Last weekend, Ryan Fiereck received a phone call from a telemarketer who was very curious about his political leanings and feelings toward his state teachers union, Education Minnesota.
Reading through a number of scripted statements, the woman began to assess his level of allegiance to the union.
In response to one of her final questions — “Instead of paying fees to Education Minnesota that fund political activities and a one-size-fits all approach to education policy, opting out means keeping your money in your community and advocating for solutions that are right for your students. It’s your paycheck. Shouldn’t it be your choice?” — Fiereck reiterated that he was still strongly committed to Education Minnesota.
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What’s in the box sitting in the middle of the Clark County Education Association’s parking lot?
That was at the center of a controversy Wednesday between employees of the current union representing Clark County School District teachers and a newly formed teachers union.
Members of that new union, Nevada Education Association Southern Nevada said the box had hundreds of forms from teacher’s leaving the CCEA.
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By Mike Antonucci, The74
We reported exclusively in May that the National Education Association planned to cut $50 million from its budget, anticipating that it would lose 300,000 members in the wake of a Supreme Court decision ruling agency fees unconstitutional.
NEA’s national headquarters took in $385 million last year, and its proposed two-year budget will affect virtually every aspect of operations. Vacant staff positions will go unfilled, leading to a reduction of 16 percent of spending on compensation. No layoffs are planned.
Spending on travel will be cut 4 percent. Publication costs cut 27 percent. Office expenses cut 15 percent. And so on.
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The National Education Association held its annual Representative Assembly in Minneapolis last week. Six thousand delegates, representing teachers and education support workers in every state, met to debate and vote on the national union’s budget and agenda for the 2018-19 school year.
Each year the delegates amend NEA’s constitution and by-laws, federal legislative program, resolutions, and policy statements. They also submit new business items, which direct the national union to take specific actions over the coming year. These new business items cover a wide array of issues — some only vaguely related to education and labor.
The California Teachers Association comprises about 12 percent of NEA’s total membership, but CTA delegates were responsible for almost 40 percent of the new business items submitted and 45 percent of those that were approved. Here are just a few of the actions NEA will take in 2018-19 because of CTA ideas:
APPROVED:
No. 9: The NEA Representative Assembly directs NEA to support, in ways it finds appropriate and within the budget, the removal of the names of Confederate leaders from public schools.
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Seven teachers in California filed a class-action lawsuit seeking repayment of fees previously paid to their union, after the Supreme Court recently ruled unions cannot collect fees from nonmembers to make up for the cost of collective bargaining.
It’s the kind of case that could potentially cause further damage to teachers’ unions, after last week’s ruling in Janus v. American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Council 31. In that decision, the justices ruled 5-4 that compelling nonmembers to pay fees violates their First Amendment rights. They also decided that public employees must affirmatively opt into their unions, rather than having to opt out.
“This lawsuit will enable teachers like me to recover the agency fees that we were wrongly forced to pay against our will,” said Scott Wilford, the plaintiff in the new lawsuit, which was filed in the Central District of California’s federal court, in a statement.
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Mark Janus was the plaintiff in Janus v. AFSCME.
My home state of Illinois is in financial free fall. The state has billions of dollars in unpaid bills, has unbalanced budgets and is bleeding people and money.
A state doesn’t get into a mess like this overnight. It’s the result of many seemingly small decisions over many years. It’s for that reason that I fought to not be part of that mess — all the way up to the Supreme Court.
In 2017, as media pundits wondered whether Illinois would be the first state to have its credit rating downgraded to junk status, I watched the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) union lobby for higher taxes to pay for higher salaries and benefits for government workers such as me. Certainly, my salary wasn’t the cause of the state’s financial woes, but when you consider that I have had a raise almost every year I have been working for the state — and that I work alongside more than 35,000 other state employees — you can begin to see how that might affect the state’s bottom line. That’s in addition to the incredibly generous, taxpayer-funded pension offered to state workers — an average of $1.6 million per state employee, according to a report from the Illinois Policy Institute.
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Wednesday’s Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME could remake the way that American teachers’ unions do business.
But in Massachusetts, union leaders insist the decision is far from a death knell.
“This doesn’t mean count us out,” said Jessica Tang, president of the Boston Teachers Union.
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By Trey Kovacs, Policy Analyst, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI)
In its 5-4 ruling Wednesday in Janus vs. AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees), the Supreme Court overturned decades-old precedent that allowed government unions to require public employees to pay union fees or risk being fired.
Now millions of teachers, police officers, firefighters and other government employees across the country gain the freedom to decide if paying a union is a worthwhile proposition. This is how it should have always been – no one should be forced to finance an organization he or she disagrees with.
The Supreme Court found that forcing public employees to pay union fees as a condition of employment violates the First Amendment of the Constitution. This is because government unions are inherently political.
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By Aaron Anthony Benner, Public School Teacher
As a teacher in Minnesota, I didn’t have a choice about whether or not to pay the union that was supposed to represent me, and when my union ultimately failed to stand by my side during a dispute with my district, I had no choice but to continue paying it.
Fortunately for teachers and other public employees across the country, no government worker will be forced to pay a union just so they can keep their job moving forward. The Supreme Court has ruled in Janus v. AFSCME that requiring someone to pay a union violates the First Amendment’s protections of free speech and association.
It means that, if another teacher or public employee is let down by his or her union, that person doesn’t have to continue paying dues or fees if that’s not in his or her best interest. Or, if that person chooses not to belong to a union for any other reason, he or she could continue working anyway. In addition to being fair to workers who deserve the freedom to choose whether or not to pay a union, I believe this ruling will lead to unions that are more responsive and attentive to their members.
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The U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling Wednesday that will reverberate through America’s schools for years.
In Janus v. AFSCME, a 5-4 court majority overturned precedent, saying that public sector unions, like those that represent law enforcement, state employees, and, of course, teachers, can no longer collect what are known as agency fees from nonmembers.
“States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito. “The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from nonconsenting employees for a public-sector union; employees must choose to support the union before anything is taken from them.”
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