They are overshadowed by one of the most tumultuous Presidential primary campaigns in decades, but California’s June 7th primary ballot has local tax and bond proposals in numbers that, in aggregate, ought to be generating vigorous public debate. Next week voters will be asked to approve 46 local bond measures totaling $6.18 billion in new debt, along...
With the California Chamber of Commerce announcing yesterday that it will oppose the Proposition 30, income tax extension, the question arises if a campaign will come together to match the financial firepower that the teachers, medical professionals and other public employee unions bring to the table in support of the measure. Officially, the word from the...
It’s election season, so every California Democrat politician is out there on the campaign trail, precinct walking with their “friends” in labor, and speaking to labor organizations and anyone else who will listen. They are speaking with one voice–that ” we are proud to stand up for working families.” This may sound like a great...
As a follow up to my post of last week (Anti-Choice Teachers Unions Want to Take Control of O.C. Board of Education), former State Senator Gloria Romero has penned another excellent op-ed piece in the O.C. Register. In Celebrating National Charter Schools Week Senator Romero not only noted that this week is a time to...
Everyone agrees that education for our children is a critical pathway for those children to grow into adults who are ready to earn a living and become responsible members of our society. Unfortunately labor unions including teachers unions have a different focus – to benefit their union bank accounts with your tax dollars more than...
The union and media reactions to the appeals court decision in the Vergara case had me going through a whole can of room deodorizer. In 2014, the plaintiffs in the Vergara trial claimed that several California education statutes – all of which are on the books at the behest of the teachers unions – cause...
The public employee pension problem isn’t new, but a teacher union leader’s defense of it has sunk to new depths. According to the Federal Reserve, public employee pensions in aggregate nationally are in serious trouble. Currently totaling $5.8 trillion, they are underfunded by $1.7 trillion. While all these pensions are draining public resources, Don Boyd, director...
An open letter to the idealistic teacher in Chicago who may have defied the teachers union by not striking on April 1st. In a recent newspaper article you said you were “morally and ethically” against the Chicago Teachers Union one-day strike (or “Day of Tantrum,” according to a Chicago Tribune op-ed) last Friday and that...
Government employees will still be forced to pay coercive union dues after the Supreme Court deadlocked on a California teacher’s lawsuit against her union. The court released its ruling on Freidrichs v. California Teachers Association, splitting 4-4 along ideological lines. The tie handed a victory to the union since the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals...
As charter schools continue to succeed, the reformicidal teachers unions ramp up their assault on them. Month by month, the teachers unions have been increasing their barrage of malevolence toward charter schools, which are nothing more than publicly funded schools of choice that are trying to break away from the rigidity of Big Education/Big Union...
Rebecca Friedrichs, a third-grade teacher in the Savanna School District, which serves portions of northwest Orange County, is the lead plaintiff in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a lawsuit brought by several teachers that challenged the hegemonic power of their union to collect fees from non-union members. The challenge, made on First Amendment grounds, could...
Positioning themselves as strict Constitutionalists, teacher union leaders cry foul over a precedent that the unions helped create. In the wake of Antonin Scalia’s untimely passing, two national teacher union leaders are in a self-righteous snit because the Republican-led Senate is remaining firm in its conviction to hold off consideration of a new Supreme Court...
During the industrial age, labor unions played a vital role in protecting the rights of workers. Skeptics may argue that enlightened management played an equally if not greater role, such as when Henry Ford famously raised the wages of his workers so they could afford to buy the cars they made, but few would argue...
Unions continue to undermine the independence and effectiveness of citizens bond oversight committees at California school and community college districts. In December 2015, the elected board of trustees for the Rancho Santiago Community College District voted 4-2 to reject an application from the President & CEO of the long-established Orange County Taxpayers Association to serve on...