What union officials don’t want teachers to know

by Marsha Richards, Evergreen Freedom Foundation

Dear Teachers,

Your union officials must think you’re pretty stupid.

Six short months ago, voters affirmed their support of your profession and public education by saying "yes" to two huge education initiatives. They approved a $770 million increase in spending to guarantee you annual raises and funnel millions more into K-12 programs.

Now highly-paid Washington Education Association (WEA) officials – who have managed to limit your professional options by squashing all competition to their union – claim you’re outraged and ready to walk off the job.

They say you’re angry because the legislature and Governor Locke are "cutting" education spending and ignoring the voters’ intent to "fully fund" teacher salary raises.

But this rhetoric is blatantly false and deceptive.

I haven’t spoken with a single teacher who thinks state officials are unreasonable for paying the salary increases of the state’s own employees but not federal and local employees. It’s the way the state has been managing salaries for decades. (Can you imagine the accounting nightmare otherwise?)

And it doesn’t take a brilliant math teacher to figure out that an overall education spending increase of $1.5 billion in the next budget cycle doesn’t equal a cut. No matter how the facts are twisted.

So what are WEA officials up to?

They’re trying to hide something that’s becoming obvious: you’d be better off without them.

To make themselves appear useful and necessary, they’re stirring up a crisis where there isn’t one – a regular bad habit of theirs – and they’re making you the fall-guys for their ungrateful, greedy actions.

The fact is, you’re being grossly overcharged for WEA’s services. Consider a few things the union really doesn’t want you to know.

On average, you pay $658 a year in dues to the union’s local, regional, state and national affiliates.

The legal liability insurance policy you get – often cited as the most important reason to join the union – costs union officials (are you ready for this?) a grand total of $4.07 a year for each member. At the high end.

Gee, that leaves about $653.93 to spend. What else does the union give you?

Most district contracts are bargained once every three years (which means every one of you is paying more than $2,400 for each contract) by your local union officials, not officials at the state (WEA) and national (NEA) levels.

But what do they bargain for? Thanks to the recent initiative, your cost of living increases are automatic. So are your step increases and your education credit increases. The number of workdays you have each year is established by state law. Your pensions are defined and managed by the state. What’s left?

Perhaps you have grievances. These are handled almost entirely by your local officials. Yet, if you want to enjoy the benefits of this local representation, you’re forced to pay hundreds of dollars to the state and national affiliates as well.

So what are WEA and NEA officials doing with the rest of your money?

Well, for one, they’re paying themselves a pretty lavish salary. The average compensation for a WEA union employee working at Federal Way headquarters is $82,000 a year. That’s more than the highest paid teacher with a Master’s degree and 16 years of experience.

Employees of the National Education Association get an average compensation closer to $100,000 a year.

Meanwhile, the union’s policy is to repress good teachers and put bad ones on a pedestal by making sure you all get paid the same mediocre amount. Have you seen the movie "Chicken Run"? Union officials want to keep you fenced in the pen where they can profit from the eggs you lay but keep you from finding out what opportunities lie beyond the wire mesh.

If all of you excellent teachers discovered the market value for your work, you’d leave the pen and the flow of money from your paycheck to union pockets would stop. So would their generous salaries and their ability to further their own personal, cultural and political agenda at your expense.

I know you care about your students and just want to be left alone to teach. But when your own union officials are using your good name to run afoul of the law and disrupt your students’ lives with talk of strikes, it’s time to stand up and end the exploitation.

Marsha Richards is the communications director for the Evergreen Freedom Foundation, an Olympia-based policy research organization.

Contact: Marsha Richards, Communications Director, (360) 956-3482

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