ARCHIVE PAGE 47
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- Whack 'em--there's more of us
- The Washington Education Assn. is bad for your children, your country
- OLYMPIA (Thursday, 2-10-00)--The little Evergreen Freedom Foundation and massive Washington Education Association are engaged in a mongoose-snake battle for teachers' rights--and ultimately citizens' rights--in this state.
- Given the politics of most Eastern WA chain newspapers, you might not have read about it.
- The nubbin of the battle currently is whether all teachers must be forced to pay WEA dues (about $650 a year)--or forced to pay a $650 "fee" for WEA services--even if they know WEA money goes to support Democrat causes and candidates.
- Should conservative or Republican teachers--estimated to make up 40% of all Washington's teachers--have to pay to help elect Gary Locke? Or Patty Murray? Or Bill Clinton and Al Gore? Conservative teachers say "no".
- But so far, the WEA has been able to wrangle the money from these dissenting teachers--even though it's against the law. There are several reasons for this:
- • Public schools have been slow to implement RCW 42.17-680, the "paycheck protection" statute. This law says"No employer or other person or entity responsible for the disbursement of funds in payment of wages or salaries may withhold or divert a portion of an employee's wages or salaries for contributions to political committees or for use as political contributions except upon the written request of the employee." Schools take the money out of paychecks. But they may not leave a proper paper trail. If they don't, they're breaking the law.
- • The WEA is so powerful it exerts untoward influence on politicians at all levels of government and in many ways. The teachers' union is the closest thing to a seriously functioning, well-funded, brown-shirt, socialist government this state has ever known.
- • The WEA's local tentacles--e.g. Sunnyside Education Association or regional Political Action Committees--are everywhere. WEA is so powerful it affects school board elections, and thus school board members, and thus school administrators and their decisions. Teacher's unions have literally wrested local control of schools from parents and taxpayers.
- • WEA works hand-in-glove with the even more enormously powerful National Education Association. The NEA's avowed goals are to keep Democrats in office, to fund the fed Dept. of Education, exert real control over American culture, and dumb down our kids to accept global government.
- The WEA's tactics are outrageous, but typical of bullies. Its top Olympia staff make six-figure salaries. All their bucks come from the hides of underpaid local teachers.
- The Evergreen Freedom Foundation has filed effective suits and countersuits against the WEA, which are beginning to open up information contained in the belly of this beast. We'll write more when we learn more.
- Meanwhile, the teachers unions are damned big, damned ugly, and damned mean. The entire school community fears the wrath of the WEA, whose political tactics can border on thuggery.
- Yakima Valley News offers a police section which names and provides mugshots of those arrested for violent crimes. We tell readers who violent thugs are, where they live, their phone numbers, what they've done, and to whom. Readers can drive up to thugs' front porches when they take a notion.
- We have done the same for the beloved Internal Revenue Service.
- In a similar manner, YVN will write more about the ubiquitous teachers' union in weeks to come. We'll name the suspects, tell what they're doing or have done, and use the bright light of public scrutiny in an attempt to help curb their awful power.
- Power over your kids and your country.
- -- (LA)