Big Labor’s War on Parent Volunteers: Just Send the $$$$’s

On March 22, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Parents with children attending El Marino Language School in Culver City, California are up in arms, as a local union wants to force the unionization parent volunteers at the local public schools.  Parents have formed non-profit booster clubs to fundraise for and hire part-time teacher’s helpers, who also mostly come from the ranks of the parents themselves.  But that is unacceptable for the union activists of the Culver City Association of Classified Employees.

The union wants the parents to continue to fundraise, but to send the funds directly to the school district so the district can then hire union employees to fill the part-time positions.

 

 

 

 

 

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Posted in: California, Education, Government Grants to Unions, Intimidation Tactics, Public Employees, Teacher Unions
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Union’s Keep Pushing Taxes Higher in California

On March 21, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Who can forget the Chicago Teachers Union Activist above, but that attitude does not seem to be exclusive to Illinois.  California Gov. Jerry Brown is pushing a new scheme to force tax increases on the taxpayers in the Golden State and not surprisingly, it is the teacher’s union pushing the plan behind the curtain?  From the OCRegister:

Gov. Jerry Brown says the odds improved last week that voters will approve tax increases in November because he and the California Federation of Teachers merged their separate tax-raising schemes into one.

This was not a compromise. Mr. Brown caved in to union pressure. Public employee unions were major financial backers of the governor’s 2010 election campaign. In seeking huge tax increases to pay for government spending, he is doing unions’ bidding.

By merging initiatives, Mr. Brown agreed to reduce the increase he sought in the sales tax from a half cent to a quarter cent. But he agreed to seek a larger income-tax increase tax on more-affluent taxpayers. The new initiative would raise the top tax rate by 1 percent for those earning $250,000, 2 percent for incomes exceeding $300,000 and 3 percent on $500,000 and more. The state’s top rate already is 10.3 percent, for those earning $1 million a year.

The combined initiative is projected to raise $9 billion compared with the $7 billion the governor previously proposed. The tax increases would last seven years, rather than the previous five years. (more…)

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Posted in: AFT and affiliates, California, Compulsory Unionism States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Education, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, NEA and Affiliates, Political Activity, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining, Public Employees, Teacher Unions
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Wisconsin Reality vs. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s “Reality Rendezvous”

On March 19, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Imagine what would happen in Wisconsin if they gave private sector employees the same freedoms.

“Our rendezvous with reality has arrived.”  That is what Illinois Governor Pat Quinn said this week as he unveiled his state budget.  Their economic slap in the face comes nearly one year after we took steps to get our fiscal house in order.

As we were passing legislation requiring state employees and teachers to make modest contributions to their health insurance and pensions to help offset necessary cuts, Quinn and Democrats in Illinois passed massive tax increases.

I told you then that our path, although a more difficult one, was the correct path to take.  Now, it couldn’t be more clear that we were right.  We closed a massive $3.6 billion budget deficit without raising taxes and without massive layoffs.

Illinois, meanwhile, is in even more economic peril because of  tax increases that clobbered their families and businesses.  To try to fix the mess he created, Governor Quinn is out with a budget that proposes the closing of numerous prisons, 60 state offices, laying off 1,100 state employees and cutting Medicaid by $2.7 billion.

It’s so bad that $8 billion in bills would still go unpaid and state worker pensions costs will rise by more than $1 billion.  Even faced with that, Quinn and Illinois democrats are refusing to tackle the issue, instead calling on “task forces” to be created to look into ways to reign in skyrocketing health care and pension costs. (more…)

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Posted in: Economic Impact of Unionization, Economics, Education, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Illinois, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining, Public Employees, Wisconsin
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Seattle’s Teacher’s Unions Oust Best and Brightest

On March 16, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

While teacher’s unions in California and New York have made it impossible to fire teachers — including those accused of sexual abuse — the teacher’s union in Washington State sought to get rid of six teacher’s who were awarded for their excellence.  The California Political Review has the story:

Last week, I wrote about the particularly egregious case of a teacher in Rochester, NY who sent sexually charged emails to her principal and was subsequently jailed for ignoring a restraining order. Upon her release, she returned to the classroom, and in short order was accused of fondling her middle school students. But due to her union’s pressure tactics, the school board cannot get rid of this tenured teacher.

Across the country in Seattle, we now have a situation where it would appear that the local teachers union may have success in getting six teachers removed from the district.

Pedophiles? Of course not. They are talented Teach For America teachers who have received good reviews from their principals. In what could be a new low for teachers unions – and that’s really saying something – it would appear that through heavy pressure from the Seattle Education Association, the Seattle School Board may terminate the contracts of the six teachers for absolutely no good reason.

Founded in 1990 by Princeton graduate Wendy Kopp, TFA chooses the best and the brightest – only one in eight are accepted into the program – and trains them to work in the nation’s worst schools. These committed and enthusiastic college graduates get five weeks of teacher training, ongoing support once in the classroom, and must commit to teach for two years.

The program has been very successful. But there is an anti-TFA animus among those for whom the status quo is next to godliness. The “problem” with TFA teachers is that they tend to be very idealistic and don’t fit into the cookie cutter mold that teacher unions so need and insist on. TFA teachers really care about teaching and frequently can’t abide the straitjacket rules inherent in every union contract.

On its website, SEA does its best to “inform” the public by posting nine reasons to oppose Teach for America’s intrusion into Seattle Public Schools. (more…)

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Posted in: California, Education, Public Employees, Right to Work
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Union Bosses Raid Pensions

On March 15, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Taxpayers are footing the bill and business is getting the blame for the pension crisis in California but the real culprit is the union bosses of the Golden State, the Investors Business Daily reports:

Reports from a variety of media reveal California state employees are spiking their pensions to stratospheric levels, leaving nothing for their brother employees. Sorry, can’t blame Wall Street for this one.

In a laudable instance of the mainstream media doing its job, the Los Angeles Times, the Sacramento Bee, Bloomberg News and City Journal have all exposed “pension spiking” by California public employees. Basically, they manipulate rigid unionized pay and promotion systems to raise their pensions well above what they earned during their working years.

The Los Angeles Times on Saturday pieced together tough-to-get data from Kern and Ventura counties and found a fiscal horror story: In Kern, 77% of public employees with pensions greater than $100,000 actually get more than they did during their working lives.

In Ventura, the figure is 84%. Kern has a $761 million pension shortfall, in part due to the practice.

Both the practice and the lack of transparency are signs of a rotten system. Bigger counties like San Diego and Los Angeles also permit pension spiking. (more…)

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Posted in: California, Compulsory Unionism States, Economic Impact of Unionization, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Labor Organizations, Pension Funds, Public Employee Monopoly Bargaining, Public Employees, SEIU
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Even in Michigan, Big Labor feels pushback

On March 11, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Michigan dials back Big Labor arrogance and power — at least slightly — the legislature passed a bill to prohibit public schools from automatically collecting union dues from the paychecks of teachers and other employees. Republican Representative Joe Haveman says the bill’s intent is to focus schools on educating children. The change will allow public school teachers and other employees to choose how they will directly pay their union dues and forced fees.

“The focus of our school administration has to be on teaching the kids. Let’s get out of the business of collecting bills for other people,” says Haveman. The bill is headed to Governor Rick Snyder’s desk for his signature.

 

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Posted in: AFSCME, AFT and affiliates, Education, Forced Dues, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Michigan, NEA and Affiliates, Public Employees, SEIU
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It’s a Civil Right to Join or Not Join a Union without coercion

On March 7, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

The latest poll driven rhetoric from the union bosses is the claim that union compulsion should be a civil right under color of law.  Anthony Davies, a professor at Duquesne University looks behind the rhetoric noting that the problem with Big Labor’s proposed law because it makes compulsory unionism a ‘right’ for Big Labor while taking away from employees’ freedom to not join or be compelled to pay tribute to a union boss.

A recent op-ed in The New York Times called for new labor laws that will ensure that workers have the right to organize labor unions. These laws already exist, so what are unions griping about?

It’s not that workers are being prevented from unionizing. The problem, as unions see it, is that it is too difficult to force workers to unionize. Free workers have weighed the costs and benefits of today’s unions and most have freely chosen to do without them. It is this free will that unions — and their advocates on the country’s op-ed pages — seek to quash.

Union membership in the private sector has fallen to 7% not because unions have failed, but because they have done so well that — at least for the present — they are no longer needed. The exploitation of employees by their employers is a thing of the past; in fact, nowadays it seems like we’re more likely to hear about union bosses exploiting union members than about employers exploiting employees. Today, no matter how much labor leaders and their advocates pretend otherwise, labor reform means reforming unions. (more…)

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Posted in: Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Legislation, Political Activity, Public Employees, Right to Work, Right To Work States
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