Don't put off 'till tomorrow
what you should do today!!
Help "Clean Up" the FReepathon
with a Donation to FR !!
Just Click Here!!
Posted on 04/09/2011 5:30:10 PM PDT by rhema
Last week as Ohio Governor John Kasich was signing Senate Bill 5 into law, the Ohio NEA affiliate, the Ohio Education Association, was already mobilizing their efforts to repeal the measure that would end forced unionism, makes strikes illegal and close major budget shortfalls via a ballot referendum. In a current forced unionism state, the OEA already collects at least $63 million in dues per year. Apparently that figure isn't enough to advance their agenda as they are now considering extracting an additional $50 per member for the referendum campaign in November.
Regardless of what teachers think about the law, this fee would be required and nonrefundable. Does this sound fair to you?
Thousands of teachers are outraged by the thought of additional political fees, particularly when they already saddled with $800-$900 in dues per year. In an email released by Governor Kasich's camp, one school employee saw the added fee as an endorsement of a referendum she doesn't agree with. In fact, she believes Senate Bill 5 is a sound law. "I am very upset with the OEA Union," school employee Connie Ash's email read. "I am appalled that the OEA feels they can commandeer funds from my pay check without my approval."
Currently in Ohio, you must pay the OEA membership dues and fees as a condition of employment. Unfortunately, as of today, Connie would have to pay this additional fee. Senate Bill 5 would see that teachers are given the liberty to make that choice for themselves, that is if it has the chance to go into effect. Clearly, there are thousands of teachers in the state do not identify with the OEA's politics and do not want to pay exorbitant dues or forced fees to support their agenda.
AAE has always been opposed to forced unionism. This new idea by the OEA shows us that the organization views Senate Bill 5 as a threat to their pipeline of cash. The OEA is doing one of the things teachers unions do best, treating member paychecks as a political slush fund. Lacking the respect to ask first might be one of the key reasons why these unions themselves have lost so much respect with policy makers and legislators.
How deliciously ironic!
By 2012 lets take all their money.
By 2012 lets take all their money.
I live in a suburb of Columbus. I actually witnessed a screaming match between SB5 supporters and opponents in a Kroger parking lot. And this was an affluent area. People are at each others throats. The unions (especially the teachers) are absolutely stunned that we, the formerly silent majority, are putting an end to their shenanigans.
They need about 250,000 signatures on petitions to get SB5 on the ballot in November.
With about 40,000 teachers in the state, I don’t think that will be hard to do if the teachers support their union. That would just be teacher, spouse, parents and one sibling.
If you can’t get those signatures, then something’s wrong.
So, if the measure isn’t on the ballot, then the union isn’t as strong as it thinks it is.
Let them pass their referendum. The first 20,000 state layoff notices will go out the next day to deadweight “Clerk 3” office drones. 20,000 gone saves the state $1 billion the first year. Then the school districts will scramble to put levies on the ballot as their state funding drops. Those levies are dead already.
Either way, we win and the unions lose.
Indiana teachers are paying an extra $100 a year, because the IEA Teacher’s Disability Fund made too many loans to losing Democrats in 2006, and never got paid back, resulting in bankruptcy.
These are criminal political enterprises, and should be treated as such.
Any chance of criminal proceedings against the people who authorized the loans?
No kidding. Talk about a scandalous abandonment of fiduciary responsibility.
"According to a survey of members conducted by the NEA in 2005, 50% of reporting members said they were “conservative” or “tend conservative,” while only 40% claimed to be “liberal” or “tend liberal,” and 10% claimed “don’t know” or did not answer."
Powerful Failure: How the National Education Association fails to use its influence for education
Hope you’re right
Either way they lose, because the layoffs start the moment after an unlikely win for them.
Makes no difference to me as long as we reign in spending.
I have little sympathy for these Union members who are being tapped for additional money to underwrite their Union’s political agenda.
It is their Union after all, and if they don’t like what is being done with their dues, a reasonable man might conclude they should do something other than just bitch about it...
It is their Union after all, and if they don’t like what is being done with their dues, a reasonable man might conclude they should do something other than just bitch about it...
Unfortunately, Ohio is not a right-to-work state, and if you want to be a teacher in that state, there's a very good chance that you'll have to be a union member to do so. The right to free association, it seems, ends at the school doors.
If Kasich and the state legislature can turn Ohio into a right-to-work state and break the monopoly that unions hold over so many jobs, Ohio will benefit greatly.
I agree, but to clarify my point, the membership could still try to influence and control what their own leadership is doing in their names...
I understand, but it is a very significant uphill battle. I was in a closed-shop union job in Ohio for 11 years. The union machine is huge, and it doesn’t change readily. They tried to coerce me into filing grievances against a supervisor that the union didn’t like. They tried to get me to file a grievance against policy that THEY didn’t like. I refused to follow their directives, even when they threatened to pull my union card (which would have meant that I would have lost my job). Even got in a fistfight defending myself against a union thug one night.
In the end, they didn’t change me. But I couldn’t change them either.
I guess I’m more blessed than I realize out here because our problems pale in comparison to what we have here, even though Washington is considered a “forced Unionism State” as well.
Ohio, or at least Cleveland, was so screwed up that I had to pay union dues as a car wash worker back when I was in high school. $2 to $2.50 a week for the privilege of earning 10 cents above minimum wage. The teamsters would have shut the car wash down if not for those dues, and I wasn’t even a member.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.