ment would enshrine col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights in the Michi­gan con­sti­tu­tion to pro­tect the mid­dle class, and pro­vide a needed coun­ter­weight to these attacks from Lans­ing politi­cians and cor­po­rate CEOs. Cit­i­zens can learn more about the cam­paign and read the peti­tion lan­guage by vis­it­ing www.ProtectOurJobs.com.

WHAT: Drive-through sig­na­ture col­lec­tion for the Pro­tect Our Jobs campaign

WHO: Reg­is­tered Michi­gan voters

GRAND RAPIDS: 12:00pm–3:00pm, 3315 East­ern Avenue South­east, Grand Rapids

KALAMAZOO/PORTAGE: 12:00pm–4:00pm, 5600 Portage Road, Portage

FLINT: 10:00am–2:00pm, 1251 W Hill Road, Flint

BELLEVILLE: 10:00am-2:00pm, 10667 Belleville Road, Belleville


Lansing politicians retaliate against public school employees

HB 4929 bans pay­roll deduc­tion of dues that help enforce col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments for pub­lic school employees

LANSING – Today Gov. Rick Sny­der signed HB 4929 into law, which pun­ishes pub­lic school teach­ers, bus dri­vers, and cafe­te­ria work­ers by plac­ing bur­den­some new restric­tions on the col­lec­tion of dues that pro­tect employ­ees through col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing agree­ments. The new law is a clear case of polit­i­cal retal­i­a­tion against work­ing men and women, who are gath­er­ing sig­na­tures to place a mea­sure on the Novem­ber bal­lot that would enshrine col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights in the state constitution.

“It’s clear politi­cians in Lans­ing are pun­ish­ing hard­work­ing teach­ers like me, who are tak­ing a stand to pro­tect our jobs, our wages, and our voice,” said Jeff Bean, a high school teacher from Flint. “This bla­tant power grab under­scores why we need to amend the state con­sti­tu­tion to pro­tect our col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights, and pro­vide a needed coun­ter­weight to these polit­i­cal attacks from Lans­ing politi­cians and cor­po­rate CEOs. Michi­gan work­ers helped cre­ate the mid­dle class, and now we need to pro­tect our col­lec­tive bar­gain­ing rights to help rebuild our economy.”

Just yes­ter­day, the Mid­land Daily News wrote an edi­to­r­ial oppos­ing HB 4929, say­ing, “the real­ity is that this move will not save schools any money, nor will it free up ‘lim­ited resources’ … this leg­is­la­tion was unnec­es­sary and unwor­thy of being passed.”

On Sun­day, the con­ser­v­a­tive Adrian Daily Telegram called the bill, “polit­i­cal pay­back,” and said, “The bill won’t save any­body any money, but it could cost school employee unions a decent chunk of change — which sug­gests this is less about finances and more about cre­at­ing an extra incon­ve­nience for a polit­i­cal enemy.”