Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

Another episode in the continuing soap opera – California: It’s Not Like Where You Live.

Working its way through the legislative process is SB 432, sponsored by Senator Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles), which would make it a crime for hotels, motels and other lodging establishments to use a flat sheet, instead of a fitted sheet, as the bottom sheet on all beds. In a fit of moderation, de León recently added an amendment that would allow “the use of equipment, such as a wedge, or other device, work practice, or method that assists in sheet installation, if the Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board determines during the standard adoption process that the use of the alternative equipment, work practice, or method that assists in sheet installation provides the equivalent health and safety protection provided by the use of a fitted sheet.”

The Blaze reports de León’s mother suffered back pains while working as a hotel maid and that this was “an issue close to my heart.”

Where do we get legislators like de León? I’m glad you asked.

I’ll always remember de León from that day back in 1998 when he notified a group of union activists that 70 percent of the members supported paycheck protection and that an upcoming campaign would not use the word “union” because it did not track well in focus groups.

Château Élan is “North Atlanta’s premier meeting destination that offers championship golf, a full-production winery, European health spa, and world-class amenities.”

Not to mention an equestrian center, “euphoria packages,” and a culinary studio.

It also hosted a planning retreat for the officers of the Gwinnett County Association of Educators, and that has some members expressing la colère to their state affiliate, the Georgia Association of Educators, about GCAE president Donna Aker.

Ron Tomblin, who served as co-president with Aker and is among those complaining of waste, said dues of $41 per month taken from teachers’ paychecks are being spent on excessive dinner meetings and items not always approved by the board. While Gwinnett County teachers faced furlough days, Tomblin said, Aker and newly elected officers traveled to Chateau Elan overnight, spending $1,500 on meeting and hotel rooms. He said the retreat was not board-approved.

“They take trips that are on the membership’s dime, and they like to eat at nice restaurants,” Tomblin said.

Aker said the overnight retreat in June was budgeted and cheaper than last year’s planning session held during a national convention in Tampa. Chateau Elan was chosen because other hotels were booked, she said. “We spent Friday night and all day Saturday planning for the upcoming year. We isolated ourselves so we could get something done.”

By contrast, Cobb County Association of Educators President Connie Jackson said its planning retreat and governing board meetings are held in office space the group leases. Members bring in potluck meals. General membership meetings, which offer cookies, are held at a community center the group rents for $100.

There are still some open questions in the aftermath of the WEAC layoffs – which the union appears reluctant to answer. WEAC executive director Dan Burkhalter wouldn’t tell the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel about membership levels, saying it was “internal information,” and a WEAC spokeswoman “refused an on-camera interview with WISC-TV Monday, and a conference call later that day was cut short after only two reporters had asked questions.”

Most media outlets have been reporting that the 42 pink-slipped staffers constitute 40 percent of the union’s workforce, but there must be some detail missing. The union’s 2008-09 filings show 151 employees, and I can guarantee you WEAC was not servicing 98,000 members with 105 staffers.

Also lost in the discussion is that the costs of WEAC’s professional staff are subsidized through NEA’s UniServ program, which last year contributed $2.7 million. Even a large drop in membership shouldn’t require such a large layoff, suggesting either WEAC’s numbers are really bad, or the union is badly overreacting. Again, when we hear from the staff union we’ll have some idea which it is.

Naturally, most observers are more concerned with the external causes and effects of the layoffs, but I want to emphasize what a big deal this is internally. Mass layoffs of NEA affiliate employees just don’t happen. You can go through the EIA archives for stories about serious money problems in Indiana, Ohio, South Carolina, Michigan, Illinois and elsewhere, but you won’t find anyone hacking staff in one fell swoop like this. It’s unprecedented.

It’s all Gov. Walker’s fault, of course, but it’s interesting to see how quickly the Wisconsin Education Association Council resorted to mass employee layoffs when faced with a budget crunch. I’ll be waiting to hear what WEAC’s staff union has to say about it.

Click here to read:

1) Comical

2) Last Week’s Intercepts

3) Quote of the Week

Dateline – Las Vegas:

[Hawaii] Gov. Neil Abercrombie stood on a stage here Wednesday and extolled the importance of fair wages, collective bargaining and solidarity among workers.

…He praised the collective bargaining process. He called for a revival of the values that bore the labor union and urged members to adopt the “aloha spirit,” reach out to one another and work together.

Dateline – Honolulu:

On the eve of a key hearing, the Hawaii State Teachers Association announced that it is filing a formal ethics charge against Governor Neil Abercrombie, Board of Education chair Don Horner and superintendent Kathryn Matayoshi.

…The union alleged that the governor sent a letter to members of the labor board after Wednesday’s hearing, outlining to his appointees and prospective appointee his preferred outcome of their deliberations.

…According to HSTA, Horner and Matayoshi signed off on the letter. The union accused the governor of trying to inappropriately influence the board.

You wouldn’t expect the left-leaning British newspaper The Guardian and I to have the same perspective on something, but the Wisconsin recalls turned out to be the one issue. Go back and take a look at “Defying Pyrrhus” and then have a gander at this column from Michael Paarlberg:

Had (the unions) won, their victory would have been largely symbolic. Much of the legislative agenda has already been set, including the budget bill, which stripped most public employees of their collective bargaining rights. Walker himself is not eligible to stand for a recall vote for another year. Democrats might have held up a concealed weapons bill, but teachers wouldn’t have gotten their contracts back – which may explain the dropoff in enthusiasm between February’s days of rage and August’s get-out-the-vote.

…For an election billed as labour’s armageddon, neither side lost much in substance – beside the $35m, of course. Unions had hoped to teach politicians that there are consequences to legislative union-busting, and they were willing to spend far more than they ever hoped to win back at the table to send that message. Republicans survived the onslaught, though not without a couple casualties. Simply by spending that much money on a state race, labour made its point – though far less effectively than they had wanted.

The damage to unions had already been done. It was hoped that whatever damage could be done to Wisconsin’s Republicans would provoke a modicum of reflection: was it all worth it? Given the proudly unreflective disposition of politicians like Scott Walker, it was probably too much to hope for in the first place.