Teachers' union hit with hefty fine

The Olympian ^ | 7/2/02 | Brad Shannon

[truth49]

BRAD SHANNON THE OLYMPIAN A Thurston County judge fined the National Education Association $800,000 on Monday, finding it intentionally took agency fees paid by nonunion teachers and spent them illegally for political purposes. The default judgment, issued in Superior Court by Judge Daniel Berschauer, came after NEA lawyers failed to meet a court deadline last week to answer a lawsuit brought by the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation of Olympia.

[John Jorsett]

Guess they're as good at handling lawsuits as they are at teaching.

[San Jacinto]

"...finding it intentionally took agency fees paid by nonunion teachers and spent them illegally for political purposes."

A violation of RICO. The directors should go to prison for racketeering.

[r9etb]

What an interesting situation in Washington. It'll be interesting to see if people in other states take similar actions.

Note the unstated part here: this is an application of the Beck decision, which Bush41 wrote an executive order to enforce, and which XXX42 decided not to enforce.

Hey, W: wouldn't it be fun to follow up the Vouchers decision with a re-statement of Beck?

[lonestar]

Guess they're as good at handling lawsuits as they are at teaching.

I agree with your opinion. But, none of the NEA people mentioned are teachers. The NEA is a union whose membership is made up of teachers.

The organizers, the people who run the show are professional union people--not teachers.

[Tacis]

Someone pay careful attention to this case and the fine over the next 12-18 months. My bet is that the teachers will never pay a penny and will not change the way they do business. Some teachers who don't want their dues to go to the ultra-left wing will be "reassigned" to center city schools and others will leave teaching but the cash from the teachers will still continue to wash over the extreme liberal, crypto-socialist democraps. The judges will back down (especially the extreme left wingers) and, in the details, take the teeth out of this decision.

It is so strange that unions and blacks support the democraps so tenaciously. Democraps have NEVER done anything significant for either group but take their money and support as though they were saviors.

[Tai_Chung]

The judge said he was authorized to level fines of up to $10,000 for each of the 8,000 violations

It could have been $80,000,000

I would have loved that.

[sphinx]

Hey, W: wouldn't it be fun to follow up the Vouchers decision with a re-statement of Beck?

IIRC, W did that, and a court blocked it. The judge's reason was something about it being intrinsically anti-union, and therefore a violation of the National Labor Relations Act, to post notification of workers' rights vis-a-vis the union. (Yes, it's Alice in Wonderland time.)

I presume the decision is on appeal. Anybody up on the status of the case?

[JoeSixPack1]

FYI :-)

[Visioneer]

Contact the National Right to Work Legal Defense Fund/Foundation...you should be able to find it using any good search engine such as google... also, the Evergreen Freedom Foundation (the organization which led the fight against the union in Washington state) can fill you in on the current status of the Beck provisions...

Also check out this site about an increasingly significant alternative to teachers unions: http://aaeteachers.org

[Bob J]

NEA spokeswoman Kathleen Lyons was incredulous, believing the union had until today to respond to court filing deadlines.

Wow, a teacher misreading a court order? I'm shocked.

[Salvation]

BTTT for later reading.

[Verax]

Good work Evergreen Freedom Foundation!!!!

[KC Burke]

fyi

[summer]

Thanks for the ping on this!

[summer]

Thanks! Bookmarked! :)

[Jhoffa_]

It doesn't matter..

They are paying the fine with stolen money anyway, so why should they care?

It's like someone breaking into gumball machines, getting caught and thenpaying the fine in quarters.