Even though the Teamsters are well-known for representing truckers, they might be including legislative staffers into their ranks in the next month.
In recent weeks, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters have been collecting the ‘signature cards’ necessary to put all of the Michigan legislative staffers into a Teamsters Union, part of Local 243. Their stated goals are to double staff salaries, prevent political firings, and also ensure that staffers cannot be punished for working on campaigns.
Teamsters Local 243 President Scott Quenneville said, “Michigan House staffers deserve a union contract that will provide them with a better quality of life and a voice on the job. We are fully committed to making that happen.”
The Michigan legislature has been under the strict control of either party’s leadership through both party control, and while there were isolated abuses in the past, Democrat Speaker Joe Tate has been notorious for playing dirty political games with staffers and legislative perks against legislators he dislikes, especially against pro-Trump conservatives. This has happened even though the Democrats have the slimmest of majorities in the 110-seat chamber, where 56 members are Democrats and 54 are Republicans.
Michigan Speaker Joe Tate (D-Detroit)
Speaker Tate fired the staff from conservative Republican Rep. Josh Schriver after Schriver retweeted a controversial post about white demographic demise from Jack Posobiec. Tate is, according to insiders, trying to set the stage to expel Schriver. Additionally, Tate took reprisal against other pro-MAGA offices.
MAGA Rep. Josh Schriver (R)
The union is now using these incidents as examples worthy of worker protection. The union has 45% of the organizing “cards” of the whole body of legislative staffers. They expect to have over 50% in the next week, and within a month that will mean Teamsters will have the exclusive right to negotiate for legislative staffers and will begin the process of negotiating a ‘bargaining agreement’ with Democrat leadership.
In a way, the union’s argument about protecting workers is about protecting them against vindictive Democrat leaders, and feckless, impotent Republican leaders who go along with the attacks on workers.
The Teamsters also want to raise the “allotment” which is the amount of money given to every legislative office to pay for their typical two staffers. The current allotment is $110,000 per legislative office. The Teamsters want to double that amount, which could be used to nearly double staff salaries. Right now the two positions per legislative office pay up to roughly $50,000 and $75,000 per year.
The Michigan legislature is a “full time” legislature, even though in practice that means they have staffed offices about 90 days a year or less.
There are unproven rumors that some offices use a ‘pay-to-play’ system requiring highly-paid staffers to donate to, or ‘kick back’, to their legislative patrons.
The union organizing effort is widely expected to succeed, even though it is strongly opposed by Democrat Speaker Joe Tate.
The Michigan legislature, via the Michigan Constitution, confers on the Speaker the ability to ‘manage the business’ of the chamber. This has been interpreted to mean that the Speaker can hire and fire whom they like, whenever they like, for any reason since all workers are ‘at-will’ under law. The Speaker has a variety of other little petty powers that have only recently been abused by Democrats.
Rep. Matt Maddock recently filed suit against Speaker Joe Tate because of the partisan and unconstitutional way Tate’s employees were censoring the way in which Republican legislators were communicating with constituents, censoring them from saying commonsense phrases like “taxation is theft” for example.
According to one of the staffers involved in the Union negotiations, the Republican leadership has completely mishandled and misunderstood the situation all along. The Republican Minority Leader, RINO Matt Hall, laughed off any chance that the legislative staffers would be able to unionize. Hall himself was a former House staffer in the 2000’s.
Republican Minority Leader Rep. Matt Hall (R)
Hall’s legal counsel Lindsey Young, according to insiders, did not understand that the staffers could not be stopped from organizing, and did not understand that staffers could not be simply ordered not to agree to unionizing. Insiders say that Hall’s staff thought this organizing effort was a joke. Hall’s office has been involved in firing staffers from conservative offices but blaming it on Democrat Speaker Tate.
Internally, Hall’s staff has given up on fighting the effort and are resigned to the fact the unionization effort is now inevitable.
The Teamsters are likely to use the union dues from the legislative staffers to fight and defeat Republicans in campaigns. The Teamsters historically have given between 90-98% of all of their political donations to Democrats.
Hall lied to fellow Republicans when he said that he had no role in prior political staff firings. The House Business Office Director made clear to inquiring legislators that, contrary to Hall’s statements, both hirings and firings in the legislature traditionally required both the consent of the Speaker and the Minority Leader, who in this case is RINO Hall.
Many Republican staffers, and according to insiders 30% of Republican legislators, are quietly supporting the union effort because of their frustrations with party leadership.
These political firings, inflicted against primarily conservative and MAGA legislative offices, has become a bit of an organizing cry among the Teamsters. Part of their argument to staffers and organizers is that these kind of political firings, whether by power-mad Democrats like Joe Tate, or by dishonest RINOs like Matt Hall, should no longer be acceptable in the Michigan legislature.
Many staffers, unsurprisingly, agree with that sentiment and the prospect of significantly higher wages.
Hall told staffers “I’d love to give everybody a $50,000 raise, but I just can’t.”
Staffers also privately mention that the ongoing pattern of sexual misconduct among legislators will hopefully be stopped by the presence of a union fighting for workers. Specifically, staffers cite to multiple affairs between legislators that happen in front of staffers, as well as several legislator incidents with staffers where office indiscretions are settled out-of-court with significant payoffs from the legislature.
The staffers specifically noted two specific ongoing affairs, one between a married Republican and a single Republican, and one between two married legislators, one Democrat and one Republican. Others have said that prior legislators in leadership were accused of sexually assaulting another legislator, and provided evidence to the Gateway Pundit, and those assaults were covered up and otherwise suppressed.
Just today, Democrat Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel charged former Speaker Lee Chatfield with embezzlement, but declined to file charges against Chatfield for any sexual misdeeds. Chatfield had been publicly accused by his sister-in-law of sexual assault. Privately, many legislators say they personally witnessed many Chatfield indiscretions involving women, lobbyists, and even other legislators.
Chatfield was the Speaker during the period of time for the 2020 election, and after meeting with President Trump, refused to investigate voter fraud. Instead, he allowed Rep. Matt Hall to hold one hearing with Rudy Giuliani and then refused to pursue the matter further. Some have speculated that these crimes were being ‘held over his head’ by Attorney General Nessel to not investigate 2020 voter fraud.
Former Speaker Lee Chatfield (R)
Staffers say that now with a union backing their interests, they might be able to fight back against these incidents and the toxic workplace facilitated by both Republican and Democrat leadership teams.
One notably area of staff concern is from rumors about very-liberal Rep. Julie Brixie’s staff being demanded to work extra hours every night. Other areas of staff concerns are rumors about Democrat Appropriations Chair Angela Witwer’s continued inappropriate relationship to a lobbying firm she partially owns.
This situation would not be possible, the Democrats have quietly said to Republican staffers, were Speaker Tate not planning to run for Mayor of Detroit after the current Motor City mayor Mike Duggan is termed out of the position in 2026. Duggan is said to be contemplating a run for Governor, and Tate does not want to be running in a Democrat city while being known for fighting a union’s growth.
Privately, “Tate is 100% opposed to the Teamsters because he doesn’t want to lose the ability to hire and fire whomever he wants, and to use and abuse staff at will,” says one of the staffers negotiating the unionization effort.
Meanwhile, RINO Matt Hall faces a contested crowd of fellow RINOs challenging him for control of the Republican caucus in the Michigan House. Already, Rep. Curt VanderWall, Rep. Tom Kunse, Rep. Bryan Posthumus, among others, are seeking to challenge Hall for leadership of the Republicans. Rep. Gina Johnsen is also considering a run for Speaker, but her chances are seen as non-existent after being caught repeatedly lying to her colleagues and voters, which caused a primary challenger Jon Rocha to file against her in the last two weeks in the Republican primary.
Michigan Republican consultant John Yob
In response to these challenges, statewide consultant John Yob’s firm Strategic National have been soliciting primary challengers against Hall’s opponents. Yob staffer Dave Dishaw set up the “MAGA Michigan PAC” to recruit and fund primary challengers to Posthumus and Kunse, and are trying to confuse MAGA voters by claiming that Matt Hall has been supportive of the pro-Trump grassroots to help fight back against Hall’s own Republican primary challenger Rich Cutshaw.
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