Professional Staff Association charges Michigan Education Association with Unfair Labor Practices

NEWS RELEASE - For immediate release July 10, 2024

Contact: Capalene Howse, PSA president

Largest of MEA’s three staff unions alleges failure to bargain in good faith

The largest of three employee unions of the Michigan Education Association (MEA), the Professional Staff Association (PSA), has filed Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) charges against the employer for failure to bargain in good faith.

In its filing with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), PSA charged MEA with preconditioning the bargain, retaliating for failure to pass two tentative agreements, spreading inaccuracies regarding the nature and status of talks, and repudiating the contract by hiring an outside attorney to perform PSA bargaining unit work.

“It certainly is troubling when one of the state’s largest labor unions engages in ongoing tactics at the bargaining table usually reserved for the most anti-union employers we see in our work advocating for public education employees,” said Keith Sauter, PSA vice president and a bargaining team member.

Talks began in January around an economic reopener in the final year of a three-year contract. After two failed TAs, the employer adopted a take-it-or-leave-it approach and later mischaracterized the talks in communications to other staff unions, including reporting mediation that PSA did not agree to.

In the most egregious example of bad-faith bargaining, MEA management refused to extend or consider proposals in line with an agreement ratified by its other professional staff union, said PSA President Capalene Howse, who is a member of the bargaining team.

“Two staff unions within MEA represent incredibly hard-working and skilled professional staff doing the exact same work,” Howse said. “MEA management gave a deal to one unit which it denied to PSA and our members in an attempt to demoralize and drive wedges between and among its own staff.”

In addition, as bargaining was ongoing, the employer proceeded to hire an outside attorney to do PSA bargaining unit work – a blatant contract violation which the employer acknowledged in conversation with PSA leadership.

The vast majority of PSA’s 83 members conduct bargaining and advocacy work serving educators in the field from offices located across Michigan. Other employees represented by PSA include attorneys, lobbyists, statewide organizers, and communication professionals.

MEA and PSA will begin bargaining a new contract this fall ahead of a Dec. 31 expiration of the current agreement.

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