Posted on 06/24/2002 12:05:31 PM PDT by xsysmgr
When Kathleen Klamut started her job as a psychologist in the Ravenna City, Ohio, school system last fall, she requested that her union dues go to charity. Ohio is a closed-shop state, and Klamut's union, the National Education Association, is pro-abortion. "My faith prevents me from financially supporting the union and its affiliates," she told the House Workforce Protections subcommittee. "It does not matter which pocket the union puts the money in."
The local chapter of the National Education Association, the nation's largest union, had other plans. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows members who object to a union's political program to donate their dues to charity, the union refused to accommodate Klamut, and is now threatening legal action against her.
Like Klamut, Dennis Robey, a 24-year veteran of the Ohio school system, has lobbied for the past three years to be granted the religious accommodation, but did not hear from the union in all that time, even as union dues were taken out of his paycheck.
Klamut and Robey are at the forefront of a legal battle involving the NEA — and the dissenting teachers are winning. The Equal Employment and Opportunity Commission recently ruled that the NEA has been systematically discriminating against religious objectors.
"We all believe our laws should be enforced," said Representative Charles Norwood, a Republican from Georgia, as he convened Thursday's hearings. "This is about protecting workers' rights."
Representative Major Owens, the ranking member of the Workforce Protections subcommittee and a Democrat from New York, disagreed. "The purpose of this hearing is to embarrass the union movement," he said.
If so, the hearing was a great success. A pattern of union abuse and deceit emerged from the testimony of Klamut, Robey, and a variety of other sources, especially Dominic Ventivegna, a former member of Service Employees International Union 32BJ's executive board who is upset at what he regards as the union's dishonest activism. According to Ventivegna, union employees were forced to take vacation days to work twelve-hour shifts in support of New York mayoral candidate Mark Green last year. It was a lose-lose situation: Mark Green lost the election, and Ventivegna and others lost a day's salary.
"Union officials want political power," Bob Williams, president of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, a Washington state-based think tank, told the committee. "And they have very little to lose, and everything to gain." Williams's testimony, along with the testimony of Mark R. Levin of the Landmark Legal Foundation, amounted to a seminar on how the NEA lies on its tax return.
While the NEA is forbidden by law to spend dues on political campaigns, documentary evidence shows that the union spends dues money on what it calls "internal political education." Such "internal political education," however, inevitably leaks out to the general public, in the form of flyers, internet sites, even television ads.
"The NEA is a tax deadbeat," said Levin, saying that the teacher's union failed to disclose to the IRS thousands of dollars spent on political campaigns since 1994.
Most of these problems would be solved if Congress passed the National Right to Work Act, which is currently pending before Republican congressman John Boehner's Committee on Education and the Workforce. By making unions voluntary, the bill would allow individuals like Klamut and Robey to teach school without joining the NEA. And by draining unions of the $5 billion in forced dues they collect each year, the act would end the abuses highlighted by yesterday's witnesses.
"We have a majority of the members of the committee who say they will support the bill," says Dan Cronin, a spokesman for the National Right to Work Committee. But congressional sources say that the National Right to Work Committee and its allies are making the mistake of assuming that simply because Republicans have the majority on the committee, the bill will pass.
Another more practicable solution would be for the Department of Labor to tighten its monitoring of union political activities. During the question period, both Landmark's Levin and the NEA's spokesman agreed that current financial filing practices are "a joke." Until Congress and the Department of Labor get serious about disclosure, the only ones laughing will be the unions — all the way to the polling place.
Major Owens is an embarrassment to the human race. This is the same idiot that claimed 200 million slaves were thrown overboard and even today sharks still lurk in the same waters looking for more. Major Owens is living proof that not all people should be allowed to vote.
The union movement has long been controlled by the Marxists and socialist of the world. They are anti-capitalist and anti-American.
The only opinions the Education Union should hold is on education. They should not be holding any opinions on abortion, gun control, or the color of ferrets.
Well, not really. The NEA, IMO, is the single biggest reason that puplic schools fail so miserably.
I don't think public school teachers should be allowed to unionize.
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.