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1) EIA Exclusive: AFT
Subsidies Kept Some Affiliates Alive. An
examination of the financial disclosure report of the American Federation of
Teachers reveals the national union spent a large percentage of its funds on
local organizing projects, along with subsidies to keep troubled locals
afloat.
Most of AFT's organizing expenditures
were in support of its traditional membership – teachers, nurses and public
employees – though the union is making a concerted effort to organize early
childhood education employees, particularly in California.
Two locals required large subsidies. The
United Teachers of Dade (UTD) still owes AFT $2.4 million, part of the
hangover still remaining from
the Tornillo scandal. UTD repaid only $47,520 of that loan during
2007-08, though AFT did list an additional $525,000 received from UTD as
"miscellaneous income."
United Teachers New Orleans (UTNO) was
depleted in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina (see
item #2 here) and still owes $802,573 to AFT. The national union spent
$1.1 million last year in an attempt to organize more members for UTNO.
The report provides other interesting
facts about AFT. It isn't widely known that AFT has fewer than 725,000
full-time members, a large plurality of whom live and work in one state –
New York.
AFT took in $152.5 million in "per caps"
(the equivalent of national dues) in 2007-08 and spent $31.6 million on its
payroll, plus another $11.9 million in employee benefits. Outgoing president
Ed McElroy received a salary of $298,581 plus $32,890 in allowances,
outgoing secretary-treasurer Nat LaCour received $239,931 in salary and
$33,190 in allowances, and executive vice president Antonia Cortese received
$229,267 in salary and $37,600 in allowances. The highest paid employee was
Ronald Krouse, who received $213,704.
The union sent $1 million to its regular
PAC account and an additional $3.7 million to a special PAC account,
presumably for expenses related to the 2008 campaign.
One other entry of note: AFT received
$38,015 in "salary reimbursement grants" from the Hillary Clinton for
President campaign.
2) San Diego Affiliate Proposes
Opting Out of CTA Initiative Funding. The internal
split of California Teachers Association members over the
union's spending on the gay marriage campaign prompted a controversial
proposal from the San Diego Education Association (SDEA), one of CTA's
largest local affiliates. The SDEA representative council approved two
measures that, if adopted by CTA, would allow members to opt out of
contributing to the state union's Initiative Fund (currently $36 per year)
and would require the state union to provide detailed information on
candidates and initiatives to the members prior to voting on a
position or expenditures.
This process will be edifying for a lot
of members and the public. The opt-out proposal isn't all that radical.
Every CTA member can currently opt out of the $20 assessment to political
advocacy or charity, and the $17.57 that goes to the state PAC fund. Opting
out of membership entirely, of course, means a refund of that money, plus
the $36 Initiative Fund assessment, plus the percentage of each member's
dues that goes to activities beyond collective bargaining and
administration. If history is any guide, there will not be a massive, mad
dash to demand reimbursement of initiative money.
Likewise, a requirement to inform the
members of political positions coming up for a vote by the CTA State Council
before the vote actually takes place seems like common sense. Again, as a
practical matter there is virtually no chance it will result in an uprising
among members to oppose a position likely to be taken by the council. Most
teachers have no interest in the workings of their union beyond the
negotiations for the next contract.
Despite this, there will be strong
opposition to the San Diego proposal and I doubt very much the State Council
will pass it. The union's decision-makers aren't all that concerned with
what members actually think, but with what they ought to think. It has been
true since at least 1998, when the CTA State Council unanimously voted to
oppose Prop 226, even while
its own polling showed members supported it by a 3-to-1 margin. The
council then voted to spend $500,000 of members' dues on "internal
campaigning" to convince members they were wrong. That's representative
democracy in reverse.
The next CTA State Council meeting is
the weekend of March 20. If I learn anything about the fate of the proposal,
I'll pass it along.
3) NEA Personnel Moves.
With the retirement of Joel Packer, the position of NEA Director of
Education Policy and Practice will go to Kay Brilliant, currently an
associate director at NEA headquarters and former executive director of NEA
New Mexico.
This may be old news by now, but Charles
Haase, former president of the Washington Education Association, made the
well-traveled leap from elected office to staff and is working for NEA.
I
mistakenly retired North Carolina Association of Educators Executive
Director Colleen Borst two years ago, but this time she really did it,
and will be replaced by J. Scott Anderson, who had been working at NEA
headquarters. Anderson may be jumping directly into the fire. My most recent
information had the North Carolina staff union rejecting a tentative
agreement because it contained what was described to me as "performance
incentives."
4) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from February 9-17:
*
I'm Running Out of Captain Obvious Cartoons. In Iowa, reducing the
number of school districts by 92% didn't save money, but reducing the number
even more surely will.
*
Public School House Rock. They'd never let me get away with something
like this, but "Dysfunction
Junction" is even worse.
*
Say Goodbye to Union Financial Disclosures. Should members hear about
union expenditures from the U.S. Department of Labor or from leaks obtained
by EIA?
*
Cheesy and
Twinkie Defense. You are what you eat.
5) Quote of the Week
#1. "Let your Senator
know that when the term 'choice' is used it refers to where a parent may
apply for their child to attend school. The [private] school has the only
'choice' in the matter – and has the ability to determine whether they (sic)
will accept your child or not." –February 10 anti-voucher e-mail blast from
the Georgia Association of Educators.
Quote of the Week #2.
"Clayton mom gets felony conviction for putting child in Henry school." –
headline from a February 7
Atlanta Journal-Constitution story about a woman and her son who
moved in with her sister in a neighboring school district so he could attend
its public schools. |
