AFT Stages Coup (or Counter-Coup?) in Oregon

AFT Stages Coup in Oregon
(What most Unions Are but ARE NOT SUPPOSED to be. This is a perfect example or what the MVEA - per instruction of the mostly useless CTA, did to us in the last negotiations. Remember CTA president said during the bloody pink campaign a few months back? "A
union is not a democracy." Our own president, when cornered on the issue said, "it is past practice." referring the key premise of negotiations, 300 plus lost jobs, was never even presented to the members for consideration. No information, no guidance just past practice.)

Today’s lesson comes courtesy of Bernadette Marso, president of the Leominster Education Association in Massachusetts. Her members just voted down, by a 305-47 margin, a five-year, $856,000 grant from the Advanced Placement Training and Award Program. The program, among other things, pays teachers of Advanced Placement courses bonus money “if they successfully recruit more students to take AP courses and if the students perform well on the end-of-the-year AP exam.”

Some district officials and parents complained about the union decision because the bonuses were just one part of the program, which includes professional development and a subsidy to offset the AP exam fee for the students. But the union stood firmly opposed.

“We understand that some people will not understand the vote, but we confronted this from a union perspective,” Marso said. “We have a fair and equitable contract with the district, and to have a third party come in and start paying certain teachers more money than other hard-working teachers goes against what a union is all about.

Sacramento City Teachers Association President Shares CTA'S Concerns with Assembly Member

from Disenfranchised by Every tenured Educator yet to be riffed by our union's apathy and ineptitude.

"Sweet Creeping Jesus Batman.That Assemblyman looks like he's never heard CTA's half-assed rhetoric before!"

Sacramento City Teachers Association (CTA) President Linda Tuttle shares with Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) information about how proposed cuts will devastate public schools in his district. (My god! Who would have guessed a politician would respond like this? )The Assembly Member denounced the cuts as terrible and pledged his continuing support for public education.
Sacramento City Teachers Association (CTA) President Linda Tuttle shares with Assembly Member Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) information about how proposed cuts will devastate public schools in his district. (My god! Who would have guessed a politician would respond like this? )The Assembly Member denounced the cuts as terrible and pledged his continuing support for public education.

The visit to the Capitol on June 18 by SCTA Pres. Tuttle to lawmakers’ offices was (the bigger) part of ongoing efforts by CTA and its Education Coalition partners (Larry, Curly and Moe) to persuade legislators to reject Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s proposed education slashes.

The legislative budget adjustment package proposed by a joint house conference committee and endorsed by Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) and Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) rejects $700 million of the governor’s education cuts and ensures schools some $9.3 billion in paybacks to Proposition 98 in coming years. The legislative adjustment package would also suspend the requirement that students pass the California High School Exit Examination in order to graduate. Assembly Speaker Bass told reporters at a Wednesday news conference that it is unconscionable to demand that students meet that requirement without the funding necessary to help schools prepare them for the test.

This many members and the best we can get from the CTA is a "spend and wait." attitude for the 2nd year in a row!

340,000 dues paying members (305,000) since last years one time bailout. And the best CTA seems willing to offer is to 'DONATE $$$ THEN WAIT AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS' Everone, lie FACE DOWN,put your hand behind your head... Meanwhile, the popular press has joined the right wing whackos in perpetuating lies and misconceptions about taxes, over-paid union workers, the bullying tactics and their unfair power. These people and the "thirty second attack ad voters" are disemboweling California public schools? THE nea AND cta have destroyed their reputations long ago. They are only this year realizing that they have to be a Union not a professional association. The weren't effective as an association anyway. The CTA has no clue or refuses to use action, organize for the use of said action, or how to get into the communities to win parent community support. WE HAVE TO ACT NOW!! LOUD AND WITH FORCE!! For example: WE NEED INFORMATIONAL PICKETS EVERY DAY during the first week of August. How about the 45 minutes before the contract start of the first two or three days of school!! We should already be walking and papering the respective boundaries of our district. Sick out if that's ALL the law allows for but IF WE'RE A UNION THEN WE BETTER ACT LIKE ONE! The operant term is "ACT" In similar financial times, under the AFL-CIO, we had to strike every three years when our contract came up. We didn't loose an employee and we increased our position in regards to the contract each time. But it wasn't easy and it wasn't done by simply complaining.

I've been in three strike actions in my years and not a single one was pleasant but one week of screaming substitute baby sitters in the most kids will be going ape, maybe hurting themselves (heaven forbid) a perpetuating free for all and parents will eat this Governor alive - Like a cheap horror film.

WE have the stick prepare to use it. PREPARE TO STRIKE! Even though the CTA is over two years late in admitting what we all saw coming, THE OPERANT TERM is "prepare" now! (OOPS, Screwed again! Our local has allowed a no strike/ no lockout clause into our washed down version of a mutually agreeable contract. Our board can now pick us part at their leisure.) NO Mr. Sanchez, you can't raise our dues. UPDATE: YES THEY DID RAISE OUR DUES! In a site rep. only secret ballot.You've squandered $$$ enough to fund the budget of many school districts entirely. IT'S YOUR FAULT WE HAVE NO STRIKE AND DEFENSE FUND. The board members must have been laughing it's collective ass off. 'They really bought it... LOL'


Exactly One year later... But it doesn't matter for us. They thought they were positioning themselves for better vantage gaining a lasting camaraderie. What they got was the view from under our board's dysfunctional "Jack Boot."
CTA is the state's largest representative of education employees, serving more than 340,000 employees of California’s schools, colleges and universities. It supposedly exists to protect and advance the professional and economic interests of its members. CTA should work tirelessly for better working conditions, higher salaries, improved health benefits, progressive personnel policies and an affordable and dignified retirement. Instead we have the labor equivalent to the W Bush administration. It's leader an unqualified, morally challenged. A do nothing who in Bush's case bankrupted three corporations and then an entire country. The Saudi family had to bail bush out on the third endeavor. Is that what the new secret dues increase of approximately $20 per head is supposed to do for Sanchez. I personally can't wait for the AFT to start raiding California (like they did in one district in Oregon)- Mo Val first.

We have two more title waves to deal with so we demand better from OUR leaders. Privatization of education is almost on us and complete computerization is not far behind. (SEE WWW.CALVIA.COM)