Posted on 02/23/2011 8:38:27 AM PST by Kaslin
Much of the current controversy in Wisconsin involves the impending loss of most collective bargaining privileges for state employees, including public school teachers.
The fact is that the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the largest teachers union in the state, has grossly abused that privilege for decades, resulting in the unnecessary siphoning of millions of dollars from Wisconsin public schools. Under current Wisconsin law, the identity of the insurance company that provides health coverage to school employees is a matter of collective bargaining in each school district.
In the majority of districts around the state, WEAC negotiators have used that law to pressure local school boards into purchasing coverage from WEA Trust, an insurance company established by and closely associated with the union.
WEA Trust offers very comprehensive health coverage, at a very high cost to schools. Most of the districts with the most expensive health premiums in the state are clients of WEA Trust. Most of the districts with the lowest premiums do business with other insurance carriers.
A few dozen districts have managed to dump WEA Trust insurance over the past few years, despite the protests of teachers and their union. Officials from many of those districts say they managed to save at least six figures their first year with a different carrier, and maintained steady rates in subsequent years, while still offering quality health coverage to employees.
Officials from other districts say they're also eager to dump WEA Trust coverage, but need their employees' anonymous claim histories from WEA Trust to share with other bidders. Several say they have never requested that information because they were told WEA Trust would punish them by pulling them out of local insurance pools, resulting in skyrocketing premiums.
Today many Wisconsin school boards consider themselves stuck with expensive WEA Trust health coverage, until state law is altered to take the identity of the insurance carrier off the collective bargaining table. Gov. Scott Walker's current legislative proposal would do just that, giving school boards the opportunity to freely shop for insurance and save millions of tax dollars for instructional purposes.
In fact, Gov. Walker recently cited WEA Trust as the #1 reason for collective bargaining reform.
Last year Education Action Group published a short, easy-to-read report on this topic, titled "A Crucial Challenge for Wisconsin Schools: Escaping the Shackles of WEA Trust Insurance." A copy of that report can be accessed by clicking here. The governor's campaign highlighted the report as evidence of the need for reform.
The union is saying this fight is about collective bargaining and the rights of its members. In reality, WEA Trust, under the umbrella of WEAC, stands to lose millions if the reform is passed, as our report points out.
The union's money and power stream would be hampered and it owes it to taxpayers and teachers to come clean about that.
ping
Force employees to join the union.
Force employers to purchase insurance at an inflated price from the union controlled insurance company.
Force the taxpayer pay the premiums.
Anyone not understand what’s going on here?
Thanks for posting..
You’re welcome
So sneaking a peek behind the curtain of obfuscatory rhetoric, we see that it is all, of course, about the money. We are so shocked. Not.
Here’s what the union CAN NOT STOMACH. That the payment of dues to the union would become optional. And that the payment of health insurance premiums, a gigantic fortune, would be diverted away from the near-monopoly, union-controlled health insurance syndicate.
What’s the point of being a union boss if you don’t have gobs of other people’s money to buy corrupt politicians?
The WEAbaggers are finally losing it.
Quick question, b/c I’m just starting to grasp whats going on here, but If people don’t pay union dues are they still in the union? Or is that them saying we don’t want to be in a union and this ‘Right to Work’ law would keep them from being forced out by the unions?
“Anyone not understand what’s going on here”
I asked this question yesterday, and didn’t get an answer.
How much has WEA donated to Democrats, and more importantly, how much have they LOANED to Democrat Candidates, that has never been paid back?
This is what happened to Indiana’s Teacher’s Union-run Disability Fund. They loaned a bunch of money to Democrats, that never got paid back because they lost.
Very interesting article.
I’m not sure how it works in Wisconsin, but, typically, an employee who does not wish to belong to the union is forced to pay what is called an “agency fee” which usually equals the union dues.
So they don’t technically belong to the union, but they have to pay up to the union anyway.
Further, in a Right to Work state, the payment of a fee to anyone as a condition of employment is not allowed.
How about an investigation into the connection between this union and the insurance company?
IIRC the annual cost to the taxpayers of a “family” policy through WEA is just shy of 30K.
No investigation necessary. The insurance company is owned by the union.
Wow, this is stunning because our local school district was the target of an illegal strike last September. One of the union demands was to switch to the WEA insurance. The union claimed that it would result in a cost reduction to the teachers and be about the same for the district.
The school board capitulated on every teacher demand, including this switch to the WEA insurance.
Teacher strikes are illegal in the state of WA, but the Democrat governors have historically allowed one strike a year. It was a well known fact that Ferndale, WA had been chosen by the WEA as the target of the next strike in Sept of 2010. In the mean time, the district pushed hard for a new school levy to be used for operational and maintenance concerns. It now looks as though the levy was really intended to fund all the demands of the coming strike, because that is exactly what happened.
Thank you.
You are welcome.
I think they would be able to hold their jobs without being in the union and without paying the dues.
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