Originally Posted By Darkbeer Amazing, the Unions try and prevent anyone finding out the procedures to opt-out, then when you do, they still want to keep your money... At least someone stepped in on the following matter.... Landmark Legal Foundation Press Release follows.... Landmark Forces California Teachers Union to Refund Political Funds to Teachers LEESBURG, Va., Oct. 27 -- Landmark Legal Foundation won a significant victory recently when it forced the California Teachers Union (CTA) to offer full refunds to nonunion, fee paying teachers for a special $60 per teacher assessment that the union is using to fund a $50 million campaign to defeat ballot initiatives in the November 5 special election. Landmark filed a complaint on September 14 with the California Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) documenting how the union's special assessment would be used to retire a $50 million debt amassed for the sole purpose of financing a campaign to defeat initiatives 75, 76 and others on the November ballot. Under state law, teachers who are not members of the union, but who are required to pay a fee for collective bargaining representation, are allowed to seek a refund of any part of their fee used for political purposes. After Landmark filed its complaint, the CTA notified nonmember teachers that the full $60 surcharge will be refunded to all fee payers who request it by November 15, 2005. "Non-CTA teachers who had no say in deciding the union's positions on these ballot initiatives shouldn't be made to pay for the union's campaign against them," said Mark R. Levin, Landmark's president. "Calling this assessment 'debt retirement' for a debt that is being used exclusively for political activity wouldn't pass the smell test, and the union leadership knew it. They made the refund offer because they simply had no choice. Otherwise, it would have been a case of confiscation without representation." Earlier complaints by Landmark against the National Education Association (NEA) for its unreported use of tax exempt member and fee payer dues for political purposes resulted in an ongoing full-field audit by the Internal Revenue Service and an ongoing investigation by the U.S. Department of Labor. Landmark is a public interest law firm founded in 1976 with offices in Kansas City, MO and Leesburg, VA.
Originally Posted By cmpaley Prop 75 doesn't actually fix that. If the intent was to require unions to notify the membership of their right to opt-out, then that's what it would do. The real agenda is to defund opposition to the rabid-right Republican economic agenda being pushed by corporate special interests via Schwarzenegger by adding expensive paperwork requirements on the representatives of public servants so they can't be effective in doing that job through the political process. >>Landmark is a public interest law firm<< ROFLMAO!!!! That should read: Landmark is a Corporate Interest Law Firm...
Originally Posted By Darkbeer Interesting, but long LA Times article..... <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-uniondues29oct29" target="_blank">http://www.latimes.com/news/lo cal/la-me-uniondues29oct29</a>,0,2952686.story?coll=la-home-local >>6 Other States Shaped Prop. 75 And in states where laws have passed, unions have managed to blunt their effect. Union dues restrictions that passed in Idaho and Ohio are stuck in limbo amid court challenges. Unions in Michigan and Washington, the first states to pass such measures, are thriving. Despite steep dips in their campaign kitties, they have circumvented the restrictions by rechanneling the ways they use dues money. In the 2004 elections, the Washington Education Assn. spent $1.4 million, records show. Only a quarter of that came from the political action committee set up for members who volunteered to support political activities; the rest came from the union's regular budget. "While they succeeded in pushing through changes in the law, they did not succeed in shutting down members' voices, as witnessed in our numerous successes in the last election," said Debra Carnes, the union's spokeswoman. Williams blames state regulators and judges for excessively loose interpretations of Washington's law and legislators for subsequently weakening it further. Several rulings narrowed the law so that it only prohibits unions from diverting a predetermined amount of dues to political efforts. That means that Washington unions face no restriction on spending dues money for political issues that arise over the course of a year. "What I've found over the years is that unions are a business," Williams said. "They find a way around, under or over any initiative within four years."<< >>California's Proposition 75 would not be as restrictive as Utah's law, but it is stronger than the ones in the other three states where dues limitations are in effect, according to Michael Reitz, director of the Evergreen Freedom Foundation's labor policy center. The proposition would ban public employee unions — which represent more than 1 million workers — from giving regular dues money to candidates, initiative campaigns, get-out-the-vote drives with partisan purposes and all other political activities that are regulated by the state. For those activities, unions would have to set up separate funds using voluntary contributions from members. "In the short term, it would allow the governor and his friends to get their way on all of their issues," said Lou Paulson, president of California Professional Firefighters. However, California unions could still use dues to lobby lawmakers, an activity on which public unions have spent more than $11 million so far this year, much of it on ads attacking Schwarzenegger's legislative agenda. (In comparison, the manufacturing industry and the California Chamber of Commerce spent $12 million on general lobbying.) Unions could also continue to use dues money to communicate their views on public policy measures to their members and fund public advertisements on issues that do not directly refer to an election.<<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.ridgecrestca.com/articles/2005/10/28/opinion_-_editorial/our" target="_blank">http://www.ridgecrestca.com/ar ticles/2005/10/28/opinion_-_editorial/our</a>%20view/view01.txt >>Union members work hard for their money, and pay dues into a union to support their interests, both as individuals and as a group. They don’t pay dues so that their leaders can support pet political causes with other people’s money. That’s not fair. We support Proposition 75 in the hopes that it will restore power of public employee union dues to where it belongs — the union members.<<
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>They don’t pay dues so that their leaders can support pet political causes with other people’s money.<< God FORBID that unions actually support laws and candidates that are friendly to the members. And if a particular cause is especially odious, then it falls on the membership to get involved and vote the person out who is using union funds as their personal political kitty. That's the one truth that Schwarzenegger's folks will never let you know...union members have the right to change their leadership and hold them accountable.
Originally Posted By cmpaley >>We support Proposition 75 in the hopes that it will restore power of public employee union dues to where it belongs — the union members.<< To be more accurate, that should read: "We support Proposition 75 in the hopes that it will (place) power...where it belongs - the Republican Party."
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.presstelegram.com/opinions/ci_3165270" target="_blank">http://www.presstelegram.com/o pinions/ci_3165270</a> >>Voters appear open to both measures, and newspapers are beginning to endorse one or both. The CTA is panicking. In one of several misfires, CTA President Barbara Kerr suggested Arnold's side might be illegally using state resources to communicate with teachers or voters. She offered no evidence; it now appears this was bunk. Teachers might finally be paying attention. When the two teachers signed a pro-Prop. 75 e-mail to 95,000 teachers, only 50 teachers demanded to be taken off the e-mail list. Eric Beach, of Yes on 75, told me, "The fact that we heard from only 50 tells me teachers are hungry for information. Teachers have started asking a very reasonable question: Can't teachers choose what they support and don't support?" Currently, a teacher can "opt out" of paying dues that go to political efforts they oppose. But teachers generally lose their union vote -- a raw deal.<< >>Where does teachers' money go? To ludicrous political campaigns. Beach notes that CTA used teachers' dues to support last year's failed measure "to roll back 'three strikes and you're out.'" How does such a measure help children in the classroom?" It doesn't. CTA poured money into the $14 million campaign in 2004 for Proposition 56 -- a nutty plan rejected by voters to make it easier for our beloved Legislature to raise taxes on us all. CTA spent millions fighting to save Gray Davis from recall. Worst of all, CTA adopts hardcore, anti-education positions that, if CTA had won, would have dramatically increased the speed at which our schools are circling the drain. CTA stridently fought the badly needed English immersion law approved by voters, for example, and it's fought to undercut the respected and growing charter school movement.<<
Originally Posted By Darkbeer <a href="http://www.redbluffdailynews.com/Stories/0" target="_blank">http://www.redbluffdailynews.c om/Stories/0</a>,1413,134~26829~3112322,00.html >>Teachers complain that CTA, like other unions, obsesses over politics rather than members' basic workplace needs. CTA spent more than $2 million this year on ballot measures dealing with prescription drugs, state energy policy, and an abandoned effort to regulate the way people buy cars?!" teachers Lillian Perry of Fontana and Larry Sand of Los Angeles e-mailed colleagues around the state Oct. 20. WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH TEACHING????!!!" One week earlier, CTA greeted another e-mail by trying to sic prosecutors on Perry and Sand. As The Sacramento Bee reported Oct. 15: CTA Chief Counsel Beverly Tucker sent letters Friday asking the district attorneys of Sacramento, Alameda, and Los Angeles counties to investigate the e-mails and 'take appropriate action, including filing criminal charges.' Seeing no lawlessness, prosecutors rejected CTA's request to jail their political opponents. Such thuggery is as common in this campaign as bumper stickers.<<
Originally Posted By cmpaley To match DB's shouting: WHY DON'T THE TEACHERS GET INVOLVED IN THEIR UNION SO THEY KNOW WHAT'S GOING ON AND USE THEIR VOICE TO MAKE SURE THAT THEY ARE BEING REPRESENTED!?!?!? It's stupid to sit back, do nothing, then complain because things are being done the way you want them.
