Posted on 09/12/2013 6:17:01 PM PDT by bigbob
The Kenosha Education Association (KEA), the state's third largest teachers union, was officially decertified on August 31, 2013 according to the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.
Mark Belling, who broke this story on Thursday, said that the decertification came after a recent vote by members in which only 37 percent voted to reauthorize the union.
KEA is the largest teachers union to disband since Act 10 was signed into law in 2011. The union had 2,400 members according to their website. Act 10 limited collective bargaining rights for public employees and required public unions to have an annual vote to recertify.
Vincent Vernuccio, Director of Labor Policy at the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, told the MacIver News Service, "recertification is needed to keep unions responsible to their members and to allow the change necessary to remove ineffectual representation. It is simply democracy and majority rule."
Vernuccio pointed out that most workers do not have this option across the nation and is thankful that public workers in Wisconsin have this opportunity.
"The teachers simply did not see the value in the representation the union was offering," Vernuccio said.
Rep. Samantha Kerkman (R-Powers Lake) stood by the reforms in Act 10 and echoed Vernuccio's statement.
"It gives people an opportunity to have a voice," Kerkman said. "People have seen that they don't need the union."
Now that the union has been decertified, it can no longer represent Kenosha Unified School District teachers during any negotiations. It also ends the automatic deduction of union dues on teachers' paychecks.
Teachers can still make voluntary contributions to the decertified union, but the KEA has no official status in Kenosha schools.
Matt Patterson, a Senior Fellow at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, sees the teachers union disbanding as a big win for taxpayers in Wisconsin.
"Thanks to Scott Walker's courageous and effective reforms, the grip of public sector unions on Wisconsin's public purse continues to loosen, to the benefit of taxpayers and to the detriment of Big Labor bosses," Patterson said.
According to a post on the KEA website on September 5th, five days after its decertification, Executive Director Joe Kiriaki planned to continue negotiating for wages after the Third Friday Count when official staff levels are determined.
"Once the District's enrollment is determined and the actual amount of state aid known, we will be able to sit down with the District and see what can be done about providing some sort of fair wage increase for the teaching staff and ESP's while maintaining a balanced District budget," the post reads.
The post ends saying, "Our continued thanks for your patience, understanding and, most especially, your support."
The MacIver News Service contacted the KEA for comment, but calls were not returned.
Good job Mark.
Public union goons across the country are losing sleep over this state and how it is playing out.
Most teachers are good people but are trapped in a system they can't control.
If the law makers give them an option, most will do what the teachers in WI are doing. Way to go Scott Walker.
More fall out from Act 10 — this is a good thing.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Aw, those poor little Wisconsin children! What will they do without thug union teachers?
I would love to see this spread to ALL Unions.
Thanks bigbob.
Best news this week! Thanks for the post.
And the liberals hate Scott Walker even more.
Maybe once teachers are no longer part of a union they’ll start to think like the professionals they’re supposed to be.
Instead of using every sick day and personal day, as most of the younger ones now do, (not all of them, but most of them) they’ll start realizing that they have a responsibility to do their best for the students and for their schools.
Unions bring teachers down to a lowest common denominator by supporting the incompetent ones. If the decertification of the union results in an administrator being able to sit a teacher down and tell him that if he doesn’t shape up he’s gone, you’ll see a lot of shaping up in a hurry. And the best teachers will welcome that change. They don’t like the slackers either, because the good ones are the ones that have to pick up the slack.
All in all, if there was no such thing as a teachers union, teachers would find themselves behaving more professionally across the board and respect for them would return to what it once was. Parents might even start assuming the teacher is right and not their kid once again, the way it used to be.
If I had my way (I don’t), the best teachers would be given additional responsibilities and would make more money than they now do. The bad ones would shape up or be told to find another job. Before Act 10, that was pie in the sky. Now, it’s actually possible. That alone makes it a great law.
wahoo!
Worth repeating!
"The teachers simply did not see the value in the representation the union was offering," Vernuccio said.
It always comes down to getting the most utility for your last dollar spent.
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSS$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ !
Another Commie Union bites the dust !
This is great news!
The WI reforms need to be implemented in every state.
One down, two to go..
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