Labor Day marks irony for teachers, workers

By Barb Amidon

As my family and I celebrated Labor Day, I reflected on the irony of honoring teachers (as well as workers everywhere) in light of a recent lawsuit against the Washington Education Association (WEA) that sought justice for those of us who, like me, work in Washington state public schools.

I am a teacher, and because I was recently sued by the WEA, I have watched one recent trial with great interest. The Evergreen Freedom Foundation and a group of teachers brought a lawsuit against WEA officials to make them comply with election financing laws. In an August 26 ruling, Thurston County Superior Court Judge W. T. McPhee said the WEA is not a political action committee (PAC), and, therefore, does not need to comply with PAC financial reporting requirements. This decision troubles me.

My husband and I are teachers in the Olympia school district, and each of us is required to pay $675 per year in dues to the WEA. More than 65,000 of us in Washington state pay these dues each year giving the union officials nearly $45 million each year to spend. Since collective bargaining costs only a fraction of the $45 million, WEA officials use some of that money for politics. This fact angers me because I am one of the 15,000 teachers in Washington who are ideologically conservative, and WEA officials often use my money to support candidates and causes contrary to my beliefs.

An even greater number of my colleagues are politically neutral, and they do not want WEA officials indiscriminately investing in campaigns and candidates on their behalf. Yet all of us are tapped to pay for the political causes of our WEA leaders, even when the politics involved has nothing to do with educating students.

This servitude to WEA officials should have ended when Initiative 134 passed in 1992. That law says union officials must get my annual written permission before taking money from my paycheck for politics. Apparently, 85 percent of my colleagues were also happy with this change because they stopped contributing to WEA’s established political committee, WEA-PAC.

But the political activity did not stop; in fact, the WEA politicking of 1996 was even greater than any year before. WEA raised dues, hired campaign staff, and bombarded voters and teachers with propaganda about how to think and vote. Union officials did not care when a number of us protested about these extraordinary expenditures. They had already decided to get around the new law.

But an investigation by Evergreen Freedom Foundation President Bob Williams, and subsequent investigations by the Public Disclosure Commission and the Attorney General into WEA political irregularities ultimately resulted in the Attorney General fining the WEA $100,000 for what her office called "the largest campaign finance violation in state history." We hoped this would force the union to change its manipulative practices, but it was not to be.

In the meantime, a colleague and I were sued by the WEA for using the letters "W" "E" "A" in the title of a homemade newsletter we were circulating to other interested teachers and citizens. Also lodged against us were ominous sounding charges like "tortious interference" and "unfair competition with business expectancy." It was an attempt to harass and intimidate us, pure and simple. We and our families lived under the shadow of the union’s lawsuit for over a year before the WEA agreed to drop all charges against us if we would not use the letters WEA as part of our title in future writings.

Ironically, it is these same WEA officials who are now calling the recent month-long trial lodged by EFF and teachers "frivolous."

Now Judge McPhee rules that the WEA does not need to register as a political action committee, even though he acknowledged the union admission that WEA spent $700,000 to $1,000,000 to affect the 1996 election. This is as much money as was spent by the largest registered PAC in our state. Most of those funds were unreported to the citizens, and most of the money came from teachers’ paychecks—teachers who had already chosen not to contribute to WEA’s politics.

Adding insult to injury, the judge also said it is all right for the union to continue taking money from our paychecks for politics as long as we aren’t told they may spend it for politics when they take it—a new spin on the don’t ask, don’t tell mantra.

Teachers are busy people. We share a passion to educate and encourage children, and most of us do not want to deal with the "politics" of the union. Nonetheless, it is past time for us to hold our union executives accountable for how they spend our hard-earned money. Our union officials say they fight for us, but it appears they fight against us equally well. First they strip us of our First Amendment right to free speech; then they use coercion instead of reason to influence our voting decisions.

And what about the voters who don’t realize that the WEA and other unions spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in efforts to buy or skew elections? Most of us would not give this money if we had a choice, but, unfortunately, the law requiring our leadership to ask permission is neither heeded nor enforced.

We must have protection for teachers, workers and voters. We all thought that the citizens’ Initiative 134 was the answer, but the special interest of the union has proven overpowering. If the higher court fails to overturn the recent ruling, and if lawmakers continue to benefit from the injustice, then citizens will once again have to act to establish fairness for workers.

Barb Amidon is an Olympia teacher

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