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Lansing city council again favors unions over residents September 21, 2025
At its August 25 meeting, Lansing city council passed a "responsible bidder" ordinance with a list of criteria by which a contractor will be graded. Later that same week, the Lansing State Journal had a story on the changes proposed by the City Charter Commission. One of them was that "City can contract with parties that provide the best value to the City." That is a change because - the document said - the current charter says "City must contract with lowest responsible bidder."
Does that mean that if voters approve the proposed charter this November, it will override the ordinance just enacted by city council? Also, if the current charter already says the City must contract with lowest responsible bidder, what was the purpose of the August 25 ordinance? I don't have the answer.
The scoring system in the ordinance is here. Only 40 points out of 100 are for price. The other 60 are for non-monetary criteria. 12 points are awarded for offering healthcare, retirement plans and prevailing wage. How a contractor compensates its employees should be of no concern the City of Lansing. Same goes for the preference for using W-2 workers as opposed to 1099 workers. The contractor and his employees are adults who can work this out without the guidance of the City, which has run up over a half BILLION dollars in unfunded pensions and health care for its own retirees. (The exact figure is $574,539,378 and it comes from the City's annual report to the state Treasury's Municipal Stability Board.)
Another factor worth 8 points is "participation in an apprenticeship program that is registered with the United States Department of Labor (USDOL) Office of Apprenticeship or by a State Apprenticeship Agency recognized by the USDOL Office of Apprenticeship." This one is very important to the unions, and I don't know why. It must some how put non-union contractors at a disadvantage. All of the nine citizens who spoke about the responsible bidder ordinance at the August 25 meeting were in favor of the ordinance. All were union members. (Some of them also suggested that the ordinance established an advantage for local labor. A "local preference" was also mentioned by council member Adam Hussain, but no such thing is in the new ordinance.)
The city leadership in Lansing has long been dominated by Democrats and Democrats are much too friendly with unions. That is why council passed a responsible bidder ordinance rather than going with the bidder who can get the job done at the lowest cost. They favor unions over Lansing residents. That is why we have over a half billion dollars in unfunded pensions and retiree health care costs and are making annual payments of $45,344,116 on that shortfall. (source)
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