HOPE FOR AMERICA: Growing Non-Union Teacher Associations Provide Alternatives to NEA and AFT
Posted on 05/02/2003 2:28:23 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
A second bank is calling in a loan to the United Teachers of Dade, prompting the Miami-Dade school district to freeze hundreds of thousands of dollars in union dues collected through payroll deduction.
Those developments raise further questions about the union's financial stability during the same week the FBI raided UTD headquarters as part of a federal embezzlement probe focusing on its longtime leader, Pat Tornillo.
Bank of America is poised to go after the frozen union dues, which UTD put up as a collateral for a $1.5 million loan it took out in early 2002. Union members can have their dues -- $843 a year for full-time teachers -- deducted from their paychecks, and the district normally transfers to UTD a lump sum of more than $500,000 every two weeks.
According to letters sent this week, the bank plans to seize that cash to cover the loan. A Lake Wales bank threatened similar action late last month, but agreed not to do so after the union made a partial payment.
School Board attorney Johnny Brown wrote a letter Thursday saying the district would halt payments of dues to the union until the loan issue is resolved.
Because the union gave banks the rights to take those dues in the loan agreements, Brown said the district does not need a judge's ruling or a vote of the School Board to cease payment.
''It will just be maintained at the school system until the parties settle their differences,'' district spokesman Mayco Villafaña said.
The next payment was scheduled for today, but UTD spokeswoman Annette Katz said the union can meet payroll and operating expenses without it.
''We're totally fine,'' she said.
With creditors calling, UTD is working on securing a new loan for at least $1 million -- this one to be cosigned by the American Federation of Teachers, one of UTD's national affiliates. The same group is in the process of installing an outside administrator to oversee the local.
''We have been working with UTD to try and put their finances in order and get them under control,'' AFT spokesman Alex Wohl said. The local asked AFT to cosign the new loan earlier this year, Wohl said, but the national group wanted to review UTD's finances before agreeing.
''Now that we have financial folks working with UTD folks, this kind of thing will be speeded up,'' said Wohl, who would not speculate on a timeline.
The union was not aware the Bank of America loan was being called in until it was contacted by The Herald, Katz said.
''They didn't even have the courtesy to send us the letter,'' she said, referring to the official notification sent to school board headquarters. ``The creditor saw a bad situation and made it worse.''
The union fended off the Lake Wales bank Wednesday by paying $450,000 of a $1 million loan and promising to repay the rest by May 16.
That loan was called in because the union's 2002 financial statements ''have only heightened the bank's sense of insecurity and further confirms the conclusions that the prospect of payment . . . is impaired,'' according to a letter written by a bank attorney.
Bank of America's letter gave no explanation for its decision, and it was unclear whether there was a connection to the federal investigation of Tornillo, who announced Wednesday he would take indefinite paid leave during the probe.
Since the FBI raid Tuesday, more than 60 teachers stopped payroll deduction for their UTD dues, said district spokesman John Schuster. Katz confirmed that roughly that many teachers had terminated their membership. It is only a fraction of the union's more than 14,000 members, but far more than the one or two members per day who normally change their union status.
''We fully anticipated there were going to be some first-blush deletes,'' Katz said. ``But since that initial reaction there has been a series of steps by this union: a new acting president, the AFT is here and we are in a voluntary trusteeship.''
The union has sent mixed messages about its financial health this week. Tornillo and his replacement, acting President Shirley Johnson, proclaimed the union stable enough to weather reorganization.
Chief Financial Officer James Angleton, however, said the financial situation is ''not that pretty right now,'' adding that he could not answer a question about whether the union was going under.
The news has been a hot teachers-lounge topic at many schools this week, and reactions have run the gamut from protective to furious.
''I've thought about leaving the union,'' said Brian Lopez, a science teacher at Richmond Heights Middle. ``We're upset with what appears to be cloudy, shady dealings going on in the headquarters of the UTD organization.''
Herald staff writer Larry Lebowitz contributed to this report.
After negotiating a merger with the black teachers bargaining unit, Tornillo broadened the power and reach, forming the United Teachers of Dade. Since then, the union has become a formidable force in Miami-Dade County, where its roster of school board candidates with rare exception wins at the polls, and in the Florida Democratic Party, where the union's blessing helped a relatively unknown lawyer, Bill McBride, beat former U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno for the gubernatorial nomination.
At the same time, Tornillo's shop charges the highest teacher union dues in Florida. The rates are needed to cover $4 million in annual payroll, with a dozen administrators earning six-figure salaries. Tornillo takes home $243,000.
Critics point out that Tornillo has used the UTD's clout to reach into nontraditional union ventures such as buying real estate, running charter schools and getting involved in big-money school district contracting.
Tornillo demanded that the board give a nine-figure contract to HIP HealthCare in 1996 and again in 2001 against a consultant's advice. The company's lobbyist, and Tornillo confidant, Ric Sisser, pocketed at least $4 million on the deal. The union also ensured, as part of its contract, that only one supplemental insurance broker could come to schools and sell products to the county's largest workforce: the Public Employee Services Company.
PESCO, whose office is in the ground floor of the UTD building, was founded by a Tornillo associate, Mike Sheridan. The union owns 19,000 shares of PESCO stock. Until recently, Tornillo also sat on the board of another Sheridan company, the Fringe Benefits Management Co., which has had the School Board contract to administer supplemental insurance plans -- or flex benefits -- since the mid-1980s.***
Another Looting Scandal For The "Teacher Trust" May 1, 2003 | Michelle Malkin *** Peter Jennings and the New York Times couldn't get enough of the looting stories out of Iraq. But they could care less about a massive, systematic looting scheme here at home that is robbing America's schoolchildren and rank-and-file teachers blind. These homegrown plunderers have been accused or convicted of siphoning precious educational resources to pay for homes, hotel bills, mink coats, crystal, fine art, furniture, vacations, car repairs, football tickets, limousine service, their children's private school tuition, and Democrat party lobbying. These sticky-fingered fiends are based in Washington, D.C., Miami-Dade, Fla., and in gilded office buildings across the country.***
The guilty should be taught a lesson ... sent on a Field Trip up the river to a REAL Jail, for an appropriately lo-o-o-o-ong time.
April 5, 2000 - Teachers' Unions To Merge In Two More States*** Members of the two teachers' unions in Montana were poised to celebrate late last week as their organizations cemented a long-planned merger.
The new union, in the works for two years, is the second state-level merger of affiliates of the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers. In 1998, state affiliates in Minnesota came together to form Education Minnesota. And next month, members of the Florida affiliates will hold a founding convention to launch a 100,000-member unified organization.
"When we stand before the legislature, the governor, the board of regents, and the board of public education, we'll be one, we'll speak with one voice," said Eric Feaver, who was running unopposed for president of the Montana Education Association-Montana Federation of Teachers. Mr. Feaver had previously served as the head of the 10,000-member NEA affiliate. The association is combining forces with the 5,500-member federation affiliate, whose president, Jim McGarvey, had no challenger for vice president of the new organization. ***
Teachers' Unions in Power and Politics***This book is an effort to describe the structure, operations, and influence of teacher unions, especially the National Education Association (NEA) and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). The context should make it clear whether the organization titles include their state and local affiliates. The authors believe that an NEA/AFT merger will take place in the 1990s, but whether or not this happens, the emergence of strong teacher unions is an important development in education, in the labor movement, in the economy, and in American politics. Because their role is so pervasive but also so widely overlooked, a brief comment on the subject may serve as an introduction to this book.***
Really? I say, they can't afford not to.
HOPE FOR AMERICA: Growing Non-Union Teacher Associations Provide Alternatives to NEA and AFT
I don't blame the bank for their quick action on this. They knew Democrats were involved and wanted to get their money while there was still some left. They may be too late.
Bump!
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