{"id":21153,"date":"2018-01-21T22:12:39","date_gmt":"2018-01-22T05:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lastbestnews.com\/site\/?p=21153"},"modified":"2018-01-21T22:12:39","modified_gmt":"2018-01-22T05:12:39","slug":"states-2-largest-public-employee-unions-ok-merger","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/2018\/01\/states-2-largest-public-employee-unions-ok-merger\/","title":{"rendered":"State’s 2 largest public employee unions OK merger"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Unions\"<\/a>

MEA-MFT<\/p>

Delegates at Saturday\u2019s MEA-MFT meeting discuss the proposed constitution before voting to ratify.<\/p><\/div>\n

In a move intended to strengthen organized labor and the middle class, Montana\u2019s two largest public employee unions merged Saturday to form the 24,000-member-plus Montana Federation of Public Employees.<\/p>\n

The new entity is now the state\u2019s largest union.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made history today,\u201d said Eric Feaver, president of MEA-MFT, whose membership voted to merge with the Montana Public Employees Association.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is one of the most significant events in Montana labor history,\u201d Feaver said.<\/p>\n

The unions\u2019 members met separately (but simultaneously) in Helena to vote on a proposed constitution for the merged organization. Both votes were nearly unanimous.<\/p>\n

The new Montana Federation of Public Employees represents public K-12 teachers and support staff; state, county and municipal workers; higher education faculty and support staff; Head Start employees; health care workers; Montana Highway Patrol staff members; probation and parole officers; and city police department employees.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have members in every community across the state, working for Montana\u2019s people,\u201d said Quinton Nyman, executive director of MPEA.<\/p>\n

Leaders of both unions said the move was two years in the making, and necessitated by attacks on Montana workers\u2019 right to be represented by unions and by the diminishment of the American middle class in recent years.<\/p>\n

\"CapreAir_Variable\"<\/a><\/div><\/div>\u201cUnions created the middle class in America, and unions keep it alive,\u201d said Amanda Curtis, a math teacher in Butte and an MEA-MFT state officer. \u201cComing together makes us far stronger and more effective.\u201d<\/p>\n

The merger was a natural progression for the two unions, Nyman said.<\/p>\n

\u201cMEA-MFT and MPEA have worked together for decades to improve and defend public services in Montana, protect workers\u2019 and voters\u2019 rights, raise the minimum wage, and fight for fair funding for schools and higher education,\u201d he said. \u201cWe have jointly stopped efforts to privatize and profitize public services and schools and we\u2019ve fended off so-called \u2018right to work\u2019 bills.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2016, delegates to MEA-MFT\u2019s annual representative assembly and the MPEA annual meeting voted to direct their respective leaders to explore a possible merger.<\/p>\n

In 2017, delegates at both conventions voted overwhelmingly to merge the unions. Officers of the two groups then met at length and wrote a constitution for a new union.<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s ratification of a new constitution by each union\u2019s membership officially gave birth to the Montana Federation of Public Employees.<\/p>\n

MPEA\u2019s leadership told members in advance of Saturday\u2019s meeting that the merged union would not only defend, promote and enhance Montana\u2019s labor movement, but expand it as well \u2014 and not just MEA-MFT and MPEA, but also the AFL-CIO.<\/p>\n

\u201cBIG is better,\u201d MPEA leaders said in a bullet-point list for its membership.<\/p>\n

In the years to come, the merger will provide public employees with \u201cthe ultimate opportunity to rethink, restructure, and repurpose what we do, with and for whom, and why,\u201d MPEA\u2019s Nyman said.<\/p>\n

No longer, he said, will there be any doubt about who speaks for public employees in Montana \u2014 or what those workers\u2019 wishes are on important statewide issues.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe time is right for a new, larger union,\u201d said MEA-MFT\u2019s Feaver. \u201cPublic employees are under attack from forces that want to take away our freedom to form unions and make a better life for our families and communities. This merger is a major step in defending, promoting, and growing the Montana labor movement.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sherry Devlin is a longtime Missoula journalist who writes\u00a0occasional stories for\u00a0Missoula Current<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0where this story originally appeared.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a move intended to strengthen organized labor and the middle class, Montana\u2019s two largest public employee unions merged Saturday to form the 24,000-member-plus Montana Federation of Public Employees. The new entity is now the state\u2019s largest union.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":149,"featured_media":21154,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,14],"tags":[1864,6601,6676,6602],"class_list":["post-21153","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-montana","category-news","tag-eric-feaver","tag-mea-mft","tag-montana-federation-of-public-employees","tag-montana-public-employees-association","prominence-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21153","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/149"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21153"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21153\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21157,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21153\/revisions\/21157"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21153"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21153"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/montana-mint.com\/lastbestnews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21153"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}