The Tacoma “Education” Association has continued its corrupt tactics today by attempting to manipulate a Pierce County judge. The TEA resorted to its argument that orders to halt a strike do not apply to those who are striking. When informed of the obvious mistake, the union started looking for loopholes. They talked about how the union can’t be held responsible for the actions of their members, only the union itself, executives, and officers. This comes after the union held a vote at the Tacoma Dome regarding whether or not to continue the illegal strike. How could they have had that vote without the union itself and executives and/or officers going against court orders (the temporary restraining order does not allow them to lend “support or assistance of any nature to strike, work stoppage, or slowdown against the district)? Even if you can squint your eyes to the point that the union members are technically correct, this strike has definitely relied on illegal activities.
School has already been cancelled for Monday. Unfortunately, the union has been shockingly quiet. I have struggled to find their side of the story. According to the district (relayed by the media), the teachers have decided to continue their defiance. With the judge specifically stating that the union was wrong and that the court order DOES apply to union members, this is even more obvious that they are breaking the law.
Like I said, I have really only heard from the district. That isn’t entirely fair to the teachers, so I visited the TEA’s website (weteachtacoma.org). I can honestly say that I feel dirty right now. Getting to the point, they did not mention anything about continuing (or ending) the strike. What they did say is that the district is negotiating in bad faith because there is still time to get a contract by the end of the weekend. This seems to imply that teachers would be at work only if the contract dispute had been settled.
The website also talked about how they were trying to negotiate in good faith and that the district was not. They used the existence of a counter-proposal as proof of their good faith negotiating. What did they try to address? The issues of teacher pay. Good faith is more than just offering a counter-proposal. There were some reports that they were actually asking for more money (on a day when the state announced another big budget shortfall with more teacher cutbacks likely). The TEA conveniently left any details of their proposal off of their website.
I just double-checked their site to make sure that I didn’t miss it. They added some new text where they insist that they did not ask for more money like the district claims. I’m not a legal expert, but I’m still suspicious. The teacher’s position all along was that the district was supposed to eat into their reserves to partially offset a legislative cut (regaining 1% of 1.9% cut). The offer on the 16th states “Keep Current Contract pay scale, District makes up legislative cut of 1.9% out of the 14% reserve fund balance.” Even more interesting is that the base salary that the district is reporting for the TEA proposal is less than on the TEA’s website. (Proposals on TEA’s site appears to be more recent). It sounds to me like the latest deal wants the district to pay off the legislative cut completely.
It sounds to me like they ARE asking for more money than they did before the court order to bargain in good faith. How do they get away with the deception? Technicalities. They are actually saying that they are not asking for a pay raise. When added to the legislative cut, this amounts to no change in salary overall. The problem is, the district’s accusations were in comparison to their previous proposals rather than last year’s salaries.
Regardless, the TEA’s website seems to be lacking in facts but filled with opinion. This website is not meant to provide facts to union members. It is meant to provide them with opinions. The only reason that they added the most recent deceptive facts are because they were receiving criticism. Apparently, that criticism is deserved. Like always, the TEA is providing the best arguments against the TEA.
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