WEA smear campaign ignores truth

By Bob Williams

Union bosses over at the Washington Education Association sure do seem to have a penchant for name calling.

Sure, Evergreen Freedom Foundation has earned itself a reputation as a thorn in the side of WEA leaders as we have fought long and hard to hold the union accountable to their own members—teachers—and state law. But WEA President Lee Ann Prielipp says Evergreen Freedom Foundation is anti-public education, an accusation she knows is 100 percent untrue.

What Ms. Prielipp forgets is that we at Evergreen Freedom Foundation — and I in particular — work hard to defend the rights of children and the people who educate them. And Ms. Prielipp doesn’t like our work, because we have called for accountability: accountability to ensure students learn, accountability to show that taxpayers’ money is well spent; and accountability to teachers, who rightfully expect the union to comply with state election law.

She also overlooks the fact that WEA financially supported EFF until we filed our lawsuit. WEA members attend and participate in our conferences.

But we understand WEA must demonize EFF to teachers. After all, the union says it spent $1 million defending the union against charges it failed to comply with campaign reporting laws. What would teachers think if they knew that union attorneys argued — and won! — the right to use mandatory dues monies on political campaigns without teacher permission and without ever having to disclose to teachers (or the general public) how that money is spent?

The WEA also wants to sweep under the carpet the fact that in 1981, I personally fought for — and won — a 17.5 percent pay increase for teachers during my time as chairman of the House budget committee. That was the largest pay raise teachers have received in decades! Well, I’m still fighting for teachers, only now the stakes are much higher. Now, we are fighting to ensure teachers have their paychecks protected from union "leaders" who raid them to fund political campaigns.

These raids have far-reaching implications, as teachers lose not only money, but their First Amendment right to choose their political speech every time union bosses take these forced political donations. Even worse, the general public is kept in the dark about the union’s expenditures, thanks to a recent court ruling twisting every previously known convention of campaign finance reform. Now, big labor and big business call the shots as they can spend freely on political campaigns without reporting in accordance with laws governing political committees. Just what ever happened to the concept of free and fair elections?

We believe the WEA can and should be involved in political campaigns. EFF simply wants the union to do what every other political committee has to do and tell the public where it spends its money and where that money comes from. To have a democracy, we must have an untainted ballot box, and that means the public must know who gave and who got in political campaigns. Just as important, the money used in political campaigns must be voluntarily given. WEA union bosses know 83 percent of members refuse to contribute to the union’s political committee, so the union has resorted to taking the money for politicking from the union’s general dues fund. That practice is wrong, and it must stop.

Why won’t WEA face facts and work toward a political agenda that members will support? Private corporations fund their political committees exclusively with voluntary contributions, so why can’t the WEA do the same? Are union bosses so tied to their own agenda that they refuse to listen to their members? From all appearances, this may well be the case.

During our May trial, we asked Thurston County Superior Court to require the WEA to report its 1996 politicking subject to laws governing political committees. Union lawyers announced that teachers were never asked nor told of how dues monies went to high-dollar political campaigns. The statement raised the question: If the WEA refuses to be accountable to its own members, for whom is it fighting? The answer would appear simple: union bosses.

Classroom teachers in our state who hold master’s degrees can never hope to make as much as some WEA secretaries. Those secretaries’ salaries come from dues paid by hardworking classroom instructors, and we believe it is not right to allow union bosses to set up and defend their fiefdom at the expense of teachers.

No one in the general public or WEA membership rolls can expect that union bosses will come clean about their dirty little secrets and tell the truth about how they spend other people’s money. WEA attorneys have secured a "protective order" preventing teachers and voters from learning the true breadth of WEA campaign activities during the 1996 elections. If the WEA attorneys were telling the truth about the WEA politicking — that it was an insignificant portion of the union’s activities — just how would it hurt to let the public know what went on three years after the fact? Why not let teachers at least know how their money was spent?

With apologies to Jack Nicholson’s famous line from "A Few Good Men": Teachers want the truth, and Lee Ann Prielipp can’t handle the truth. This union does not exist to defend the rights of educators. This union is more interested in helping protect the turf of union leaders and their "right" to refrain from accountability.

There can be little doubt about the renegade nature of the WEA: It is a union which ignores the wishes of 83 percent of its members and accrued a track record for the largest set of campaign finance violations.

You want the truth, Ms. Prielipp? It’s time the WEA came to the realization that the 54,735 members who refuse to contribute to the union’s political efforts have rights, too.

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