The Decline and Fall of The American Teachers Unions

townhall
Arthur Schaper
Posted: May 06, 2018 12:01 AM

When I started out in education, the teachers union reps would tell me, “We are here to protect you.” However, what I learned on the job—and after leaving the profession altogether—is that unions protect unions, not the individual workers, and definitely not the kids. In many states, first-year teachers pay the union dues, even if they do not formally join the union, but get no protection. The classic phrase among veteran teachers is “you can be fired for the cut of your hair.” As for the core interests of these public sector legal mobs, teachers’ union strikes have erupted all over the country, disrupting education for their students, betraying a sinister political agenda to help Democrats going into Election 2018. In school districts across the country, rank politicization has become commonplace. For example, In Laguna Beach, CA, teachers allowed students to beat a Trump piñata.

These unions are worse for the students since they hide behind the eternal banner of “We care for the kids”, yet they go to notorious lengths to protect their worst members while refusing to benefit their best. Project Veritas recently published incredible undercover footage of teachers union leaders not only admitting to their professional cover-ups, but also the routine lies they trot out to protect their members at all costs. Listen to Dr. Dave Perry detail the steps he would take to “bend the truth” for a supposed teacher who had hit then threatened a student in a New Jersey middle school. Another New Jersey teacher admitted to protecting a teacher who had had sex with a student. This perversity isn’t isolated to the Eastern seaboard in deeply Democratic, urban enclaves. Steve Wentz, President of the United Teachers of Witchita, Kansas, admitted to hitting, abusing, and threatening kids. Incredibly, schools insist on asserting in loco parentis authority as guardians for these children.

One would think that the press would look out for us. While local alternative newspapers have taken incredible steps to research and expose bad teachers (LA Weekly, for example), other newspapers shrug off the exposure and even attack James O’Keefe for his undercover efforts. Consider this passage in the Trentontian over the Dave Perry debacle:

The undercover news organization, which has its own reputation problems and is led by muckraker James O’Keefe, released a damning video on Wednesday of Hamilton Township Education Association President Dave Perry explaining to one of Project Veritas’ operatives what lengths he would go to protect his members.

First, according to the Trentonian, O’Keefe is a “muckraker." This inadvertently serves as a badge of honor, notwithstanding the article’s sinister intentions. The article then slams Project Veritas as a dubious organization, then practically covers for the cover-up, not noting the crimes perpetrated by union members. Where has the press been all these decades, anyway? Shouldn’t they, as the Fourth Estate of our constitutional republic, have kept an eye on these government unions? No one should be surprised, however, that corporate media, in lock step with liberal agenda, has rarely tampered with the Democratic Party’s largest donors.

Thankfully, the empire of American teachers unions is on the wane. First, there’s the federal court system. Friedrichs vs. CA ended in a sad 4-4 stalemate with the death of Justice Scalia. This short yet devastating judicial setback to end coerced dues from individual employees has given way to a more likely victory this year with Janus v. AFSCME. That case asks the fundamental question should a public sector employee be forced to pay dues to a union, even if they have not and do not want to join? Public sector unions and their fawning press are predicting the worst.

Despite legal inertia in the court system, states have already enacted comprehensive collective bargaining reforms (Wisconsin, Michigan, Iowa). Now in blue states, a bitter fight has broken out over how left-wing the unions have—and should—become. Public sector unions have ditched Dianne Feinstein for hard-left, open-borders state senator Kevin De Leon in California’s upcoming US Senate race. In New York State, the Workers Rights Party has frayed inexorably, further straining an already contentious primary fight for incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo, who will be facing “Sex and the City” alumna Cynthia Nixon. The infighting shows the decreasing power of top union leaders over their own members, many who are chafing under the cronyism and inattention of their leaders.

One overlooked story in Las Vegas shows how even before the final decision is rendered for Janus, teachers are already rebelling against their unions. In an unprecedented move, the Clark County Education Association broke away from the Nevada and National Education Association. The 20,000 member union, the largest in the state, voted to break away over high union dues and disagreement with leadership’s political goals and endorsements. The Nevada Education Association is losing money as well as political influence, especially in a crucial swing state for 2018 and 2020.

The Silver State is a right-to-work state, but public-sector unions have retained their power notwithstanding, until now. What precipitated this break-up besides the excessive union dues? Much like the split creating a fractious Democratic primary in the New York Governor’s race, the Nevada teachers’ union fallout likely follows from the political upheaval during the Bernie-Hillary Presidential primary, which devolved into unethical, illegal delegate shenanigans during the Nevada Democratic Party convention in 2016 (Check out this video for the political chaos which ensued).

Despite the media and Big Labor’s best efforts, teachers union membership is in decline. Unions are squandering their diminished political capital for wage increases at the cost of their purported mission to care for students—and all coinciding with a contentious political year. Smaller unions are breaking away from the larger union fold. The Janus case will deliver the final blow if the ruling goes as intended with Justice Gorsuch casting the deciding vote against public sector forced unionism and coerced dues.

A half-century ago, teachers unions had a place in the American public. Now they have forgotten their place, going from protectors of innocent teachers to enablers of greed and malfeasance. Their political demise in civil society is welcome and timely.


Thank You Mr Schaper and Townhall.

California Public Employee Union Pensions Are Huge Hypocrites On Drug Prices

redstate
Posted at 1:00 pm on May 26, 2017 by Dan Spencer

Two huge California public employee union pension programs are trying to eat their cake and profit from it too. They are helping to make a stink out of drug prices, even as those same drug prices are helping to prop up their members’ retirements.

CalPERS and CalSTRS are available to public employees and public school teachers respectively. The pension systems are active members of the National Coalition on Health Care, which runs the Campaign for Sustainable Rx Pricing. That’s significant because NCHC, lead by former AARP heavy John Rother, has been hammering pharmaceutical companies over drug prices.

For instance, after President Donald J. Trump met with the heads of some drug companies, the coalition released a statement charging that “100% of Big Pharma’s earnings growth in 2016 came from price hikes rather than innovation.”

We could quibble about the substance of what NCHC puts out, but it’s worth asking what the California Public employees pension programs are doing as part of that coalition, given their investments.

CalPERS an CalSTERS actively profit off the drug companies that Rother and the Coalition attack. You don’t have to take my word for it, here are some numbers!

As Of June 30, 2016 CalPERS held at least $2.7 billion – with a b – worth of domestic equities in drug companies.

	Shares	Market Value
Johnson & Johnson	8091344	$981,479,966
Pfizer	19395322	$682,909,280
Gilead Sciences	4036451	$336,720,740
Abbvie	4,738,959	$293,388,976
Allergan	1127412	$260,533,621
Abbott Laboratories	4,208,253	$165,426,422
GlaxoSmithKline	404298	$17,522,275
Total		$2,737,981,280

(CalPERS 2015-16 Annual Investment Report)
Same date, same year, CalSTRS held at least $3.2 billion in domestic equities in those same drug companies.

	Shares	Market Value
Johnson & Johnson	8300271	$1,006,823,000
Pfizer	18339819	$645,745,000
Merck	8955425	$515,922,000
Bristol Myers Squibb	4782642	$351,763,000
Abbvie	4335014	$268,381,000
Celgene	2353188	$232,095,000
Abbott Laboratories	4569519	$179,628,000
Gilead Sciences	3886475	$324,210
Total		$3,200,681,210

(CalSTRS Domestic Equities)
These public employee union investments are what Al Gore might call an inconvenient truth and most of us would just call rank hypocrisy. Here’s a suggestion for those California public employee pension funds who are trying to have it both ways: Remove that plank from your own eye first. Or just send NCHC packing.


Thank You Mr Spencer and Redstate.

Union Officials Admit They Let Veterans Die Rather Than Talk To Republicans

weaselzippers

Your regrets are a bit late for the people who died.

Via Daily Caller:

A former federal employee union president is wracked with regret because veterans likely died at a time when she knew about gross misconduct within her Department of Veterans Affairs facility but didn’t tell congressional leaders because they were Republicans.

“If I would’ve gone to him two years ago, who knows what kind of lives could’ve been saved,” Germaine Clarno told a radio interviewer Monday, referring to the Republican leader of a VA subcommittee. Clarno, a lifelong Democrat and social worker at the Hines Veterans Affairs Hospital in Hines, Ill., was president of the union representing doctors at the hospital as the deadly wait-time scandal unfolded.

Dozens of veterans have died in recent years while waiting for appointments with doctors at multiple VA hospitals and care centers around the nation. But VA staffers systematically manipulated records to make it seem like they didn’t have long waits. The problems became so severe by 2013, that as many as 40 patients died at just the Phoenix facility.

Keep reading…

Thank You Daily Caller and Nick. 

Detroit Considers Pushing Union Retirees Into ObamaCare Exchanges

weaselzippers;

Detroit Considers Pushing Union Retirees Into ObamaCare Exchanges

Sympathy factor stuck at zero. The public sector unions have been bleeding the taxpayers dry for decades.

DETROIT (Reuters) – Detroit’s emergency manager is considering ending its health insurance coverage for city retirees under age 65 and giving them a modest stipend to purchase insurance from the health exchanges being established under Obamacare, according to a lawyer who represents two associations of public workers.

Brian O’Keefe, an attorney who represents associations of Detroit police, firefighters and other city employees, said on Thursday that the emergency manager, Kevyn Orr, is considering offering a stipend of about $125 a month for retirees under age 65. Those over 65, who now get city-paid health insurance to supplement their Medicare coverage, would get only Medicare.

Orr’s spokesman, Bill Nowling, said he could not comment on the specifics of the current proposal, but he said Orr initially spoke with the city’s unions and pension boards in June about the changes to their healthcare plans. At that time, Nowling said, Orr proposed offering retirees under 65 $110 per month to purchase coverage from a health exchange.

Detroit in July became the largest city in U.S. history to seek bankruptcy protection, and Orr is struggling to pare down its more than $18 billion in debt.

Nowling said it was imperative for the city to quickly reach a deal with the retirees about their healthcare because the insurance exchanges being established under the U.S. Affordable Care Act are scheduled to launch October 1.

“This is absolutely crucial to getting (Detroit’s financial situation) figured out,” Nowling said. “What’s even more important is we have to get an agreement and move forward on a plan because retirees are going to have to start making decisions about what provider they want to seek out.”

O’Keefe said the plan to offer younger retirees a stipend was “outrageous then and is outrageous now,” saying the monthly payment is “not even close to comparable to what they’ve been receiving.”

Converting younger retirees to a plan offering a $125 monthly stipend would reduce Detroit’s annual retiree healthcare costs to less than $50 million from $170 million, Lamont Satchel, the city’s director of labor relations, told the Detroit Free Press.

Thank You Reuters and Zip. 

And Who were Their Union Bosses and organizers out campaigning for? Hmmm?

Hope and Change? 

You can bet they weren't expecting to be served this turd in their punch bowl.