Kristi Lacroix
Posted on 09/03/2012 3:27:21 PM PDT by rhema
Wisconsin public high-school teacher Kristi Lacroix has endured yells, curses, laughs, derision, and threats to her face.
It isn't students who give her grief, though. It's the other adults. One woman spit on Lacroix while she shopped for groceries at Pick'n Save. At Capt. Mike's Beer & Burger Bar, a table of teachers moved when she sat nearby, while another patron suggested someone should assassinate her.
Her sin? Being a teachers union member who opposed the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.
As a political conservative, Lacroix had become frustrated when she learned her union supported liberal candidates and agendas. But the Kenosha, Wis., teacher was legally obligated to pay over $100 a month in dues-until Walker brought reforms last year. That November, Lacroix, a member of the Wisconsin Education Association Council (WEAC), appeared in a 30-second television ad endorsing Walker. The governor had done the right thing for Wisconsin, she told the camera. The recall attempt felt "a little like sour grapes."
After the commercial aired, Lacroix received a stream of hate mail calling her "idiot," "Judas," and worse. "You support Walker," read one: "Hope you share a jail cell with him."
Some of the vitriol came from Lacroix's own colleagues, which she says is "embarrassing and makes me feel sad." But dozens of others wrote to offer support or say they'd also like to leave their union: "I'm certainly not alone. I'm just the only one willing to be vocal."
Lacroix seems to be one of many teachers fed up with union dues and politics. Since Walker pushed through legislation last year making public-sector union membership voluntary, WEAC (it's pronounced WHEE-ack) has lost a fifth of its members. Last year the union laid off 40 percent of its staff as it dealt with budget cuts and engaged in what executive director Dan Burkhalter called a "membership continuation" campaign.
WEAC's parent, the National Education Association, is in the throes of a crisis itself: It has lost over 100,000 members since 2010, and expects the bleeding to continue.
NEA, the nation's largest union, represents one out of every 100 Americans through its state affiliates, such as WEAC. Since 2009, several affiliates have reported declining income and membership. Income from dues at the Arizona Education Association, for instance, dropped from $7.5 million to $5.4 million in one year. NEA had to bail out the group's Indiana affiliate in 2009 after it reported a four-year, multimillion-dollar budget deficit.
The bailout followed a mass exodus from public worker unions in Indiana. Gov. Mitch Daniels triggered the exodus in 2005 when he eliminated government-sector bargaining power by executive order. This February, four days before crowds descended on Indianapolis for Super Bowl XLVI, Daniels braved crowds of protesters in the Statehouse to sign legislation, making Indiana the nation's 23rd "right-to-work" state by outlawing forced union membership in the private sector. It was the first state to do so in over a decade.
NEA officials say collective bargaining attacks in Indiana and elsewhere, like Idaho, Ohio, and Wisconsin, have squeezed state and national budgets. In Wisconsin, Walker's reform last year angered some public-sector union members by increasing their contributions to retirement and health plans, and restraining bargaining power. Demonstrators at the Wisconsin Capitol did not intimidate Republicans into scuttling the bill, which Walker signed in March that year. Union leaders then helped organize 50,000 volunteers in a battle to recall the governor.
Meanwhile, since the law also made union membership voluntary for state workers, thousands of them, including teachers, stopped paying dues. In the time between Walker's signing of the union reform bill and his recall election, WEAC lost 20,000 of its 90,000 members. The Wisconsin chapter of the American Federation of Teachers, a WEAC rival, lost 6,000 of 17,000.
On June 5, Walker won the recall election by 7 percentage points. His victory suggested to some pundits that unions were weakening in political clout.
Some 7,403 union member delegates spent the Fourth of July at NEA's four-day leadership summit in Washington, D.C. Local unions appoint representatives to attend the annual summit, where they vote union policy changes up or down. This July, delegates used markers to scribble notes of support to President Barack Obama on a large banner titled "NEA Educators for Obama." The NEA has already voted to endorse Obama's reelection-and has never supported a Republican presidential candidate.
NEA President Dennis Van Roekel tried to rally kindred spirits during a speech: "We must do everything we can to reelect President Obama. ... The other side will outspend us, but we can't let them outwork us." The crowd responded with cheers and applause. When one Republican teacher spoke up at the conference, attendees booed.
Kristi Lacroix
GET THE F$#@ing Unions out of the Public Sector, and cut the head off the DNC-money-laundering snake!
God bless this teacher and those like her. I suspect it’s many, many more than we realize.
Wow. Those union people in WI are pure evil. I would never want them teaching my children. Fire them all and replace them. Keep only the decent conservatives that speak up and tell the unions to just go to heck.
Is there any way we can support her and people like her?
Notwithstanding the un-necessary existence of ANY Union, I believe PUBLIC EMPLOYEES serve at the expense of the Taxpayer, who in turn is the one who should decide REASONABLE Compensation and Benefits.....NOT strong-arm, striking against Taxpayers and BUYING favor from Dues to Democrat Politicians.
I agree. Whoever thought public unions was a good idea should be, well I probably shouldn’t say. Very bad idea.
Do business with businesses in Wisconsin.
23 yrs in Education, longtime activist
He is also a member of the US Department of Education’s Equity
No real need to answer, I was a member of the joint council in the union I was forced to belong to as a correctional officer for the state of Indiana.
When I asked the same question at a union meeting I became VERY unpopular!!!!!
I am not a teacher,but a member(not by choice)of a very ,very strong politically active union in Calif.
I have become sick of the way my dues goes to support their political agenda.There are many of us who share the same values and are opposed to what the union represents.
Yes on Ca.Prop 32.
Kristi Lacroix,God bless You.
I used to agitate my union steward by calling dues our “Union tax”.
I moved to Management and never looked back. The WORST offenders seem to be the least-productive and least-skilled workers, who NEED the Union to keep them employed. They can't move up on Merit; they have none. THAT is so pervasive in the Public Sector, even more than the Private Sector, because of Nepotism, Political Appointments, Patronage, etc., and once hired, they are virtually IMPOSSIBLE TO FIRE for anything other than a "Convicted" Felony (that's the beauty of Plea Bargains, and saves their jobs).
and remember all the awful health benefit contracts they had? When the school districts could go out and competitively bid them they were saving 50%. One day Rush had a guy from WI and don’t remember his name but all the sneaky tricks and they had the school districts and cities hostage to certain providers. That has since changed. For the better.
The lady's got guts.
Huh, the solution to that is so simple I'm surprised they even mentioned money.
They already have the answer, now they just need to do what they have always told us need to be done.
Raise taxes, or in this case dues.
Problem solved.
They can send me my advisors fee by mail.
Why do you think the NEA is so adamantly opposed to testing teachers on a regular basis, or worse, actually testing the results of their work, the knowledge of those seriously brainwashed little Socialists in the schools? How about ranking them in ability, and rather than seniority?
If you have been back to any cow college, you will have found that Education Majors are the absolute bottom of the IQ Bell Curve. Even Journalism Majors are brighter.
The classes are such things as to how to teach camping, fishing, ballroom dancing, because these losers are in school to delay, for as long as possible, actually having to work for a living. Only the philosophy majors dragging out a student loan for a tenured professorship are more useless.
Why do you think the NEA is so adamantly opposed to testing teachers on a regular basis, or worse, actually testing the results of their work, the knowledge of those seriously brainwashed little Socialists in the schools? How about ranking them in ability, and rather than seniority?
If you have been back to any cow college, you will have found that Education Majors are the absolute bottom of the IQ Bell Curve. Even Journalism Majors are brighter.
The classes are such things as to how to teach camping, fishing, ballroom dancing, because these losers are in school to delay, for as long as possible, actually having to work for a living. Only the philosophy majors dragging out a student loan for a tenured professorship are more useless.
Hillsdale college has quit offering teaching degrees without a 4 year degree in something else. You can still get a teaching degree while working on your 4 year degree but they have a deal with Spring Arbor college about 25 miles to the north for it.
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