The WEA's Oliver Stone Complex

Last month, the National Education Association released a 300-plus page report that claimed to have found a hidden right-wing conspiracy bent on destroying public education by pushing "paycheck protection" initiatives throughout the country. NEA officials spared no expense in the preparation of the report, spending large sums of money to have a high-profile political operative write the report and a well-known academic put his stamp of approval on the document. Unfortunately, the NEA wasn’t looking for a serious piece of documented research: The nation’s largest teachers union was paying for a fictitious political hit-piece designed to create fear of a right-wing conspiracy where none exists.

Remarkably, not one week passed after the report’s release before the right-wing conspiracy "talking points" were in the hands of Washington Education Association media operative Rich Wood. This is the same Washington Education Association that got prosecuted — not by some right wing conspiracy—but by state authorities for collecting members’ union dues and illegally spending them on politics in the 1996 elections (see table). In Wood’s attempt to put the best "spin" he could on the WEA’s settlement with the National Right to Work Foundation concerning a class action lawsuit brought by more than 160 Washington state public school teachers, Wood had to drag the "right-wing Evergreen Freedom Foundation," an "ultraconservative lobbying group" into the mix, claiming that we had "teamed up with Right to Work to recruit a fractional number of unsuspecting non-members" to bring the lawsuit forward. Of course, EFF had done nothing of the sort. In addition, those of us at EFF do not loiter in the lobbies of the state legislature, nor do we engage in partisan politics. Ironically, if Rich and his bosses at the WEA had done even ten minutes of research, they would know that National Right to Work is no fan of our efforts here at the foundation on behalf of the state’s public school teachers.

Since 1995, when several teachers approached us asking for our help, EFF has been Washington state’s strongest and most vocal advocate for full enforcement of the state’s paycheck protection law. In contrast, our supposed right-wing ally National Right to Work has featured prominently own its own webpage articles that are highly-critical of the idea of paycheck protection and Washington state’s own citizen-enacted law requiring unions get the written permission of their members before spending compulsory dues payments on politics.

As with the NEA’s report, Wood’s caustic claims have nothing to do with reality and have everything to do with misinforming union members about a right-wing conspiracy that doesn’t exist. It might be high time teachers assign homework not only for their students but also union leaders at the state and national level. Perhaps the NEA/WEA bully boys would be inspired by the words of Thomas Jefferson warning against political coercion and end their strong-armed political "fundraising" in favor of free speech.

THE WEA’S RAP SHEET

The WEA got caught with their hands in the cookie jar numerous times in 1996. Rather than apologizing they have engaged in name calling and conspiracy theories. The facts, of course, speak for themselves:

• James Seibert, the Executive Director of the WEA was fined $4,000 ($6,000 with $2,000 suspended) by the PDC for filing 60 false reports with the disclosure agency.
• Kristeen Hanselman, a political operative with the WEA was fined $1,550 ($2,300 with $750 suspended) by the PDC for filing 23 false reports.
• The WEA paid a $393,000 fine as part of the settlement with the state’s Attorney General for unreported political contributions, improper reporting of contributions, and unreported contributions to other PACs.
• The NEA paid a $37,000 fine for illegally funneling at least $410,000 through the WEA and to other political campaigns.
• The WEA failed to communicate with its members the campaign finance violations to which union leaders had admitted involvement.

Evergreen Freedom Foundation P.O. Box 552, Olympia, WA 98507 Phone: (360) 956-3482, Fax: (360) 352-1874 Email: effwa@effwa.org