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1) The Story Thus Far. I realize not all of you
travel over to
Intercepts during the week for the latest, so allow me to quickly
recap.
Since last week's communiqué revealed the
contents of AFT's communications audit and a number of audio files of
interviews with AFT staffers, there has been widespread action and inaction
– depending on where you sit and who you are. Inside AFT headquarters, there
has been a lot of activity, not only as a response to EIA's story, but as a
response to the recommendations of the audit itself. Personnel changes have
been made, which EIA will report once they are confirmed.
Outside of headquarters, however, AFT has been silent.
Not a single official or semi-official word has been uttered publicly. AFT's
web sites and listservs merrily pretend everything's normal, which is either
an indication that union officers hope the whole thing will dry up on its
own, or they aren't yet primed to release a response. The media, for their
part, don't seem to quite know what to do with it. If I remember correctly,
the Kamber report didn't get a whole lot of mainstream press in 1997,
either. The education blogosphere has been quicker, but still tentative.
Meanwhile, CleverSpin tried to
cover all the bases by claiming it had notified the FBI and "state and
federal law enforcement officials," while at the same time demanding, under
threat of legal action, that EIA destroy the evidence (the audio files)
those officials would undoubtedly want to see. Happily, EIA was able to
quickly retain top-notch legal representation to attend to any harassment on
that front.
Rumors, witch hunts and conspiracy theories are running
rampant, all for naught, since AFT officials already know how I obtained
these materials – because I told them, one hour before releasing the report
last Monday.
Where it goes next, nobody knows, but EIA is ready for
anything.
2) EIA Exclusive: AFT State-by-State
Membership Figures. In the past, EIA
has gone through a number of gyrations attempting to accurately describe
AFT membership without decent data. At long last, EIA has a state-by-state
"warm body" membership count for AFT as of March 1, 2006. The numbers are
still not ideal. They are total numbers, including retirees, and are not
disaggregated by job title, such as teachers, nurses, state employees, etc.
Nevertheless, they are the first figures EIA has come across that are
comparable to
the ones available for NEA.
TOTAL – 1,356,057
Alabama – 2,213
Alaska – 8,417
Arizona - 634
Arkansas - 53
California –
70,804
Colorado – 5,231
Connecticut –
28,301
Delaware - 109
Florida – 128,223*
Georgia – 4,049
Hawaii - 635
Idaho - 174
Illinois – 87,480
Indiana – 9.059
Iowa - 51
Kansas – 5,212
Kentucky – 1,886
Louisiana – 17,475
Maine - 547
Maryland – 13,188
Massachusetts –
24,062
Michigan – 31,089
Minnesota –
74,270*
Mississippi –
1,660
Missouri – 6,196
Montana – 14,285*
Nebraska - 0
Nevada - 762
New Hampshire –
3,435
New Jersey –
32,737
New Mexico – 8,748
New York – 570,424
North Carolina -
240
North Dakota –
2,432
Ohio – 19,668
Oklahoma – 3,367
Oregon – 11,514
Pennsylvania –
38,281
Rhode Island –
11,589
South Carolina - 0
South Dakota - 0
Tennessee - 422
Texas – 66,101
Utah - 891
Vermont – 2,215
Virginia – 6,692
Washington – 5,856
West Virginia –
5,542
Wisconsin – 18,840
Wyoming - 16
District of
Columbia – 5,238
Guam – 1,989
U.S. Virgin
Islands – 1,624
Indian Educators –
1,582
Overseas - 549
*merged NEA/AFT
affiliate
3) Disbursements from AFT Solidarity Fund.
In
2002, AFT delegates approved the creation of the Solidarity Fund, patterned
after NEA's Ballot Initiative/Legislative Crises Fund, which collects a dues
payment from each member and distributes the cash to state federations for
various political campaigns and projects. Here are the disbursements for the
years 2004-06:
California Federation of Teachers - $1,475,000
(includes $900,000 to defeat Gov. Schwarzenegger's initiatives in November
2005 and $175,000 to support the Preschool for All initiative, which was
defeated in June 2006.)
AFT Colorado - $100,000
Florida Education Association - $200,000
AFT Michigan - $100,000
MEA-MFT (Montana) - $50,000
New York State Public Employees Federation - $175,000
Ohio Federation of Teachers - $170,000
AFT also sent $250,000 to the Fund to Protect Social
Security.
4) Quote of the Week.
The following exchange
took place in January 2006:
AFT Staffer: "Eduwonk,
for example, which I guess I would put in the 'generally not supportive of
AFT issues,' and
Gadfly, some other places. Antonucci's Education Intelligence
Agency, the Fordham Foundation, and Education Sector – these organizations
that aren't necessarily opposed to us in every way. They're the noisemakers,
the gadflies, and they will pick a fight, and will be duly quoted in the
press often. So where they do disagree with us, it's amplified, because
they're fairly well known.
"There are many more places that are more hostile to us
– well, nobody's more hostile than one of those organizations: EIA."
Interviewer: "The EIA?"
AFT
Staffer:
"Yeah. It's an NEA/AFT watchdog. They're mostly – he, it's Mike Antonucci –
is mostly focusing on union issues. Our spending. How much the officers get
paid. Contradictions in public statements and elsewhere. Embarrassing
things. But it's not really taking us on on the issues. At least not on the
professional issues of our members."
The
Cleverspin report invites comparisons to NEA's Kamber Report of January
1997. Though the unions' problems are similar, The Kamber Group was also
commissioned to help generate the new NEA message (which became "new
unionism"). Cleverspin's job is apparently limited to streamlining the
communications structure and filtering out the noise. |
