Today, the National Right to Work Foundation announced it will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission on behalf of two Alabama educators and itself against the National Education Association teacher union and two NEA affiliates for an illegal political fundraising scheme by the union hierarchy:

Washington, DC (January 13, 2009) – The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation announced today it will file a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) asking it to investigate charges made by two Alabama educators who discovered a union scheme to divert their money into the National Education Association’s (NEA) political action committee (PAC).

Claire Waites, the chair of the science department, and Dr. Jeanne Fox, an assistant principal, both work at Daphne Middle School in Bay Minette, Alabama. Waites and Fox are both members of the Baldwin County Education Association (BCEA), Alabama Education Association (AEA), and NEA teacher unions.

In July 2008, Waites and Fox attended the NEA’s annual convention in Washington, DC, as delegates of the BCEA. By telephone, BCEA union president Saadia Hunter informed Waites and Fox that contributions to a “children’s fund” in their names were made from money included in their expense reimbursements for their trip to the convention.

Read the rest of the Foundation's press release here. A PDF copy of the complaint is available here.

Speaking of the Wall Street Journal, its editorial on Pennsylvania teacher union bosses' pathetic and disgaceful practice of ordering teachers to abandon schoolchildren during frequent strikes is also quite informative:

Teachers unions routinely claim that the interests of students are their top priority. So we would be interested to hear how the Pennsylvania affiliate of the National Education Association explains the proliferation of teacher walkouts in the middle of the school year.

According to a recent study by the Allegheny Institute, Pennsylvania is once again the worst state in the country for teacher strikes. No less than 42% of all teacher walkouts nationwide occur in the Keystone State, leaving kids sidelined and parents scrambling to juggle work and family, potentially on as little as 48 hours notice required by state
law.

The strikes take place despite the state's ranking in the top 20% nationwide for teacher salaries in 2006-2007 -- the most recent data available -- with an average of $54,970. Those paychecks go even further when adjusted for the state's cost of living compared to top-spending school districts in places like California.

Unsurprisingly, the status quo is perpetuated by the unions' corrupt relationship with local politicians:

Pennsylvania taxpayers aren't pleased. Last year, a bill to prohibit teacher strikes was introduced in the state legislature by Todd Rock and 28 co-sponsors, only to be sidelined thanks to union opposition. According to a group called Stop Teacher Strikes, 75% of state legislators between 2004 and 2006 received teacher union money. The office of Governor Ed Rendell, who received more than $500,000 in teachers union political action committee cash for his 2006 re-election bid, called the strike ban a "radical response" to the problem.

Simon Campbell, president of Stop Teacher Strikes, explained the connection between compulsory unionism and failing schools at this year's Concerned Educators Against Forced Unionism (CEAFU) conference:

Via the Education Intelligence Agency, we learn that (surprise!) Pennsylvania teacher unions oppose attempts to improve public education through the enactment of reforms that could threaten the teacher union monopoly and forced-dues gravy train (emphasis mine):

What do [reformers] think stands in the way...? For Simon Campbell, president of the Yardley-based StopTeacherStrikes.org, the answer is simple: teachers unions.

Mr. Campbell is a resident of the Pennsbury School District in Bucks County that faced a teacher strike in Oct. 2005. For 21 days, 11,500 students were kept out of school, including two of his kids.

"I am really just a parent who got kind of fed up one day," he said. Since the strike he has advocated energetically for abolition of teachers' right to strike. Currently, 37 states do not allow their teachers to strike.

The Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA), a division of the National Education Association which is the nation's largest teachers union, takes in about $80 million a year in dues and boasts about 185,000 members statewide, Mr. Campbell said.

"The real business that they're in is collecting union dues," he said. "They are organized like a machine at the grassroots level."

And what do the NEA bosses spend all that money its dues-collecting machine rakes in on?

Bombarding teachers' families with political propaganda is apparently a high priority. Too bad six year olds don't vote . . .

Here's our latest press release on the Foundation's efforts to defend the rights of religious objectors to refrain from supporting union activities that offend their deeply-held beliefs:

Cincinnati, Ohio (September 24, 2008) – National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff attorneys recently obtained settlements with the National Education Association (NEA) union for two teachers whose consciences would not allow them to pay mandatory dues to support a union involved in activities they consider immoral. Geralyn Buening and Tessy Huwer, both practicing Catholics, objected to the NEA’s positions on abortion and special rights for homosexuals.

Title VII of the Civil Rights Act forbids discrimination against religious employees and requires companies and unions to attempt to reasonably accommodate employees’ sincerely-held religious beliefs. The obligation to accommodate includes the payment of compulsory union fees, as no employee should be forced to fund a union that engages in activities that offend their religious convictions.

The Ohio teachers originally filed charges against the NEA teacher union with the Ohio Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), alleging that the union was in violation of their rights as religious objectors. In return for withdrawing the charges, the settlement allows the teachers to redirect their mandatory agency fees to the Make-A-Wish Foundation, rather than pay any funds whatsoever to a union hierarchy steeped in objectionable social activism.

Read the rest of the press release here. For more on the Foundation's efforts to ensure unwilling Ohio teachers aren't forced to fund morally objectionable causes, check out here and here.

Considering the record electioneering by Big Labor in 2008, it should be no surprise that union bosses were well-represented at this week's convention. NEA President Reg Weaver was one of the many union officials awarded for his union's political expenditures with a prime speaking slot.

Larry Sand, a teacher for 27 years and former NEA member, sent Weaver an e-mail after listening to a gross misrepresentation of reality in Weaver's DNC speech:

In the first paragraph you say, "I am here today on behalf of 3.2 million NEA members to tell you why we support Barack Obama for President of the United States." Wait a minute. It sounds as if all 3.2 million members of the NEA are supporting Obama. Then in the last sentence, you leave no doubt. "That, my friends, is why the 3.2 million members of the National Education Association are organized, energized and mobilized to help elect Barack Obama as the next president of the United States of America." This last statement is an outrage.

You have been quoted on more than one occasion that "the NEA is one-third Republican," which means that there are over one million Republican NEA members. It is audacity of the highest order to state unequivocally that these people will be "organized, energized and mobilized" to vote for a Democrat. I have been a classroom teacher for over 27 years and for many of those an NEA member, before resigning from the "Association" several years ago. I would strongly urge you to issue an apology to those Republicans still in the NEA and the American public in general for what really is a ludicrous statement.

If Weaver ever gets around to apologizing, he shouldn't only do so to the million-plus members who are Republicans since as many more are independents. Not to mention the countless Democrats who aren't in lockstep with the radical agenda of Weaver and the NEA's top brass -- many who may not even be supporters of Reg Weaver's presidential pick. And remember, these teachers are forced to finance the NEA's political activism.

As it happens, Mark Mix, President of the National Right to Work Foundation, has an op-ed on the problems of teacher union monopoly power in today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. Also check out this column in the Providence Journal from Gary Beckner, executive director of the Association of American Educators, a nonprofit professional teachers association that is entirely voluntary.

According to The Hill, NEA union officials are gearing up for an effort to dump between $40-$50 million dollars, much of it in compulsory union dues, into the 2008 elections. NEA chief Reg Weaver leaves no doubt about it:

“We plan to be very aggressive,” said Reg Weaver, the NEA’s president.

Perhaps many teachers would be better off if the NEA union and its affiliates were not so aggressive. For instance, the Ohio branch of the NEA told St. Marys district school teacher Carol Katter to "change religions" when she asserted her right to divert her mandatory dues from political causes she disagrees with on religious grounds.

However, with help from the National Right to Work Foundation, Katter struck down an Ohio law preventing such "religious objectors" from diverting such forced dues to charity unless they belonged to certain state-approved religions.

"I was not going to give one cent to those causes," Katter told the Ohio media. "I know where NEA money goes, and I never wanted to be part of that."

A new study conducted by the National Institute for Labor RelationsResearch (NILRR) explains how monopolistic teacher unionism is undercutting math and science education across America.

Stan Greer, senior research associate at NILRR, discusses entrenched teacher union officials and their influence over the “single salary schedule” used to determine teacher pay rates:

And teacher union officials have so far been very successful in blocking significant reforms of the single salary schedule because of state and local public policies authorizing them to act as the “exclusive” (monopoly) bargaining agents of all the K-12 teachers in a school district.

Visit the NILRR’s website here and download the full report here.