Teachers union gets it from all sides

By Michael Mishak , Emily Richmond

Thursday, Nov. 29, 2007 | 7:05 a.m.

The Clark County teachers union has fended off a takeover attempt by the Teamsters union, only to face a threat from another organization that wants to render it all but useless.

Facing a Friday deadline to turn in signatures of support, Teamsters Local 14 will announce today it has officially abandoned its effort to challenge the teachers union for the right to represent the school district's 18,000 licensed personnel.

Teamsters Secretary-Treasurer Gary Mauger said in a statement Wednesday the union was unable to obtain the support of a majority of members in the five-month organizing window to petition the state labor board for an election.

But the teachers union can't rest. Even as it prepares to battle casinos by trying to raise the gaming tax by three percentage points, its members are being targeted by a new organization, the Professional Association of Clark County Educators, which says it can better help rank-and-file teachers without raiding their wallets for political purposes.

And the Teamsters' Mauger says he would like to leave the door open for another try, even if it will have to wait.

State law allows challenges to bargaining agents only when a contract is up for renewal. With a new three-year deal set to be signed by the Clark County School District and the Clark County Education Association, it will be at least that long before the Teamsters - or anyone else - can mount another challenge.

The Teamsters had argued that the teachers union had grown too cozy with the district in recent years and failed to secure more than meager raises from the Legislature.

John Jasonek, executive director of the Clark County Education Association, said the Teamsters' failure came as no surprise. "Everything that we've seen, in going to schools and surveying members, (is that) teachers are really interested in the issues we can solve," he said. "There was just no substance to the Teamsters' arguments."

The Teamsters' efforts were hobbled after the defection of its primary organizer, district teacher Ron Taylor. He had launched a grass-roots effort to decertify the education association after he was forced from it, an action he is challenging with the state labor board. He became a paid Teamsters organizer but quit last month in the face of what he called the union's waning interest. Taylor said he'd collected about 1,000 authorization cards, far fewer than the 9,000 needed to set an election. (Teamsters officials say the number of cards collected was closer to 2,500.)

The union, he said, was discouraged by the poor showing.

"I told them you have to spend money, you have to work at this," Taylor said. "They weren't interested."

But others are.

Enter the Professional Association of Clark County Educators, a new group touting 200 founding members. It was spawned by the Association of American Educators, which, with more than 40,000 members and 14 state chapters, bills itself as "the largest national nonunion teachers association."

It says its goal is to strengthen professionalism in the classroom. But behind the scenes, it seems intent on fracturing the teachers union.

Although the Clark County Education Association appears to have been emboldened by the Teamsters challenge, the union still has vulnerabilities.

Some members are frustrated by years of small raises and considered their union largely ineffectual in this year's legislative session. Education lobbyists made the mistake of going around Assembly Democrats to cut a deal with Senate Republicans on education funding - a tactic that irritated the teachers' natural allies and could mean less clout with Assembly Democrats in future legislatures.

And PACCE could find a willing audience in the forsaken Teamsters sympathizers.

In fact, Taylor is promoting the new group on his personal Web site, teachers4change.net, though he demurred when asked whether he was working for it. Taylor said he initially had concerns about the group's anti-union reputation, but after he met with officials from the national office his fears were put to rest.

"They're not union busters," Taylor said. "They just believe teachers should have some rights and protection without having to be in a union."

The Association of American Educators has been a vocal critic of teachers unions.

Even as the Teamsters organizing efforts were imploding, the AAE was laying the groundwork for a Clark County affiliate at the Conservative Leadership Conference last month in Sparks. In a speech, Heather Reams, the group's associate director, dubbed teachers unions "the greatest obstacle" to education reform and blasted the nation's two largest teachers unions - the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers - for using member dues in political races, the presidential campaign in particular. The AFT has endorsed Sen. Hillary Clinton.

Reams said that of the groups' combined annual dues - $2 billion, by her count - just 15 percent was dedicated to collective bargaining. "Members' hard-earned money is being used to bankroll an extremely liberal program that has nothing to do with helping students achieve," she said. "They think they are going to hand the presidency to Hillary Clinton."

Key to education reform, she said, is "getting teachers out of unions ... to change the mentality."

The group does not encourage teachers or its members to decertify their unions, Reams said in an interview, but has offered legal assistance in four states to those seeking decertification.

The group's purpose, Reams said, is to provide teachers a forum for education issues, free from the political agenda of the national teachers unions, while providing many of the benefits those unions offer.

For instance, the group provides liability insurance - up to $2 million - and guaranteed legal counsel in the event of disciplinary action. The group also supports charter schools and "merit pay" - two things teachers unions have consistently opposed.

The group cannot bargain collectively on behalf of its members because of its tax status, but says there are "viable alternatives" to achieving fair contracts. Membership is $180 a year.

Outcry from Clark County teachers within the past six months prompted the group's launch, Reams said. "It's no surprise that the teachers have heard a lot about their choices lately," she said, citing the Teamsters challenge. "Our members are looking for their voices to be heard. Now more than ever it seems there's a need for an alternative group."

The Clark County group will meet early next year to outline a platform, and part of the discussion will involve the gaming tax petition, she said.

Cindy Allen, an art teacher at Von Tobel Middle School, is chairwoman of the county affiliate. She said she first learned about the organization after she decided to drop her membership in the education association and was looking for liability insurance.

Allen said the new group poses no threat to the teachers union.

"Whatever union is in place, we will work with them," said Allen, who is also an adjunct professor at UNLV. "We're not here to work against them. We're a professional group that wants to be heard."

Jasonek, of the Clark County Education Association, said the teachers union has nothing to fear from the new association.

"Teachers need representation - lawsuits are few and far between," he said. "You need representation with your principal, your superintendent. We handle over 100 grievances a year. If all you have is an insurance policy, you'd be over a barrel."

Although the Association of American Educators says it does not seek to poach union members, it walks a fine line with its fiery rhetoric, essentially condemning teachers unions.

"Educators are academic professionals like doctors, lawyers and engineers, and should be treated as such," Gary Beckner, the group's executive director, said in a news release announcing the formation of its Colorado affiliate in August. "Industrial-style unionism advances neither the respect nor compensation that educators deserve."

Beckner went further in a letter to the conservative Washington Times in June, writing about the use of nonmember fees for political campaigns: "Forced unionism forces money out of teachers' pockets and thrusts education even deeper into the political pocket of Big Labor, which breeds blackballing, intimidation, coercion and exploitation of workers who don't support union politics.

"As professionals, teachers should not have to be subjected to tactics that are more suited for the factory than the classroom. Teachers deserve better."