Why Unions are bad

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Teachers' Pets The NEA gave $65 million in its members' dues to left-liberal groups last year. Tuesday, January 3, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
If we told you that an organization gave away more than $65 million last year to Jesse Jackson's Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups, you'd probably assume we were describing a liberal philanthropy. In fact, those expenditures have all turned up on the financial disclosure report of the National Education Association, the country's largest teachers union.
Under new federal rules pushed through by Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, large unions must now disclose in much more detail how they spend members' dues money. Big Labor fought hard (if unsuccessfully) against the new accountability standards, and even a cursory glance at the NEA's recent filings--the first under the new rules--helps explain why. They expose the union as a honey pot for left-wing political causes that have nothing to do with teachers, much less students.

We already knew that the NEA's top brass lives large. Reg Weaver, the union's president, makes $439,000 a year. The NEA has a $58 million payroll for just over 600 employees, more than half of whom draw six-figure salaries. Last year the average teacher made only $48,000, so it seems you're better off working as a union rep than in the classroom.



From The Barking Moonbat Blog
Unbelievable! Simply unbelievable! The union that represents the nation’s teachers has been exposed for the leftist crooks they are. The NEA union officials pay themselves roughly ten times what the people they represent earn and to top it off they spend $65 million funding leftist organizations of all kinds. Two questions: (1) how does this money they give to these groups help teachers? and (2) what business does a teacher’s union have spending union dues on these blatantly political movements? Is it any wonder your average twelfth grader can’t read, spell or do real math but has a head full of liberal propaganda?

Where I live the teachers are about to bankrupt the city in their demands for more pay, while the city is out of funds. The teachers should look to their own leadership for help. They should drop their union dues until the union represents them responsibly. I wonder how many conservative teachers are forced to fund these organizations by proxy.