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1) EIA Exclusive: Latest NEA Membership Numbers, All Categories
Plus Fee-Payers. Readers regularly request NEA membership figures, and
EIA can't do much better for you than this. Posted on the EIA web site are
numbers current as of May 15, 2006, for every state affiliate, including
every category in which NEA offers membership: active professional,
education support, retired, student and life members. Additionally, the
figures include the number of agency fee-payers in states where this
arrangement is allowed by law.
There's a lot of analysis that could be done, but enjoy it now, because such
membership numbers are becoming less and less useful for comparison
purposes. With the merger in New York, NEA will begin counting a
half-million NYSUT members as NEA members, which will increase NEA/AFT
double-counting of members to almost 900,000. Additionally, in July, NEA
delegates will vote to add an "associate" member category, which would open
membership to anyone with a few bucks to waste.
NEA has 68,368 agency fee-payers, almost half of these in California alone,
where fee-payers number more than 10 percent of the active membership of the
California Teachers Association. But it's important to know the previous
status of fee-payers. Having a growing number of fee-payers means nothing on
its face. More fee-payers who used to be members indicate movement away from
the union, but more fee-payers who used to be non-members, paying nothing to
the union, indicate movement towards the union.
I'll be happy to answer "trend" questions from those with an interest, but I
decided not to muddy up the table by including figures from previous years.
Short version for national figures: active professionals up 1 percent, ESPs
up 2.9 percent, retirees up 4.6 percent, students down 2.2 percent, life
down 2.2 percent, total up 1.4 percent, fee-payers up 5.9 percent.
2) EEOC Followed Trail in Alaska Harassment Case.
EIA reported last week on the settlement of a
case brought by three female former NEA Alaska employees against the union
and national NEA. The three staffers had accused assistant executive
director (now executive director) Tom Harvey of bullying and verbally
abusing them. NEA Alaska agreed to pay the former staffers a total of
$750,000 without admitting to any wrongdoing.
Those details were all
revealed prior to a press conference by the Equal Employment Opportunity
Commission (EEOC). The staffers filed a complaint with EEOC in 2000, and
EEOC filed the lawsuit on their behalf in 2001.
EEOC didn't begin and end with Harvey's behavior
in Alaska. The commission turned up previous incidents in two other states.
In 1994, Harvey worked for the Teachers
Association of Baltimore County. The staff union imposed sanctions on this
NEA local, accusing Harvey of forcing the resignation of two female UniServ
directors through "harassment, abusive language, shouting, and other modes
of intimidation." This was after the president of a competing union
(representing nurses) filed criminal assault charges against Harvey for
screaming at her and pinning her against a wall during an argument. Harvey
denied the charges, which apparently were dropped.
In 1997, Harvey was hired as the executive
director of the Mississippi Association of Educators (MAE). As is typical
with smaller NEA affiliates, Harvey was paid by NEA, but directed by MAE. He
lasted until February 1998, when he was removed, according to EEOC, for
abrasive behavior. One staffer described him as verbally abusive to female
staffers.
EEOC provided a copy of the
confidential agreement between MAE and Harvey, in which Harvey received
a generous financial settlement, a letter of recommendation signed by
then-MAE President Michael Marks, and a "gag restriction":
"Tom Harvey and MAE also understand and agree that
a material condition of this settlement is a gag restriction and that none
of the parties will make any statements, public or private, to any person,
corporation, agent, employee, whether public or private, whether oral or
written or by electronic methods, or cause to be published any derogatory,
defamatory or uncomplimentary statement."
Harvey was placed as an assistance executive
director at NEA Alaska a month later. He was later promoted to executive
director, a position he still holds.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs compared the actions
of the national NEA to those "of the Catholic Church in transferring known
abusers from parish to parish." They suggested NEA Alaska was victimized by
NEA, which "put this time bomb in their midst."
3) Teamsters Won't Challenge Election; Something in
the Works? Teamsters Locals 14 in Las Vegas decided not to file a
challenge to representation election results that saw the union receive 779
more votes than the incumbent NEA affiliate, but lose (see "Unions
and Majority Rule").
"By winning the election between ourselves and ESEA
[the NEA affiliate] there was no reason for us to file objections to the
election," said Teamsters Local 14 CEO Gary Mauger. This doesn't sound like
a man who has given up.
EIA expects Teamsters officials want the results
to be certified, and will then proceed with a legal challenge based on the
fact that the union received a majority of the votes cast, and that not
enough votes were even cast to enable the Teamsters to meet the current
legal threshold. Stay tuned.
4) EIA Coverage of the NEA Representative Assembly
Begins July 1. For the ninth consecutive year, EIA will provide daily
gavel-to-gavel coverage from the floor of the National Education Association
Representative Assembly. The first communiqué will be issued from Orlando
the evening of Saturday, July 1. More details in the weeks to follow.
I gave a lot of thought to live-blogging, podcasting,
video-blogging, or some other tech-marvel way to enhance the coverage, but
came to the conclusion that if you, dear reader, are sitting at your
computer on Independence Day weekend waiting for a live feed on the latest
new business item on chalk dust, you're in sorrier shape than I am.
And don't worry, AFT. Despite outrageous airline fares,
EIA will be in Boston for its third consecutive biennial AFT Convention
coverage beginning July 19.
5) Last week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from May 23-29:
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Zuni Warrior Can't Keep Union Official Out of Prison. Gwendolyn Hemphill
was sentenced to 11 years in prison. Let's hope she
doesn't see this guy anymore.
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Why I Oppose Labor History Curricula. Because they would never tell you
about the Roti family.
*
McKeesport: Where Sex in the Workplace Pays! Four months paid vacation,
a $58,000 buyout, and illicit sex thrown in. Who needs a 403(b)?
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Politician Endorsed By Union With No Members. Putting the cart before
the horse. Or is it?
6)
Quote of the Week.
"People
complain that the SAT is biased and that the bias explains why students
don't do well. That's true – it is biased. It's biased against people who
aren't well-educated. The test isn't causing people to have bad education,
it's merely reflecting the reality. And if you don't like your reflection
that doesn't mean that you should smash the mirror." – SAT tutor David S.
Kahn. (May 26
Wall Street Journal) |
