Major Rifts in State Teachers Union
* On April 19, Wayne Johnson, the newly elected president of the powerful California Teachers Assn., came down to a lowly regular monthly meeting of the faculty representatives of the Orange Unified Education Assn. That’s CTA’s local affiliate that serves as the collective bargaining agent for the teachers of Orange Unified School District.
Johnson harangued that little group of teachers about how they must stand united behind the current CTA-anointed president, who was running for reelection.
On April 29, I was elected OUEA president by an overwhelming two-thirds of the vote. I have previously been vice president for four years and secretary for two years.
My election as president was also an overwhelming repudiation of CTA by the teachers of the Orange Unified School District. They stood up to the CTA steamroller.
After my victory, I didn’t receive the traditional congratulations that CTA typically affords to the new presidents of its locals.
I don’t expect to ever get CTA’s congratulations.
Perhaps it’s because in December I waged a battle alongside the teachers of the Santa Ana district who were trying desperately to fend off CTA’s push to imprison the teachers of that district in a CTA “agency shop.”
Perhaps it’s because I have charged CTA with betraying OUEA teachers in order to protect payroll deduction of union dues, which allows CTA to collect dues money totaling $93,000 per month without asking members for it.
If there were no payroll dues deduction, CTA would have to ask each of us to write a monthly check. Few of us would.
JOHN ROSSMANN
Tustin
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