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Yesterday, I talked about a major effort the state’s labor unions were launching to counteract what they feel is a major assault on collective bargaining. They are attempting to amend the constitution to make it impossible to take collective bargaining rights away from any group, no matter the circumstances.

The new emergency manager appointed to run the Highland Park schools began work today.

Meanwhile, community leaders gathered at the school district’s administrative building to call for residents and parents to publicly challenge the state’s decision to appoint an emergency manager and the emergency manager law.

Democratic State Senator Bert Johnson said state officials should view Highland Park as an opportunity to include residents and parents in on the conversation about turning school districts around.

“Once an emergency manager has left, what has resulted from their leadership, or the lack-there-of, the citizens will grapple with into the future,” said Johnson. “And so I hope they understand that this is a smart move in the right direction. And if you can’t get behind this, you can’t get behind democracy.”

Glenda McDonald is a resident of Highland Park and a former school district employee. She said students have been leaving the district in droves because of chronic disinvestment in the schools and community.

“We want our children to come back,” said McDonald. “And in order to do that, the community must be a part of this process. We must have community involvement. We must have parent involvement.”

The Highland Park district joins Detroit Public Schools as the only school districts with emergency managers. The cities of Ecorse, Pontiac, Flint and Benton Harbor also have emergency managers.

With the U.S. House of Representatives starting off a new session today and Senators coming back to work next week, both parties will be eager to make headway on their respective legislative agendas.

For congressional leaders, part of this means making sure their party members fall in line when it's time to vote and don't stray across the aisle.

The Associated Press reports that "a person briefed on the matter" says GM will ask Volt owners to come in to dealers so the structure around their car's batteries can be strengthened.

Michigan Radio's Rina Miller is following this story and will have more soon.

More from the Associated Press:

The move is similar to a recall and involves the 8,000 Volts sold in the U.S. in the past two years.

The move comes after three batteries caught fire after side-impact crash tests done by federal safety regulators. The fires occurred seven days to three weeks after the tests and have been blamed on a coolant leak that caused an electrical short. No fires have broken out in real-world crashes.

The person says GM will contact Volt owners and have them return the cars to dealers for several structural repairs.

The repairs are a step below a formal recall.

The person did not want to be identified because GM executives will announce the plan later Thursday.

A few weeks ago, I talked about efforts Michigan is making to improve passenger rail service between Detroit and Chicago, efforts which include buying and upgrading a portion of the track.

That prompted some enthusiastic response from people who said they were eager for more passenger rail service.

Not just to Chicago, that is, but everywhere. Some were older listeners, who had fond memories of Pullman cars and traveling the nation by rail back in the day. Others were romantics or environmentalists or people not in love with automobiles.

There do seem to be a lot of us who are tired of fighting roads and traffic jams and paying four dollars a gallon for gas. This got me to wondering whether railroads are in fact mostly a part of our romantic past, or an important segment of our transportation future.