There's no gauzy footage of lakeshore dunes or soothing narration by Jeff Daniels Tim Allen, but a familiar tourism slogan is adapted by five unions to attack what they call state government inefficiency.
"Pure Michigan Waste" is the title of their new campaign and an 18-page report (embedded below).
Kristen M. Daum reports on the push and timing that hardly seems a fluke:
The coalition’s “Pure Michigan Waste” campaign debuts a day before impasse hearings begin in Lansing between the five unions and the Office of the State Employer over disputes in negotiating the next collective bargaining agreements.
The two events are unconnected, insists Cindy Estrada, vice president of the United Auto Workers.
“The goal of this campaign is to address two critical needs: improving services and saving Michigan taxpayers money,” Estrada said. . . .
“What’s missing in the governor’s administration is really the engagement of workers. There are people at the top that think they have all of the answers, and that’s not how you’re going to drive efficiencies.”
About 35,500 of the state's roughly 50,000 workers are union members, according to Daum.
These are among goals of the Coalition of State Employee Unions:
- Reduce worker-manager ratios
- Decrease outside contracts for work state employees could do
- Deliver public services more efficiently
"Contracting is on the rise, even though the state often pays more for this than if state workers had done the job," a union local representing prison guards says in a new online post. "In 2012, more than 26 percent of the state budget went to contractors."
The governor's administration "shares the goal of reducing waste in state government,” a spokesman tells Daum.
Working for Michigan: Pure Michigan Waste
