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Clark County Education Association President Ruben Murillo speaks at the School Board meeting on Thursday, Dec. 9, 2011. About 200 teachers union members wearing red attended the meeting; about two dozen of them spoke out against potential teacher layoffs.
By Paul Takahashi (contact) 
Saturday, July 14, 2012 | 2 a.m.
Sun coverage
A monthlong campaign by a local Libertarian think-tank to encourage Clark County schoolteachers to opt out of their union has had “insignificant” results on membership, according to union officials.
Last month, the Nevada Policy Research Institute launched a multifaceted initiative to inform Clark County School District teachers of their right to drop their union membership between July 1 and July 15. Nevada is a right-to-work state, which means teachers cannot be compelled to join the union as a condition for employment.
NPRI representatives distributed pre-written opt-out letters and pre-stamped envelopes at two School Board meetings; gave radio, TV and newspaper interviews; and even sent two emails to 12,000 teachers through the district’s email system.
NPRI argued on its website and in public comments that the window of opportunity for teachers to withdraw from the union was too small and that it came at a time when many teachers were away on summer vacation.
The group also claimed that the Clark County Education Association wanted to make it as inconvenient as possible for teachers to leave the union by requiring a written letter to exit the union.
“That reality is what inspired our efforts,” NPRI President Andy Matthews wrote in an email to supporters Friday. “We believe that teachers are in the best position to decide if CCEA membership is right for them, yet they have been unable to do so because they’ve been unaware of their options.”
The campaign sparked a flurry of media attention and commentary.
NPRI received more than 100 emails from teachers and community members, said Victor Joecks, the group’s communications director. Some were grateful of the group’s efforts while others were negative, he said.
NPRI’s campaign mainly drew the ire of union officials, who declared the campaign as “union-busting” and “anti-teacher.” The union — which represents 18,000 teachers in the district — derives the majority of its funding from its $768 annual dues.
Yet, despite the publicity and political back-and-forth, NPRI’s campaign has failed to affect union membership, said union President Ruben Murillo, who did not disclose exact figures.
“Their campaign has had a minimal impact on us,” Murillo said. “Despite all their efforts, their campaign against CCEA has not resulted in any significant impact on our membership.”
Although the opt-out period ends Sunday, NPRI’s official campaign will not, Joecks said.
NPRI plans to lobby legislators during the 2013 session to get rid of opt-out periods altogether, Joecks said. The campaign will also expand to Washoe County teachers and perhaps other collective bargaining units, he added.
NPRI...
Shelly Adelson's Neo-Nutbag, Anti-Education Right-Wing 'Institute' is another way for 'Mister Big' to throw his ample weight around using Casino Cash...
I wouldn't step foot in any Sands property.
NPRI's main and only goal is to rid Nevada of every single union. No wonder the most craziest Tea/Republican Party politicians in Nevada love them. I'm glad to see people are pushing back at their extreme and radical agenda which eternally tries to portray unions as the boogeyman for anything and everything.
As long as the superintendent's office is working hand-in-hand with NPRI to destroy the teachers' union, as it certainly appears to be doing, why should the right-wing extremists relax the pressure? NPRI's typically thuggish efforts to intimidate teachers will continue at least through the election.
Note to the School District management: How's that "internal investigation" into the instructor email lists that NPRI mysteriously acquired coming?
Why did NPRI only single out CCEA for their campaign? Last time I looked there are three other bargaining units in CCSD, the police union, the administrators union, and the support staff union. Were those unions targeted as well? Did NPRI go after other public employee unions like the police and firefighters unions in North Las Vegas, Las Vegas and Henderson? Why not?
When Victor Joecks appeared on Jon Ralston to talk about the campaign he had a teacher with him who was urging members to opt out of CCEA. That teacher was Nathan Warner. He has a three year provisional license and has not yet removed all of the provisions. Hia license expires in August 2013. He is one of the Teach For America hires. Here is the link to license listing on the Nevada Department of Education. Once you get to the site, just enter his name and you can see his license.
http://nvteachersearch.doe.nv.gov/Teache...
This is the link to his salary information on Transpartent Nevada. In 2011, he made $53,790.19 including pay, extra pay and benefits.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/se...
I'm guessing they lost more member than the liars at the union are willing to admit. Unions are nothing but job killing crooks.
Adelson's employees at Sands Corp properties are threatened from the day of their orientation to not even mention the word "Union".
The way to push back against NPRI and Adelaon is to Start a major union organization effort at Venetian, and Palazzo. Culinary, Teamsters, Engineers and any other organization that represents workers on the strip should put a full court press on Adelson. Get his name out there as an anti-worker billionaire. He and his cohorts need to be exposed as openly anti-worker.
Also pay close attention to any efforts Adelson takes to stop organizing efforts. Caesers just got jammed up in federal court and I guarantee Shelly will do all kinds of illegal things to prevent workers from organizing.
It's about time thuggery is being met with thuggery. 50 years in the making!
I agree tbvegas. The wealthy elite in America, like Sheldon Adelson, have been thuggish bullies towards middle class working Americans for the last 50 years.
It's nice to see middle class working Americans stand up and push back against these billionaire funded, democracy purchasing, propaganda machines for once!!
Mr. Warner, the teacher on Face to Face, is not a member of CCEA and never has been. He is upset because he is getting laid off and doesn't feel CCEA represents him or new teachers. Well they represent what the CCEA members voted for and that is what they did. If Mr. Warner and the other new teachers would have joined CCEA and voted their interest, maybe things would have been different. Kind of complaining about the President and not registering to vote. DAH.
I find it interesting that new teachers are the brightest and best teachers. They are highlighted as "new teacher of the year" on the news. The best of the newest, not the best of the best. Let's not get confused. We surely don't think a rookie of the year is the best professional ballplayer. CCSD tried to rid themselves of the more expensive, experienced teachers in the late 80's and learned what a mistake it was. Does anyone remember this fiasco? As to NPRI, yes it is a smear campaign to attack the union. They insult teachers by saying they don't read their contracts because they are too long. Give me a break, the teachers I have spoken with have read and are aware of what the contract says. Maybe NPRI should focus on some other glaring inequity in life, it may be time better spent.
Using the current telephone book for CCSD and the Transparent Nevada salary information for CCSD for 2011, I found the salaries and benefits paid for the following people in the CCSD Communications Office.
Chief Communications Officer, Amanda Fulkerson, 51,209 (she was only employed for part of 2011)(Salary is 130,632.00 WITHOUT BENEFITS)
Director, Cynthia Sell 123,290.99
Coordinator III, Michael T. Rodriguez, 103,033.75
Public Information Specialist, David Roddy, 98,481.06
Public Information Specialist, Dave Sheehan, 104,389.96
Public Information Specialist, Penny Ramos-Bennett, 70,332.10(based on other salaries probably not employed for the full year.)
Public Information Specialist, Melinda Malone, no information available, probably not hired until 2012(salary is probably comparable to other Public Information Specialists)
Communications Assistant, Anthony Springer, no information available, probably not hired until 2012
Photographer, Michele Nelson, 69,928.21
Graphic Artist II, position vacant
Officer Supervisor, Loreasa Nary, 55,262.63
Secretary III, Jacquelyn Robinson, 64,009.61
Office Specialist II, Keely Brown, 61,177.34
Total cost for pay and benefits for 2011 is $696,724.99 with three positions with salary data not available.
A teacher with a bachelors degree and maximum experience earns $57,563 including pay and benefits. With a masters degree and maximum experience the amount jumps to $71,919 counting pay and benefits.
This is a link to the CCSD phone book.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou......
This is a link to Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl......
This is the link to the current CCSD teacher pay scale.
http://ccsd.net/employees/resources/pdf/...
Only one person in Fulkerson's office makes less than a teacher with a bachelors and 5 years experience. I am not counting Fulkerson because her base salary is over 130K. I wonder what NPRI would say about those salaries.
NPRI's goal: Two American classes. 1-Wealthy. 2-Minimum wage earners. Enjoy that $7.25 an hour the Federal government thinks you can live on.
Scranton PA recently CUT COMPENSATION to minimum wage, the $7.25 an hour. A 10-year firefighter says that cuts his pay to 1/3. So that means he gets about $45K a year plus benies. COMPARE that to CCSD K-12 teachers who AVERAGE $74K AND local firefighters who seem to top out about $500,000 a year.
PA and others are simply reacting to the fiscal crises brought about by past union contracts.
No one wants to treat their firefighters, police or teachers less than the best. What they can't do is pay the too high costs brought about by outrageous union contracts consented to by foolish politicians buying votes under the extortion of the union thugs.
Mr. Joecks' motives are "transparent" he is married to Ms. Fulkerson so his agenda reeks of self interest. If he were a politician his conflict of interest crusade would probably merit an ethics review. His continual singling out the teachers union and no other union shows his intent. Help his wife achieve the goal of lowering teacher's wages. He is behaving illogically driven by self interest and immaturity. The day I see an article written by him that discusses administrator, support staff, and police unions and advises them to quit, I will eat my hat!!!!!! I must say his lack of articles addressing administrator, police, or support staff salaries and functions just show his unethical behavior and helps discount everything he writes.
In the current version of the CCSD administrative phone book, there are approximately 2075 names listed. These names are not the administrators of schools, but are the support offices and staff of the district. This represents approximately 5.4% of the 38000 CCSD employees. The salary and benefits listed in Transparent Nevada for that listing total over $170,000,000, yes ONE HUNDRED SEVENTY MILLION DOLLARS! That amount for 2012 will probably be higher because of part year hires or vacant positions. The 2011 total represents approximately 10% of the personnel budget for CCSD for the 2012-2013 school year, which is approximately 1,70,000,000. The average salary for every person on that list comes to over $82,200. Of the 2075 names on the list, 440 have titles like superintendent, associate superintendent, chief financial officer, director or coordinator. That is approximately 21.2% of the names. That doesn't include people with titles of managers or supervisor, nor does it include principals, assistant principals or deans of students in schools. This is a link to the phone directory.
http://ccsd.net/district/directory/resou...
This is a link to Transparent Nevada.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/cl...
I ran a listing on Transparent Nevada for people with the title Administrative Secretary.
There are 174 people on that list with the titles of Admin Secretary. Transparent Nevada shows the salary and benefits paid to those people range from $143,720 to $15,048. That amount, when compared to the other amounts probably represents a person who worked for less than the entire year. There are 151 names on that list who make more than a teacher with a bachelors degree and maximum experience. That amount, including pay and benefits is $57,563. There are 62 people on that list who make more than $71,919 which is the maximum amount that a teacher with a masters degree and maximum experience makes including salary and benefits. This is a link to that listing.
http://transparentnevada.com/salaries/se...
Correction, the 2012-2013 CCSD personel budget is 1.7 billion or 1,700,000,000. I left out a zero.
Here is the text of this Communist organizations plea to get teachers to quit the union:
"Teachers are able to drop CCEA
membership from July 1 to 15
Little-known window gives teachers option to save $768 a year
By Victor Joecks
Nevada is a right-to-work state, but once teachers in the Clark County School District join the Clark County Education Association, their ability to leave the union is tightly restricted.
That's because of Section 8-4 of the contract between CCSD and CCEA, which states:
Any teacher desiring to have the School District discontinue deductions previously authorized must notify the Association in writing between July 1 and July 15 of each year for the next school year's dues and the Association will notify the District in writing to discontinue the employee's deduction.
From July 1 to 15, most teachers are on vacation and school-related activities are the furthest things from their minds.
This year especially, however, there are many reasons teachers may want to send a note to the CCEA address on McLeod Drive and opt out:
Reason 1: Union bosses are enriching themselves on teachers' union dues
As the Las Vegas Review-Journal first reported, CCEA, in 2009, the latest year for which data is available, spent more than a third of its $4.1 million budget on just nine of its employees. John Jasonek, then-executive director of CCEA, took home over $625,000 -- $205,745 for running the union and $423,863 for simultaneously running two union-affiliated organizations. All the nine employees each took in over $139,000 from CCEA and related organizations.
Even though it's common for union bosses to have fat-cat salaries, these salaries are staggeringly high. Sandra Miniutti, vice president of Charity Navigator, an organization that evaluates nonprofits, called the CCEA salaries "out of the ballpark," the Review-Journal reported.
Exorbitant salaries for union bosses while teachers are struggling financially. That's how union bosses spend teachers' money.
Reason 2: CCEA is moving from a service model to an organizing model
Here's how CCEA describes itself on a job posting for a "Lead Organizer".
The CCEA is an advocacy organization that has embarked on the following changes:
Transitioning from a service model to an organizing model;
What does that mean to individual teachers? An AFL-CIO publication defined the service model as "trying to help people by solving problems for them." In contrast, a Labor Research Review article states, "The organizing model emphasizes the need for member mobilization, collective action, and militancy."
In other words, while a service model involves union officials ostensibly serving members, the organizing model seeks to turn teachers into fist-waving union militants.
If you're a teacher who's just interested in teaching and not yelling and cursing at the Board of Trustees, union bosses have made a conscious decision to move the organization away from serving you.
Reason 3: It would save you $768 a year
What does $768 mean to the union? It would pay for .12 percent of the union executive director's combined 2009 salaries.
What would $768 mean to you? A mortgage payment? A vacation with your family? Monthly massages to melt away the stress of teaching? Less worry about finances? New shoes and clothing for your children?
You can spend your own money better than a union boss who takes your money to fund his $625,000-plus per year in salary.
Reason 4: In the last few years, more than 1,500 teachers have left CCEA
Increasingly, teachers are recognizing that the union does not serve their interests. Leaving the CCEA is a growing trend. In 2007, 13,012 teachers were CCEA members. In early 2012, of CCSD's 17,486 teachers, only 11,406 were CCEA members.
Reason 5: Alternative professional educator associations offer better benefits for less
CCEA tells teachers that a real benefit of joining is a $1 million liability protection policy for teachers. Naturally, teachers like knowing they are protected financially from lawsuits from disgruntled students.
Even better insurance and benefits than CCEA offers are available from national, non-partisan professional-educator associations. The Association of American Educators is one such organization. For only $15 a month, AAE provides members a $2 million liability insurance policy, legal protection and supplementary insurance options.
So, if you're a teacher who dislikes CCEA union bosses lining their pockets with your dues while moving away from serving you, consider opting out.
July 1 to July 15 is the next opportunity for teachers to leave CCEA. You need only send the union written notice at:
Clark County Education Association
Las Vegas, Nevada
A generic opt-out letter, including CCEA's address, is available here.
From July 1 to 15, the choice is yours.
Victor Joecks is communications director at the Nevada Policy Research Institute. For more visit http://npri.HatredOfTheAmericanWay//.
___________________________
Copyright 2012 Nevada Policy Research Institute. NPRI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan think tank that seeks private solutions to public challenges facing Nevada, the West and the nation. An independent organization, the Institute neither seeks nor accepts government subsidies. It exists solely through the generous support of individuals, corporations, foundations and trusts.
Contributions are tax deductible under section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code."
I say:
The fact they have been given access to all email addresses of district teachers should be grounds for terminating Dwight Jones and the NPRI should immediately lose its tax exempt status. They are as nonpartisan as Rush Limbaugh.
One important point that teachers considering the foolish action of dropping membership in CCEA is that NONE of the alternatives mentioned by NPRI negotiate contracts. That means, if CCEA didn't exist the school district could pay what they wished with NO contractual protections for teachers.
Is that what you want? If it is, then follow NPRI's advice. If not, keep your membership. If you are not a member, consider joining.
See my posts above about the pay for individuals listed in the CCSD phone book.
Roslenda- average $74K - ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!
Um, Roslenda, that 10-yr firefighter you talk about who now makes 45K after a massive paycut makes about what I make after ten years of teaching - but without a massive cut. If I made what firefighters or police (including school police) make I could take a cut. (Though where you get minimum wage coming out to 45K for the firefighters in Scranton is beyond me.)
Oh, and by the way, I no longer get step raises (a raise of about a thousand dollars per year) because I have a bachelor's degree plus 32 grad credits, which means that after nine years the only way I can get a salary raise is to get a master's degree (lots of time and money) plus another 32 grad credits after that (lots more time and money). And the conservative powers are trying to stop that.
So I may never, ever get paid more than I'm paid now, no matter how long I teach and how many hours per week I work - and it is well over 40. I am looking for a way out, thanks to people like you. Keep it up and only idiots will become teachers.