ANTIs claim 'Union bosses' tell membership what to do

Our ANTI friends frequently make the charge that union bosses tell membership what to do. What our fear filled ANTI friends do not understand is that unions are DEMOCRACIES. We have no rulers but the membership. It is the membership that directs the union's activities. If leadership does not follow what the membership wants, leadership is replaced. It is NEVER the other way around in teacher's unions.

Leadership has NO POWER over membership. Leadership can only inform and wait for membership to direct. There are NO penalties or fines of any kind that anyone in leadership can impose on any teacher for not doing what membership expects. Teachers do what teachers want to do. If they like what leadership is doing leadership stays. If not leadership is replaced.

Speaking of replacement our VUSD leadership has had a 100% turn over since we first started political action in 1992 when the ANTI's took over our board majority. That 100% turn over has happened not just once, but at least three separate times since then. In our Vista Teachers Association by laws, we have TERM LIMITS. The president may not serve more than two terms. Even though leadership at VTA constantly changes, the viewpoint of our "union of teachers" does not.

We teachers are in favor of FACT based science, history, and sex education. We are in favor of building new schools when our old ones are over crowded and crumbling. We are in favor of FACT BASED public education.

Our ANTI friends cannot seem to get over that no matter how they vilify our current president at the time, the next president will likely have the same views. The views in favor of FACT based education do not change when we get a new president.

Our ANTI friends cast our president, Tom Conry, during the Recall of 1994 as their arch villain. The North County Times ran editorials against him and the ownership of the NCTimes hired a editorial cartoonist who drew disparaging cartoons about him. Then Tom's term was over. Tom has since retired and has moved to northern California.

When Randy Wiens became our president, he was vilified and still is by our ANTI friends. I guess Randy is still a 'hate target because he, unlike Tom, still lives in the area and teaches in our district.

Then our next VTA president, Susie Bristow, was the new face of 'evil' for our ANTI friends.

Now Jan O'Reilly is the newest villain for our paranoid ANTI friends who need someone "evil" to hate in order to feel good about their own lives. This June we will have a new VTA president as Jan O'Reilly is term limited out. Next year I expect whoever is elected will have the same PRO public education views as our previous presidents and will become the latest incarnation of "arch villain" for every shrinking group of ANTIs.

Our ANTI friends say they are attacking "the union" or "union bosses" but not regular teachers when the vilify the union. What our ANTI friends do not understand is that "the union" is the teachers. The elected leadership are teachers. The union is not run top down but bottom up. Our ANTI friends cannot attack 'the union' created by all teachers in our district without attacking teachers.

In Los Angeles, the president of the United Teachers of Los Angeles, A. J. Duffy apparently forgot to check with membership when he signed a side letter with management. A side letter is supposed to be a minor change in a district's contract that management and union leadership can agree to. The change is supposed to be so minor that a membership vote is not required.

Duffy's job as president is in trouble because he allowed himself to be convinced by some smooth talking management hired gun consultant that the side letter he signed was in the interest of membership. But old Duffy should have checked back with membership before he signed. Now all hell has broken loose. I do not believe he can survive as president for long. When membership repudiates your leadership, you are done.

Our ANTI friends just never seem to understand that DEMOCRACY reigns in a union. In our union, the Vista Teachers Association, the Representative Assembly is the ruling body. Our R.A. is made up of Representatives of every site in our district. All are invited to attend the monthly R.A.'s but only the site elected Reps are allowed to vote.

In the UTLA this same group is called the House of Representatives.

The CTA has a similar governing body called the CTA State Council which is made of Council members elected from throughout the state of California. The State Council is the governing body of the CTA. It meets four times a year. Whatever business is not finished at State Council is taken up by the CTA Board of Directors elected by the State Council. Tom Conry was a Board of Directors member for some years. There are about a dozen on the CTA Board of Directors. However, there are literally hundreds of State Council Members from school districts covering every corner of our state. Every State Council member is elected by a direct vote of local membership.

I had the privilege of being a CTA State Council Representative from Vista Teacher's Association for several years. The job means more work and some time away from family. There are never any locally held State Council Meetings not ever in Vista, not even in San Diego County. When I was a State Council Representative the meetings were in Burlingame, a suburb just south of San Francisco. UTLA wanted to hold a State Council meeting in Los Angeles but I do not think that ever happened as all the CTA staff works out of Burlingame and lives in the bay area. CTA staff is crucial to an orderly State Council meeting. Transportation and room and board for State Council members are provided by the CTA. A large part of CTA dues are used to cover the expenses of the State Council meetings.

All office holders in the teacher's union are elected. The local Representative Assembly members are elected. The local Executive Board members are elected. The local President and Vice president are elected. The members of the CTA State Council are elected. The Board of Directors are elected. The CTA president and all the CTA officers are elected. Everything is a democracy in our teacher's unions.

Now a story that proves we have an elected democracy that throws out elected officers who do not do what membership expects them to do.

Read what happened to a union president who fails to heed the desires of his membership here:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2009/10/union-rejects-deal-giving-jobs-of-veteran-subs-to-laidoff-teachers.html

Union rejects deal giving laid-off teachers preference over veteran substitutes
October 8, 2009 12:12 pm

The governing body of the Los Angeles teachers union Wednesday night overwhelmingly rejected a deal negotiated and signed by their president that sharply reduced work opportunities for veteran substitute teachers by giving preference to recently laid-off teachers.
The vote was nearly unanimous at the meeting of the House of Representatives for United Teachers Los Angeles. The union’s governing body took up the matter after teachers at seven of eight regional meetings opposed the deal that UTLA President A.J. Duffy signed in July with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Under the one-year “side letter” to the teachers contract, some 1,800 teachers laid off on July 1 jumped ahead of veteran substitutes with more seniority to fill roughly 2,200 daily substitute assignments in the nation’s second-largest school system.

In an interview before the vote, Duffy said he would honor the will of the membership, but that he had no unilateral authority to rescind a signed contract. He said he would enter into negotiations with L.A. Unified.


A district spokeswoman said district officials haven’t yet decided how to respond.

More than 150 subs gathered at their own meeting Wednesday where speakers, including veteran substitute Stuart Chandler, denounced both the deal and Duffy, who had campaigned for office as a defender of substitutes.

“The most effective way to characterize him is as a backstabber, a Benedict Arnold,” Chandler said. “That’s really what we’re talking about -- betrayal.”

Duffy appeared briefly before the subs, asserting that he made the deal to provide stability to minority and low-income children at schools heavily staffed by less-experienced teachers who lacked sufficient seniority to avoid being laid off. Talking above cries of “Impeachment!” and “He sold us out!”, Duffy said he had wanted laid-off teachers to continue teaching their former students — although the substitute assignment system has not automatically placed laid-off teachers in their former schools. Duffy said he also wanted to provide an incentive for the next generation of teachers to remain with the school system until they could be rehired.

The subs said they were not only furious about losing their jobs, but also about a lack of disclosure. Duffy did not release information about the July agreement until September.

He also did not include a representative of the substitutes in the negotiations, as required by internal union rules, said Mike Dreebin, a former full-time teacher who now represents union retirees.

Duffy pledged to include representatives of the substitutes in upcoming talks.

Veteran subs lose their health benefits if they don’t work at least one day a month and a total 100 days for the year. A break in benefits also could deprive some of the opportunity to earn benefits in retirement.

Full-time teacher Heather Kolodny said she sympathized with the laid-off teachers, but sided with the veteran subs on this issue: “The subs have been our colleagues for a number of years. They’re our friends.”

She added that regular teachers feared a potential erosion of their own rights. “We’re all really scared,” she said. “We’re feeling attacked, too.”
-- Howard Blume