Do Your CTU Dues Benefit You, or Just A Lucky Few?

Do your CTU dues benefit you, or is your money going to a lucky few?

And Social Justice for All – CTU could be a union of social movement seeking social justice for all, but the current corporate model it espouses under AFT seems to be only benefiting a few.

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ~ Lord Acton

     Let me begin by stating that I am a strong supporter of unions as a movement to create greater equity and opportunity in our society. I believe in the collective power of the masses to initiate changes that will benefit the greatest number of members in our society. The way unions were organized amid dire threats and violence to improve the lives of workers as they fought for living wages, limits to the workday and workweek, and safer conditions in the workplace was heroic. I appreciate the sacrifices that teachers before me made to improve working conditions and student learning conditions. I also believe that hard work outside of contracted hours deserves fair payment. However, as I review the 2016-2017 and 2017-2018 budget for the Cleveland Teachers Union (CTU), it isn’t pride or admiration that swells within me.

     While my net pay is less than it was before our recent two-percent increase, the latest budget proposal approved at the CTU May 2017 delegate assembly shows a 7.89% increase in the CTU President’s Salary from $38,000 to $41,000 (line item 70190). This is in addition to the President’s Second Salary and benefits reimbursement (line item 70195) that increased from $100,000 to $108,000. Those line items do not include the annual expense account for the president of $2500 (line item 70200), and the president’s automotive stipend of $3600 annually (line item 70201). Combined, being president of the Cleveland Teachers Union provides a benefits and salary package of $155,100. Plus, the president no longer has to teach in a classroom under the stressful and oppressive mandates that everyone else is subjected to (TDES, TBTs, SLOs, SGMs, etc.) because CTU work is a president’s full time job. I am not advocating for less for anyone, but I am questioning why all of us are not seeing a similar increase in benefits. I am questioning why the CTU president has an additional union salary that is higher than what our paraprofessionals make for an entire year of work. I am questioning why the Cleveland Metropolitan School District’s Chief Executive Officer, Eric Gordon, has declined an automotive stipend in his past two contracts, and has agreed to increases in his salary that are comparable to what teachers receive, yet the union president has a car stipend and a union salary increase that is almost four times what teachers received.

     Here are several other line items that members may ask about in the latest budget, since our dues have increased to almost $1000 per year:

• Why is there a 43.75% increase for the 5 trustees (line item 70235) from $3840 each to $6000 each?
• Why is the telephone bill $26,000/year (line item 70125)? Is that what it costs to provide all of the union executives union-provided iphones?
• Where are the receipts for the committee expenses? How do the two or three parties that the Social Committee (line item 70250) has each school year cost the same amount as workshops provided a few times per year by the Salary and Benefits Committee (line item 70255) or the Civil, Democratic and Human Rights Committee (70260)?
• How much money and how many resources could we save by providing online digital versions of publications instead of paying the full $9600/year (line item 70280)? Why are we paying a retired CTU member to run the Critique instead of hiring an active member?
• Why did the amount for AFT/TEACH conventions double from $15,000 to $30,000 (line item 70320)? Are we questioning why AFT is spending more on these conventions when membership is lower?
• Why did OFT go from 0 to $20,000 (line item 70325)? How does that one convention within our state cost 66% as much as the AFT/TEACH national convention? In a state in which teachers, public schools and unions have been under a barrage of attacks, will spending this much money on the convention produce results? Will attendees leave with more than OFT party favors? Will they leave with skills and strategies to fight the decimation of public education that they can share with members?
• How does sending union executives or other union members to professional development conferences for $29,500 benefit students or rank-and-file members? What do those who attend bring back from these professional development conventions that we do not already have or cannot already obtain from members in CTU? (line items 70335, 70336)
• Why are we paying so much for parking (from $16,000 to $18,000 line item 70217)? The residential rate is $150/month at the Halle Building. It costs $1800/person for 10 people to have monthly passes year round, so who gets monthly passes? Do our offices have to be downtown, or could they be in a less expensive neighborhood that needs some revitalization?
• Why are we paying so much for rent and electricity ($200,000/year line item 70120)? We could purchase a $750,000 dollar building for that amount in Cleveland over the course of five years, employ local union laborers for repairs and upkeep, and not have to spend money on rent or parking ever again.  Would a financial adviser recommend an upfront investment that could save money for members in the long term?  
• Why is there a 3% increase in Staff Salaries (line 70215)? How are there still union salary steps and levels when this sort of system has been destroyed for everyone still in the classroom full time?
• Does the financial incentive (line item 70215) of being a union executive (with allowable hours away from classroom assignments) contribute to a climate of corruption within our union? Remember when there was a suggestion by union executives to stop mailings to members’ homes, even though those mailings cost our union absolutely nothing? Luckily, the idea was defeated because the alleged complaints about receiving home mailings were not more fierce than the complaints by members concerning other AFT mailings (I’m really sick of AFT trying to sell me insurance and credit cards, but welcome alternative perspectives from rank-and-file-members in my mailbox).
• Why are CTU members paying more in dues than ever before, and paying higher salaries for union positions than ever before, yet our membership has dropped over the past 15 years by approximately 40%? Shouldn’t less membership mean less work to be done, less salaries to be paid, and less positions that need filled?

     Over a century of political and economic attacks on teachers, teacher unions and public education are also an attack on women, children, and the working class. Huge pay inequities between men and women and women’s suffrage were driving forces among early social movement unionists and activists like educator Margaret Haley, and social justice activist Susan B. Anthony in 1853. Those early activists recognized the connection between protecting teachers’ rights and students’ rights when it was time to negotiate contracts and working conditions. Currently, an evolution in large urban teachers unions, like Chicago and Milwaukee, has reclaimed the social justice roots of unions, aligning themselves with community groups and other unions to improve the communities in which they work, and the lives of their students as part of a comprehensive strategy to improve education for students. AFT President, Randi Weingarten’s, continued support of charter schools, which were formed to decimate unions and undermine public schools, is a strong indication that we cannot rely on top leadership to guide us in a shift back to social justice unionism. It must begin from within our local unions by rank-and-file members who recognize the union as a medium for democracy and social justice activism, not as an entity that suppresses dissent in order to maintain the power and benefits of a few.

Link to May CTU Approved Budget Documents