|
1) Pennsylvania NEA Affiliate Could
Lock Out Staff. Officials of the Pennsylvania
State Education Association (PSEA) have set an October 17 deadline for their
own employees to accept a final contract offer. If the staffers continue to
reject the PSEA proposal, they may find themselves locked out when they
attempt to report for work on Monday, October 20.
It is not widely understood that
employees of teachers’ unions are themselves members of what are commonly
known as staff unions. Staff unions collectively bargain their compensation
and working conditions with teachers’ union elected officials and
executives, who in these cases play the role of management. Some NEA state
affiliates have had bitter disagreements with their staff unions over the
past few years, resulting in staff strikes and, in the case of Missouri, a
lockout.
PSEA averted a staff strike in 1999 when
it mailed an offer already rejected by staff negotiators directly to all of
its employees. The staff union was irate, but employees narrowly approved
the offer. PSEA tried the same tactic this year, but without success. The
staff union is seeking a five-year contract, with three percent salary
increases every 15 months. Other issues, from medical benefits for retirees
to the phasing out of leased vehicles, are also still in dispute.
Both sides are seeking support from the
union’s hundreds of local presidents and representatives. PSEA professional
staffers average more than $90,000 in salary, while support personnel
average more than $45,000 annually. The annual salaries of PSEA executives
are well into six figures.
2) Collier County Union Now Has Two
Competing Presidents. In the late 14th
and early 15th centuries, the Catholic Church had two – and, for
a time, three – popes. Each pope had his own political and regional backing
and spent much of his time excommunicating the supporters of the other
popes. Finally, in 1417, the Council of Constance named Martin V the one and
only pope, effectively ending what has since been termed the Western Schism.
Fast forward to 2003, where members of
the Collier Support Personnel Union (CSPU) in Florida are recreating the
Western Schism in miniature. Over the last few weeks, EIA has detailed the
feud between competing factions in the union over money, operations and
affiliate relations. According to the Naples Daily News, an official
of the Florida Education Association (FEA) tried to bar the shop stewards
from entering union headquarters. The stewards were let in anyway by the
building’s owners, where they a) elected Chief Steward Richard Arena interim
president; and b) began combing through union files, where they claim to
have found evidence of election tampering by the previous regime.
Meanwhile, former (?) CSPU President Ron
Dendy insists he still holds office, and he is being backed by FEA. The
National Education Association has offered to pay for binding arbitration
between the warring parties.
3) Bullock Headed to Cell Block.
It took much longer than expected, but federal authorities are finally
filing charges against the perpetrators of the Washington Teachers Union (WTU)
scandal. Several union officers, including former President Barbara Bullock,
were accused of stealing as much as $5 million in members’ dues and spending
the cash on personal luxury items.
Last Tuesday, the U.S. Attorney charged
Errol Alderman with one count of conspiracy for creating a dummy consulting
business designed to launder union dues and deposit them into personal
accounts controlled by Bullock and her executive assistant. Alderman became
the third minor player in the scandal to be charged.
On Friday, Bullock herself was charged
with one count of mail fraud and one count of conspiracy in an apparent plea
deal that will reportedly net her 10 years in prison. The Washington Post
reported that the plea deal was held up for a time by Bullock’s lawyers, who
complained that former United Teachers of Dade President Pat Tornillo is
facing only a 30-month sentence for similar crimes.
Charges against Bullock’s executive
assistant, Gwendolyn Hemphill, and former WTU Treasurer James Baxter are
sure to follow, and additional persons may face prosecution due to the
falsification of IRS and U.S. Department of Labor filings during Bullock’s
tenure.
4) Cleveland Union President
Delivers External and Internal Rants. “These bad
charter schools are like 700-pound hogs at the dinner table eating
everything in sight, and the longer they’re there, the harder it’s going to
be to move them out and away from the table,” fumed Cleveland Teachers Union
President Richard DeColibus upon announcing a $70,000 “truth” campaign
targeting the state’s charter schools.
DeColibus’ rhetoric would be hardly
worth noticing, except he seems to have adopted the style of former
California Teachers Association President Wayne Johnson, raging against his
internal opponents with the same bombast normally reserved for external
opponents.
In a recent letter to members, DeColibus
discussed a proposal to amend the union’s constitution in order to eliminate
the practice of having four committee chairmen, appointed by the president,
sit on the union’s 24-member executive board. Hardly a casus belli,
but DeColibus let loose anyway.
“The attempt to eliminate them now is
merely the worst kind of internal political maneuvering, does nothing good
for the union, is extremely divisive, and a sad indication of more
maneuvering to come with respect to the March general election,” he wrote.
“To reward such blatant attacks, I believe, undermines the entire union.
This is one of the best run unions in the country and, I would maintain,
clearly the best in the state.”
Supporters of the amendment claim that
having appointed members on the board violates the AFT constitution, an
assessment with which AFT’s lawyers have apparently agreed. So DeColibus
fired another salvo. “If the AFT is fanatical about making us conform to
whatever virgin-purist form of governance they espouse, I suggest we send
them a message of ‘We’re not broken, don’t fix us,’” he wrote.
At the same time, however, DeColibus is
supporting a different constitutional amendment that would remove retired
members from the board. Evidently the district has been rehiring retirees,
who then seek union office as active members. DeColibus wants to put a stop
to the practice. “These people don’t live in your world anymore and I
suggest you encourage them to move on with their lives,” he wrote.
5) Chicago Union Delegates Reject
Five-Year Contract. The Chicago Teachers Union (CTU)
House of Delegates rejected a five-year contract proposal approved by the
union leadership, setting the stage for a critical rank-and-file vote on
October 16.
Chicago school officials and CTU
negotiators reached a tentative agreement last month on a deal that included
a 4 percent pay raise in each of the contract’s five years. But increases in
health insurance premiums and other internal factors contributed to the
402-289 delegate defeat of the proposal. Though the delegate vote is only a
recommendation, the 33,000 members of CTU are expected to follow suit.
CTU President Deborah Lynch has already
said she will not return to the bargaining table if members reject the
agreement, but instead will have the union’s House of Delegates debate a
strike authorization vote.
6) Hortonville Teachers Likely to
Join Wisconsin AFT Affiliate. In 1974, teachers in
Hortonville, Wisconsin, went on a then-illegal strike. Eighty-four of them
were fired and replaced. For almost 30 years, the Hortonville strike has
been the Alamo of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC). You
can read the union’s history of the strike at
http://www.weac.org/historybook/ch5-1.htm.
WEAC has refused to affiliate the local
Hortonville Association of Teachers until the handful of replacement
teachers from 1974 still working for the district have retired. Evidently
the Hortonville local tired of waiting and approached the AFT-affiliated
Wisconsin Federation of Teachers (WFT).
According to the Capital Times, a
majority of Hortonville teachers have signed authorization cards seeking
affiliation with WFT. The “new” union can now call for a certification
election, or ask the school board to simply recognize it as the exclusive
representative, something that is permissible under Wisconsin law.
7) Going, Going, Gone.
The eradication of former Executive Committee member Wayne Nadeau from the
NEA’s memory banks continues. Last week, the union removed from its web site
the July 4, 2003 press release announcing Nadeau’s election. Nadeau resigned
his position on July 24 after the suspension of his Vermont teaching license
became public knowledge.
Note. Due
to the Columbus Day holiday, the next EIA Communiqué will be issued
on Tuesday, October 14.
8) Quote of
the Week.
“Though picky and frustrating, the national certification process is not as
difficult as people claim it is. More important, I doubt it is going to
improve student achievement. I believe the people running the certification
process are more interested in listening to an echo.”– Nationally certified
teacher Jim O’Neill. (October 1 Atlanta Journal-Constitution) |
