|
1) Indiana AFT Affiliate to End No-Raid Agreement
with ISTA. Sources within both teachers' unions inform EIA that the
Indiana Federation of Teachers will opt out of the no-raid agreement it
currently has with the NEA-affiliated Indiana State Teachers Association.
The decision removes impediments to persuading current ISTA members and
locals to switch unions and join IFT.
ISTA has a host of financial problems and
is under an NEA trusteeship. IFT is only about one-tenth the size of
ISTA, but could make a significant dent in the wake of the larger union's
$40 dues increase coupled with staff layoffs and consolidation of regional
offices.
Under normal circumstances, any battle would be
strictly a Hoosier State affair. NEA and AFT have a national no-raid
agreement, preventing either from lending assistance to the combatants.
However, with an NEA trustee handling all of ISTA's finances, it's hard to
see how the national unions can avoid knocking heads over the issue.
A further complicating factor is the presence of the
long-established
Indiana Professional Educators, a non-union teachers' association.
Outside of the NEA board of directors rubber-stamping
the trusteeship during its meeting in San Diego prior to the opening of the
representative assembly, the Indiana situation was not discussed on the
convention floor, nor was it discussed in the state caucuses, if the
delegates I spoke to are any indication. In the coming year, they may wish
they had been let in on the secret.
2) NEA and Private School Educators. At the 2008
NEA Representative Assembly, delegates approved New Business Item 79, which
directed the union to "study the potential impact of opening Active
membership to private school educators." A special committee examined the
issue and presented its findings to the 2009 RA delegates.
The report deals mostly with internal issues and
contains no recommendations for a policy change, but it does have a couple
of interesting paragraphs worth passing along:
* "Although the size of the K-12 private school
employee workforce is at the present time relatively small, that may not be
the case in the future. Because of advances in technology, alternative
financing arrangements, and other innovations, the way in which the nation's
children are being educated is changing, and the line between the public
sector and the private sector is becoming increasingly blurred. The
emergence of 'virtual' elementary/secondary schools in some states, and the
nationwide push for more charter schools (which the United State Department
of Labor has asserted – incorrectly, we believe – are private sector
entities for purposes of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act),
are illustrative. Allowing K-12 private school employees to become NEA
Active members would provide the flexibility necessary for NEA to deal with
the foregoing situations and other situations that cannot now be fully
anticipated."
* "A desire to avoid LMRDA coverage is at least one of
the reasons why some forty state affiliates do not at the present time seek
to organize and represent any private sector education employees –
even those who currently are eligible for NEA Active membership."
3) Contract Hits. Wherein we highlight a
contract provision from the current agreement between the National Education
Association and its largest staff union. This is from Article 20, Section 1,
subsection (a):
"An employee who is permanently separated from NEA by
reason of:
(i) resignation with at least 22 days advance written
notice after 10 or more years of NEA employment;
(ii) retirement with at least 45 days advance written notice; or
(iii) death while in NEA's employ;
shall receive a lump sum payment of an amount equal to
one week of salary for each full year of employment with NEA from his/her
most recent date of hire, including hire as a temporary employee from which
he/she subsequently transferred, at the rate that he/she was receiving as of
the date of his/her resignation, retirement, or death, up to a maximum of 10
weeks of salary. In extraordinary circumstances, NEA may waive the 45-day
notice requirement for a retiree."
4) Last Week's Intercepts. EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from July 20-27:
*
Battling the Elements. Who are those guys?
*
Build It Even If They Don't Come. "Schools we don't need for students we
don't have AND the school district will ask for even more money to do it?"
*
AFT Schedules Kangaroo Court for Oregon Local. Due process.
*
A Dose of Reality. Chances are you won't be seeing
a list like this in the future.
*
More on Unions from the Left. Circular firing squad.
5)
Quote of the Week.
"If a parent doesn't send their (sic) children to school, they should get a
prison sentence, not a curry."
– Ron Clooney, spokesman for the NASUWT teachers' union in Britain. He was
reacting to a plan to offer students a free curry for high attendance rates.
(July 21
London Daily Mail) |
