Disgruntled teachers map strategy for next election

Despite the trappings of a democracy -- a constitution, election schedules, rules for campaigns -- not a single ballot has been cast at the United Teachers of Dade in more than 20 years.

Since the early 1980s, no one has challenged him or the slate of candidates drafted every three years by the union's Unity Caucus -- effectively the UTD's lone political party and Tornillo's power base.

''UTD's always been a fairly closed shop,'' said Artie Leichner, who teaches English and history to gifted ninth-graders at South Dade Senior High.

He is a leader of a growing cabal of discontented union members challenging the Unity candidates next year. They hope to reinvigorate a local teachers corps that has been beaten dull by rising health costs, stagnant wages and a growing miasma of detachment from union leaders.

Their effort has been electrified by a month of scandal that includes a federal embezzlement probe of Tornillo, an investigation that has left teachers slack-jawed at their longtime leader's sultanic spending habits.

''We're looking at replacing the entire leadership of the union itself,'' said Ron Beasley, a UTD steward at North Miami Senior High, who said he will likely run for one of the executive board slots when the union holds elections in February. ``It's going to be the status quo guys and then the reformers.''

The UTD's national affiliate, the American Federation of Teachers, is encouraging fresh candidates and increased participation, AFT spokesman Alex Wohl said. The group will also guarantee the election's reliability.

``The selection has to be beyond reproach, a Jimmy Carter-like election, said Mark Richard, AFT administrator now overseeing the UTD. While leaders of some large, urban teachers unions sometimes hold power for a decade or more, Wohl said 40-year leaders like Tornillo are rare.

``We have a pretty vibrant and changing leadership in our locals, he said. ``The lifeblood of the union is that changeover.

The AFT hopes a vigorous election will begin to restore faith in the union and stop the membership bleeding.

At least 320 of the UTD's roughly 14,000 members have quit since the FBI raided its headquarters April 29. Since then, the union and Tornillo have been thrashed by scandal.

Banks called in millions of dollars in loans, exposing the union's shaky financial state. The chief financial officer, James Angleton, helped expose the fact that Tornillo spent at least $350,000 since late 2000 on lavish expenses such as luxury hotels, international travel and pricey clothing.

Reeling, the union asked the AFT to take control. Tornillo -- the union's standard-bearer for four decades, the chief negotiator, the stalwart shout for teacher rights and salaries -- was pressed to step aside and forgo his salary.

''It's a hurricane,'' said Karen Aronowitz, the challengers' presidential candidate and a language arts teacher at Southridge Senior High. ``It can be completely destructive, but it also cleans the landscape and allows for new growth.

She is expected to face a Unity slate led by one of the UTD's most beloved figures, Shirley Johnson. She became interim president when Tornillo stepped aside and has been his top lieutenant and preferred successor but has also cultivated her own image as a thoughtful leader with close ties to the rank and file.

''I have to continue to walk in integrity and dignity as I have always done,'' said Johnson, who believes she has support from the majority of union stewards. Those stewards are powerful opinionmakers at their schools on union issues.

Even the challengers acknowledge Johnson's popularity -- Beasley described her as ''somewhere between my mom and a big sister'' -- but conclude she is tainted by the unfolding scandals. The Herald reported Sunday that her signature appeared on checks to pay Tornillo expenses.

''Politically that's her death sentence,'' Beasley said. ``Pat probably did a lot of stuff on his own, but the thing is is there's still a stigma that they were associated with that.

Johnson declined to comment on the checks Tuesday, but she sent an angry e-mail to Tornillo in January claiming that her signature was being stamped on checks that she had never seen or approved.

Ultimately, she will be forced to balance the the repercussions of being tied to allegations against Tornillo with the advantage of being associated with his victories -- from racial integration of the union and defense of its gay members to salaries that remain among the state's highest.

''He has served as well for 40 years and done good things for us,'' said Patrenia Dozier-Washington, a first-grade teacher and union steward at Ojus Elementary.

To make their candidates heard above the hosannas of Johnson's loyalists, the challengers are exploring radical proposals.

They would slash the union president's pay, they said, perhaps setting it one dollar higher than the district's top-paid teacher. The number of union executives would be cut, and none would make more than half of Tornillo's current $243,000 annual salary. No one would have the kind of blind expense accounts, which require no receipts, that Tornillo enjoyed. Mostly, though, their appeals will be emotional. Many teachers said faith in the UTD has plummeted since Tornillo initially agreed to give away two days of teacher pay in 2002 -- a position that he later reversed under pressure.

When stewards had to learn about the recent loan defaults through newspaper reports, their frustration grew.

''We had no idea about [the loans] at all,'' said Artie Leichner, a steward at South Dade Senior and one of the leaders of the challengers' movement.

The challengers will present themselves as more in touch with the frontline teachers and less married to the shadowy political world that Tornillo massaged so effectively. The groundswell of discontent generated by the unfolding scandal has convinced some teachers that the UTD is beyond repair, attracting them to competing groups or driving them away.

``We're just barely making anything, we haven't had a raise, we have horrible health-benefit plans, and these people are living it up, said Miles Wooley, a 27-year veteran who teaches drafting at Southwest Miami Senior High. ``There's also a body of people who are just livid.''

Wooley joined the Teacher Rights Advocacy Coalition, an upstart group aiming to replace the UTD as the bargaining agent for the district's nearly 28,000 teachers, aides and office staff.

The group's success has been difficult to gauge. Like the UTD, it will not release membership numbers, but the UTD's size has been easier to estimate because most members pay their dues via payroll deduction. The district is legally required to report those numbers.

''I think UTD has destroyed themselves,'' said Wooley, who quit the UTD last year. ``Unions draw in the mafioso spirit of things, and we need to get away from that.

Just more proof (as if needed) that Dem teachers' unions are just corrupt, socialist tyrranies. And we let these goons teach kids.

I still do not understand how the IRS treats a "blind expense account", with no accounting for disbursements as anything other than untaxed personal income?

I guess the IRS treats some of it's peasants a bit different than other peasants?

Using this case, I would think that anyone who has experienced the IRS declaring some or all of your business expenses non-deductable has an equal protection argument here.

See, there they go again! The media will make a big deal about this only because the Teachers' union leadership in Miami is white. When the same thing happened to black teavhers' union leadership last year in Washington, DC, it got glossed over.

Look, everyone knows that union leadership, especially in public sector unions where there is no "management" side to negotiations, is crooked. But, in general, they are only stealing from union members, so what difference does it make? The feds shouldn't be going after whate crooks any more vigorously than the went after black crooks.

"The selection has to be beyond reproach, a Jimmy Carter-like election", said Mark Richard...

You mean a Third World-style ballot stuffing exercise, while an aging, irrelevant white guy who used to be somebody looks on with a beatific smile?

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