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1) Will Charter Organizing Lead to Labor War in
California? The plans of the California Teachers Association (CTA) to
organize charter school employees are
no secret to readers of the EIA Communiqué. And, as near as I can
tell, there has been no mad dash by charter school teachers to join CTA.
Now, the union's failure to make a dent in charter schools may lead it to
consider a drastic change in policy that has the potential to cause a major
rift in the California labor movement, and may have repercussions at the
national level.
It may surprise some readers to learn that CTA – by far
the largest NEA state affiliate – is nowhere near the limit of its potential
membership. Most NEA state affiliates have a significant number of education
support personnel (ESPs) among their membership, and very few have any
reason not to try to increase their ESP membership at every opportunity. But
CTA is different.
The union has only a
handful of ESP members, with most school support employees belonging to
the independent
California School Employees Association (CSEA). CSEA is a political
powerhouse in its own right, with 230,000 members.
The problem CTA faces with charters is that most have
too few teachers to make organizing them cost-effective. Being able to
organize "wall-to-wall" units – single units to include both teachers and
ESPs – would greatly mitigate that problem. So the union's upper echelon is
once again raising the issue of including ESPs as members.
Adding ESPs to an already formidable membership base
seems like a no-brainer for CTA, but a jurisdictional battle with CSEA would
be a big mistake. Arriving at a modus vivendi with CSEA would be an
absolute necessity before CTA could proceed, but there is a further
complicating factor:
the AFL-CIO/NEA Labor Solidarity Partnership Agreement.
CSEA is an independently chartered union of the
AFL-CIO, with all the associated jurisdictional protections. CTA is not an
AFL-CIO member, and is not expected to take advantage of the new agreement
to join AFL-CIO. So the internal and state level difficulties in organizing
ESPs would probably also require some negotiation at the national level.
And that's to say nothing of the Change to Win
coalition, some of whose member unions have a strong interest in organizing
ESPs – especially the Teamsters, who have finally won their battle to hold a
representation election for the members of the NEA-affiliated Education
Support Employees Association in Clark County, Nevada (see
here and
here, with EIA items #3 both
here and
here).
All of this is worth watching, because no one union has
an inherent advantage in representing ESPs. The NEA and AFT have a history
of representing support employees, but there is no reason to believe that
the Teamsters are out of their element in representing a union that includes
bus drivers, or UFCW in a union with cafeteria workers, or SEIU in a union
with caregivers. If there are union toes to be stepped in, it's in the ESP
arena.
2) More Drama in Miami-Dade? EIA hasn't had time to run down this
story yet, but perhaps some Florida readers will share what they know after
seeing this item from the United Teachers of Dade executive board meeting of
February 16 (Karen Aronowitz is the UTD President):
"Update on Charges against UTD Member. Ms. Aronowitz informed the
Board that the President in tandem with legal counsel had conducted an
investigation, and probable cause exists to proceed with the charges. Ms.
Aronowitz also informed the Board that this person had resigned from UTD.
Ms. Aronowitz also stated that at the last board meeting the police were
called, but the member was not arrested. Ms. Aronowitz further stated that
we are continuing with due diligence in trying the serve the papers. The
President also stated that the Secretary/Treasurer had contacted the local
police and they will be patrolling the location."
3) Searching for Dummies. If you haven't spotted it already, head
over to the
March 26 New York Times for an op-ed by Edward Tenner, who puts
the lie once and for all to the argument that students don't need to know
things, only where to look them up. As Tenner tells us, they're not much
good at that, either. Nor are Internet search engines much help in
discriminating between valid content and garbage.
"It would be a shame if brilliant technology were to end up threatening the
kind of intellect that produced it," Tenner writes.
4) What a Tangled Web Site We Weave. How long does it take to put up
a web site? The clock is still ticking over at the
South Carolina Education Association, which took down its site for
remodeling in mid-February, brought it back up on March 6 with virtually
nothing on it, and now, three weeks later, still has about three-quarters of
its pages with no content.
Word for today: outsource!
5) Missouri Voluntary Donation May Become Mandatory. Next month,
delegates to the Missouri NEA representative assembly will decide whether to
convert the voluntary Legislative Crisis Fund to a compulsory dues
assessment fund beginning in September.
The union created the fund last year "to respond to legislative threats and
advocate for collective bargaining rights." Apparently the supply of
donations did not match demand, so the MNEA Board of Directors proposed a
$10 annual increase to member dues to go to the fund.
6) Enrollment Declines, Bureaucracy Thrives.
San Diego Union-Tribune reporter Leonel Sanchez adeptly describes
the meanderings of southern California education officials, who apparently
were unable to predict that as Baby Boomers stopped having children, school
enrollment would decrease!
Sanchez notes that about 40 percent of the state's school districts are
losing pupils. But fear not! Capitalism still exists in California, and
since school officials have more (of your) dollars than sense, someone
developed a way to make money from the mystification of these guys.
School Services of California, Inc. formed the California Declining
Enrollment Coalition. The organization lobbies for legislation specifically
designed to bring more state aid to districts with declining enrollments. It
isn't immediately clear on what the membership fee is based, but the Anaheim
City School District pays $1,000, while the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School
District pays $2,000.
7) Money for Nothing. The
Montgomery Advertiser unearthed school district spending figures
that some enterprising researcher ought to gather for every district in the
country. The newspaper learned that the Montgomery County Public Schools
spent $220,567 on school employees who were not working, but in the process
of being dismissed. In Jefferson County, the figure was $210,257.
Under state law, public school employees are paid
during the appeals process even if their dismissal is upheld. "The result,
which was predicted, is an incentive for almost all terminated employees not
only to take advantage of every appeal, but also to drag the appeals process
out as long as possible," the Advertiser opined.
8) Good Advice. Kenosha Education Association President Beth Adelsen
Djuplin advises her members not to spend their own money on classroom
supplies.
"I learned early on when I was a poor beginning teacher that kids can enjoy
games without getting prizes, and a positive written comment on a paper
works just as well as a sticker…. Just don't spend your own money on a
supply that really should be provided to you."
I'm with Ms. Djuplin. It's your money. You shouldn't subsidize the
district's supply budget out of your own pocket. If you do, that's your
personal choice.
9) Last week's Intercepts. If you missed
last week's contributions by teacher union officials, you can still read
their essays in the archives. I provide direct links below:
*
Teacher Union Voices: A Grown-Up in the Room. A current NEA affiliate
staffer discusses jurisdictional issues between elected union officers and
employees.
*
Teacher Union Voices: Daddy, What Do You Do? A former NEA staffer
explains his job to his daughter.
*
Teacher Union Voices - The Back-Door AFL-CIO Merger. A former NEA
staffer reveals the backstory to the recent agreement with the AFL-CIO.
*
Teacher Union Voices - State Politics. A former AFT local president
tells us what it's like to be a union non-conformist.
*
Teacher Union Voices - Teaching: An Occupation in Search of a Definition.
A former NEA state affiliate elected officer dissects the problem of
teaching as a profession.
10) Quote of the Week.
"The blunt reality is
that the way we used to do business with the politicians and policymakers
has changed. It's not working. In a sense we have become victims of our own
success. A few years, we could just send our lobbyists across the street to
the Capitol and bad legislation was stopped and good legislation passed…. We
have a critical election coming up this fall. We need legislators and a
governor who legislate and govern in a responsible manner; who get it that a
no-new-taxes pledge is unacceptable irresponsible public policy." – Illinois
Education Association President Ken Swanson, addressing the union's
representative assembly on March 9. |
