In the current issue of Ohio Schools, Ohio Education Association President, Patricia Frost-Brooks has announced what amounts to an end game. This is an end game that will ultimately allow the OEA to do something that its parent organization, the NEA, already does, which is to take dues money and use it to support any ballot issue or political cause that it wants to without any consent from its members whatsoever. If successful, it will do away with the “one-time” assessments that have been used to fund the campaign against Senate Bill 5 in 2011 and currently to fund the Voters First initiative which the OEA is trying with its partners to get on the November 2012 ballot. It will also do away something else far more important: the right of rank and file OEA members to give nominal consent to the political actions of its leaders.
The opening came last May at the 2011 spring Representative Assembly. It was there that the $54 assessment to fight Senate Bill 5 was passed. This was the trigger for me to become a fair share payer in the first place. In the process of coming to this decision, I had actually written several members of the state leadership detailing what I was planning on doing in response, including Ms. Frost-Brooks. She was kind enough to respond, as was Central OEA/NEA President Scott DiMauro. Both of the responses stated among other things that the process by which the assessment would be passed was a democratic one, intimating that this would be done as the Declaration of Independence puts it “by the consent of the governed.” It was only after the assessment was passed that I found out the “democratic” process was a voice vote. If you have been to a professional sporting event you have probably taken part in a voice vote, where they put the titles of three songs on the video board and then pick the one to be played at the next time out based on how loudly the fans cheer for it. If you go to enough games you will inevitably encounter a time where one song gets picked even though it seems like a different one had more cheering for it. At a ball game that is no big deal. At a union convention where leaders are deciding whether or not to put money down on a political cause, this has no place. You have major policy decisions being based on the selective acuity of people’s ears. That is a clear recipe for manipulation. Yet there is no major objection as long as the dissenting voices are obviously not loud.
Now we come to this spring’s Representative Assembly. There is another $22 assessment on the table for Voters First. Senate Bill 5 for people was an easy call, but Voters First clearly was not. In the June issue of Ohio Schools, Ms. Frost-Brooks admits as much. “OEA did not ask members to undertake this expense without considering everyone’s point of view. Through extensive debate on the dues assessment, delegates shared well-reasoned positions on both sides.” (Patricia Frost-Brooks, “Bringing democracy back to Ohio”, Ohio Schools, June, 2012, p.2) There was no such declaration from Ms. Frost-Brooks or anyone else speaking for the OEA last year on Senate Bill 5! I did get a little bit of a taste of what form that debate took when I spoke with the co-presidents of my local union. One of them had spoken out against the assessment at the Central OEA/NEA Representative Assembly in April. He was allowed to speak, but he was booed for his troubles and the assessment passed there, as it undoubtedly did in all of the regional meetings prior to the state RA, and again it was by voice vote. After this I can only guess, but I can’t imagine that my representative was alone in his dissent and that powers that be noticed which leads us to the end game, the formation of a crisis fund.
The formation of this crisis fund follows the lead of the NEA, which has had one for years. The NEA sets aside $20 of each member’s national dues and puts it in this fund. The NEA can then use this money for the support of various ballot issues anywhere in the country, such as the petition drive to repeal Senate Bill 5 in Ohio. Unions are forbidden by federal law from using union dues to support specific candidates, but apparently not from the “third party” ads that have become so popular in recent memory. The use of that money is at the absolute discretion of the NEA leadership. (Unions can make donations to candidates from their own PACs, but those are supposed to be funded by voluntary donations from members.) There is no consultation of the membership, no new business items at the Representative Assembly, no selective hearing of yeas and no’s on a voice vote. So, if the OEA goes this route, there will be a certain amount of dues (undoubtedly an increase) that will go in and can be used for any non-partisan action. If Senate Bill 5 somehow gets revived, they can use the money to fight it. If the OEA wants to try to get a ballot initiative to reform school funding, they can do it. If the OEA wants to take the next five years to sock away this money for some other major push, they can do it. This is money for political speech at the total discretion of the OEA leadership, and essentially would continue the practice of the last two years in perpetuity.
I am reminded of the warning given to the people of Israel when they asked for a king in I Samuel 8:17. “He (the king) will take a tenth of your flocks, and you yourselves will become his slaves.” What is the difference between that situation and the one now faced by the members of the OEA? Frankly, I see very little. I also see this as a recipe for ultimate disaster for the OEA. There are already lost members due to job losses, and I believe there will be more people who will do what I did as more information comes out about how the OEA and the NEA handles its political action decisions. The scrutiny public employee unions face today even outstrips what the Teamsters faced when Robert Kennedy famously dueled with Jimmy Hoffa. If the OEA is truly interested in listening to the voices of it members then it needs to be more open, not less. If there has to be a crisis fund, then at the very least they should have a process in place where the membership is consulted through their representatives. Likewise the voice vote should be abolished. Secret ballots should be used and the results of the votes should be published for all members and fair share payers. The NEA actually did use a secret ballot when it voted to increase member contributions to its crisis fund. This spring the leaders of the OEA heard some voices they were not expecting to hear. It is time to listen to those voices, not to silence them.
Filed under: Ohio, politics, Senate Bill 5, unions Tagged: crisis fund, National Education Association, Ohio, Ohio Education Association, Patricia Frost-Brooks, political action committees, politics, Senate Bill 5, union dues, voice vote
