Teachers’ Unions 101: ‘A’ Is for ‘Agitation’

[Geee]

National Review:


If public-school teachers spent more time teaching in classrooms and less time community-organizing in political war rooms, maybe taxpayers wouldn’t feel as ripped off as they do. Before the Big Labor bosses start complaining about “teacher-bashing,” let’s be clear: An increasing number of rank-and-file teachers feel exactly the same way.

Retired New York teacher Vinnie Cusimano, who was required to pay forced union dues in order to work, wrote me this week after receiving the March 2011 edition of his union’s monthly publication. The cover of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) magazine reads: “Defend What Matters! Educate. Collaborate. AGITATE.” Inside the pamphlet, NYSUT president Richard Iannuzzi rails against “malicious politicians” in Wisconsin and elsewhere proposing “extreme anti-union” budget cuts. He urges his members to join “advocacy” efforts to “maintain critical resources” and lectures about the need to “value education over ideology and greed.”

Cusimano, who taught for four decades in the Empire State, fired back at Iannuzzi in an open letter: “As a member for over 40 years, I have never been so disappointed at the stand you are taking to call members to ‘AGITATE!’ We are trying to tamp down the rhetoric and you are outward[ly] inciting agitation. How dare you! You are supposed to be for the students/teachers. . . . How can you support ‘EDUCATE,’ ‘COLLABORATE,’ and then encourage agitation?”