Calendar Bill Stopped – Pension Moves to Governor’s Desk

Jun 27, 2017

The bill that would ban school calendar and schedule as topics of bargaining did not come up for a vote yesterday – your calls and emails to lawmakers ensured the state House leadership could not rally enough “yes” votes to forward HB 4163 to the Senate.
 
The House adjourned just before midnight without taking action on the measure that would silence educator voices on issues that affect student learning conditions – matters such as school start and end times, parent-teacher conferences, and prep periods, among others.
 
And in addition to the calls and emails – for the second week in a row – MEA members and leaders traveled to Lansing to personally lobby legislators against a bill with destructive consequences for public education.
 
Sue Ziel, president of the Romulus Education Association, said she volunteered to lobby both times. The experience was exciting and eye-opening and hard to describe, especially given the success in fighting off a planned vote on the calendar/schedule bargaining ban, she said.
 
“Members who are being told ‘Make the phone calls – write the letters’… they need to hear – it does work, and (politicians) are listening,” Ziel said. “They may have their agenda, but they’re also listening to what’s coming at them.”  
 
The House is not scheduled for another session day until July 12 and is unlikely to return for any significant length of time until September.  House lawmakers did vote yesterday to concur in SB 401, the pension legislation we fought last week, which now goes to the governor for his signature.
 
Read our preliminary analysis of the legislation here.