Bully Image Inaccurate, Teachers’ Unions Say

Jimmy Hoffa would not have been impressed.

Facing a looming $2-million budget shortfall two years ago, Thousand Oaks school officials asked teachers to make a sacrifice--accept a 4% drop in salary. The district’s bleak financial outlook left no other choice, administrators said.

“We concluded that they were right,” recalls Hal Vick, executive director of teachers’ unions in Thousand Oaks and Simi Valley. “If we didn’t do something, they weren’t going to make payroll.” Reluctantly, teachers agreed to the cut, which was restored in negotiations this month.

So much for the reported militancy of teachers’ unions.

“I think a lot of people have a perception of teachers’ unions . . . that is not accurate,” said Larry Harlan, who oversees numerous local unions for the umbrella California Teachers Assn. “I think a lot of people perceive unions to be run by a big figurehead--like the Hoffas of the Teamsters. But that’s not the way our teachers’ unions operate.”

Although GOP presidential candidate Bob Dole has slammed the nation’s teachers’ unions for resisting educational reform, the majority of Ventura County educators dismiss the criticism as so much political posturing.

Rather than bragging of the strikes they have won, the county’s union officials boast of the strikes they have averted. Rather than talk about how they have backed their bosses into a corner, local unions like to tout the way they work in cooperation with school districts. In fact, the most publicized work action of recent years was a threatened strike in Simi Valley that never materialized.

*

Many of the county’s more than 4,000 teachers even prefer the term “professional organization” over “union.”

This county’s unions are democratic to a fault, educators say, adding that the 22 unions in the area are the only voice for an under-appreciated and over-scrutinized profession.

Be it the United Assn. of Conejo Teachers or the Oxnard Federation of Teachers, unions negotiate for better salaries, ensure that school districts adhere to contracts, lobby for safer working conditions, set up scholarship funds for teachers’ children and organize professional conferences, supporters say. As many as 90% of Ventura County’s teachers are union members.

Many educators from Ventura to Simi Valley sound much like Jerry Morris, a proud Conejo Valley union member.

“I think it’s the union that helps promote the profession,” said Morris, who teaches government and economics at Thousand Oaks High School. “It pushes high standards for teachers; it lobbies for educational reform. It’s the union that works hand in hand with the school board and the administration. A strong professional organization makes sure educational goals are met.”

A few vocal critics--teachers and school activists among them--say teachers’ unions intimidate or cajole unwilling members into joining the rank and file.

While numerous goals of Ventura County teachers’ unions are admirable, the powerful groups have schools in a stranglehold, some say. To hear naysayers describe them, unions protect lousy teachers from dismissal, lobby against school voucher initiatives and merit-based pay and intimidate their membership into backing inappropriate political stances on everything from gun control to abortion.

“I am not a fan of the politics of the teachers’ union,” said Wendy Larner, a conservative member of the Ventura County Board of Education. “The unions do not take positions that necessarily improve the quality of education or promote children’s or parents’ issues. They’re labor organizations.”

*

Beyond the rhetoric, teachers’ unions and their critics face substantive issues: their reliance on so-called agency fees, where teachers who don’t join their locals still pay for collective bargaining; their generally liberal political activism in largely conservative Ventura County, and their opposition to changes in education, including merit-based pay and school vouchers.

Taking into consideration the size and resources of a district, a teacher’s depth of experience and number of advanced degrees and certifications, and the negotiating clout of the local union, Ventura County teachers make good salaries and work in safe conditions.

The county’s lower-paid teachers generally work in smaller districts. Mesa Union teachers, for instance, made between $23,097 and $47,176 last school year--the most recent reporting period. Salary strength is tepid too in the county’s largest school district, Simi Valley, which has a recent history of administrative turnover.

Paychecks were robust last year in the Conejo Valley and Ojai districts, where, for instance, a teacher could expect to earn between $29,545 and $50,601. Those top salaries are not far below those in the Los Angeles Unified, where the powerful United Teachers-Los Angeles holds sway.

Salary alone is not an accurate measure of a union’s power, said Stan Mantooth, assistant superintendent for business and personnel services for the county. Some unions forsake raises in favor of better benefits or more classroom materials.

The financial lifeblood of any union is dues. The 800 teachers in the Conejo Valley, for instance, pay about $600 a year in exchange for getting contract negotiators, liability insurance and assistance should their jobs ever be threatened.

Of the $600, which is usually taken in payroll deductions, $98 stays in the Conejo Valley. About $100 goes to the National Education Assn. and $380 is sent to the California Teachers Assn. The CTA then returns half that money to the locals to pay for office space, secretarial staffing and salaries for their executive directors, which run in the $60,000 to $85,000 range annually.

In most county school systems, a teacher either joins the union or is required to pay what is known as an “agency fee”--a portion of dues, usually about 70% to 80%, that goes to cover the cost of being represented in contract negotiations, but not political involvement.

*

On the scale of union commitment, getting an agency fee is a step below having a closed shop--where every eligible person is required to join. Teachers who are “objecting fee payers” see scant difference between joining a union outright and merely compensating the union for helping to provide better wages and benefits.

“I considered it to be a closed shop,” said one former Conejo Valley elementary teacher who paid the agency fee. “As soon as they had the right to take money out of my paycheck, that was a closed shop in my opinion.”

Some teachers oppose unions on religious and financial grounds. Others just aren’t joiners. One Conejo Valley elementary teacher who paid an agency fee was uncomfortable with some of the union’s political stances--including opposition to Proposition 187, which denies some social services to illegal immigrants.

“I didn’t like the idea of part of my money going to support [political] positions I disagree with,” said the woman, who asked not to be identified. “I really didn’t get into teaching for politics. I love the kids and that’s why I love teaching.” It seemed, she added, a little coercive to be compelled to pay the union for bargaining on her behalf.

On the contrary, agency fees ensure that teachers pay their fair share for contract negotiations, according to Harlan. If a teacher takes a raise brokered by a union, he or she should help pay for it.

But paying dues or an agency fee means backing some thorny political stances, some teachers say.

Given the one-teacher, one-vote nature of education associations, almost any political issue can wend its way into becoming an official resolution of the two big national teachers’ unions, said John Weiss, president of the Ventura Unified Education Assn.

“There are certainly things that have crept into our resolutions that don’t have to do with education,” he said.

Among them are official positions on world hunger, government covert operations, environment restoration, abortion and tolerance toward all races, creeds and sexual orientations.

The majority of the NEA’s planks, though, relate directly to student preparedness and teacher safety in the classroom: The importance of technology; accommodations for blind, hearing-impaired and even left-handed students; gun control on campus; child care.

Those resolutions reflect the beliefs of the union rank and file, about two-thirds of whom describe themselves as Democrats or independents, according to a recent study by the Washington-based National Center for Education Information.

*

Of greater local concern are political endorsements, particularly since this area’s teachers are generally more conservative.

A current Conejo Valley teacher, who also requested anonymity, said she holds her breath and pays her dues, even though her union spends money to support presidential, gubernatorial and school board candidates more liberal than her. But others point out that teachers’ unions back local Republicans, including Oxnard’s Nao Takasugi and Los Olivos’ Brooks Firestone for Assembly.

Teachers’ union endorsements transcend traditional politics, said teacher Mike Hozman, a Republican.

“We don’t look at whether a candidate is a Democrat or a Republican,” said Hozman, who teaches math and science at a Thousand Oaks middle school. “We don’t look at whether a candidate is liberal or conservative. We look at how a candidate votes on issues that affect public education.”

As a result, many teachers from Simi Valley to Santa Paula take a dim view of school choice.

“If the vouchers could stay within the public sector, you would find that we would not be as opposed to vouchers as we are now,” said Ventura’s Weiss, who is also a teacher at Anacapa Middle School. “What we are opposed to is any public monies going into private or religious schools.”

Views such as those stifle educational reform on a local and national level, critics contend, as does the union’s protection of poor performing teachers.

Most teachers give themselves wholly to their students and their parents, said Debra J. Lorier, a conservative candidate for the Conejo Valley school board. “The union protects teachers, educators who should be terminated. Yes, they deserve due process, but not to this extent.”

*

Administrators--not unions--already have power over hiring and firing, counters Susan Falk, president of the Conejo Valley local. If principals carefully track infractions, she said, it’s easy to fire a substandard teacher.

To preserve education’s good name, union members counsel poor teachers to leave the profession, Morris added.

“I’ve been a teacher a long time, and I don’t believe there are any more incompetent teachers in the classroom than there are incompetent doctors in the operating room or incompetent carpenters still working in home construction,” Morris said.