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PRESS RELEASE December 3, 2003 WEA risks alienating beginning teachers OLYMPIA – WEA filed a lawsuit today to overturn lawmakers' budget guaranteeing pay raises for teachers making less than $40,000 per year. Citing concerns about local bargaining flexibility, WEA officials demonstrated a willingness to alienate starting teachers in the interest of preserving their power to set salaries. The legislature was responding to union calls for improving the starting wage to attract the best and brightest to the profession. Since the legislature created the salary schedule, they certainly have the authority to adjust it to meet current conditions in the job market. Lawmakers may have been responding to the incident in 1999 when starting teacher pay raises were diverted by the Tacoma Education Association to veteran teachers. "WEA has always insisted upon percentage-based pay increases in the state salary schedule," said Jami Lund, a union accountability expert with the Evergreen Freedom Foundation. "This approach has telescoped the salary schedule so now some teachers are paid twice as much as others doing the same job." "The union enjoys the ability to cite low starting teacher pay as
an argument for pay raises for all teachers," noted Lund. "If
the issue was really about local control, it would be school boards, not
the union, who would be complaining. Besides, we saw what the union really
thinks of 'local control' in Marysville." Contact: Jami Lund | Project Manager | 360.956.3482
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1 Part Honesty; 2 Parts Arrogance At a March 23, 2005, House Appropriations hearing on a bill to gut the voter-approved I-601 spending limit, Rep. Jim McIntire (D) asked a supporter of I-601’s two-third supermajority requirement for the legislature to raise taxes the following question: "Can you name a time when we [legislators] have actually not just set it [supermajority requirement] aside by majority vote? I mean, this is in many respects a procedural motion that has no bearing. It’s a statutory constraint that cannot constrain any legislature that chooses as a majority to set it aside . . . have we ever used a supermajority [to raise taxes]?" - Rep. Jim McIntire (D - 46) Despite the arrogance of some state officials, Washington's constitution is clear: "All political power is inherent in the people..." |
