Here's more of the conversation with Alex Caputo-Pearl. Again, these hard questions must be answered by all candidates for union office and indeed all teachers who expect to make this a career must think about them too.
- .-.-.-.Alex Caputo-Pearl
- Michael P Dominguez I am disappointed to see and hear nothing from Alex and UP about Unjustly Jailed Teachers and working to create schools where abuse of teachers is not allowed. Will you be another Warren Fletcher on this matter? Should career teachers count on you to ignore our rights and run a union that exists only to collect dues? A UNION THAT DOES NOT PROTECT WORKERS RIGHTS IS LITTLE MORE THAN A SCAM!!!John Paul Cabrera Very interested in hearing how exactly our union will insure that there will be NO RIFS while LAUSD CURRENTLY has prop 30 funds and LCFF which last 7 years.
- Christine Ferreira From what I have read, part of the problem is that our dues are low in comparison to other large districts, which means that we simply don't have a bunch of money to pay for attorneys. Alex, are you willing to fight for a dues increase so that we can pay those attorneys?
- John Paul Cabrera Christine a LARGE percentage of our UTLA dues go to CTA, NEA and AFT. Ask what exactly are they doing to support us (UTLA members)???
- Christine Ferreira I don't think it is necessarily their job to protect us as individual members from our district. It is their job to do the organizing and political work on a statewide and nationwide level. And that's not really relevant. If a large percentage of our dues goes to NEA, CTA and AFT, then perhaps we need to be taking better care of ourselves, and our co-workers by increasing our dues so that we have a larger budget to work with.
- John Paul Cabrera Christine, while I agree about the dues part most other members will not. I also believe that since a LARGE percentage of our dues monies is being directly sent to CTA, NEA, etc they need to provide more effective assistance to us needs to be fully reviewed. Tell me, since you seem to know, what exactly have they helped UTLA members with lately? I can tell you that there are many members like myself who are angry that our money is being sent to these partners and nothing seems to improve.
- Christine Ferreira The passage of Proposition 30 comes immediately to mind. I am not arguing that it's a good thing that our money goes to them, although I do think it's good to have strong unions on a national level. I just think that we, as teachers, are the first to argue that if we as a society want appropriate services, ie. education, that we as a society have to tax ourselves to pay for it. I think the same goes for us as a union. If we want better services from our union, to defend us if we are accused of something and sent to teacher jail, then we might need to be prepared to increase our dues. I don't think most of us would miss $10 a month in our paychecks, and that would give UTLA $300,000 more to pay lawyers. That sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
- Michael P Dominguez "organizing and political work on a statewide and nationwide level." is part of protecting us, "as individual members from our district." A dues increase might help if it is used for protecting teachers but our union won't even back a $5 increase per month to go for member defence for those teachers who will be falsely accused.
- Christine Ferreira Which part of "our union" won't back the increase? The leadership? The house of reps? The membership? My personal feeling is that the house of reps is out of touch with reality, and has been for years.
- John Paul Cabrera Christine, I am not a teacher, I am a UTLA member and HHS member. We have been treated like second class union members by our union and LAUSD. I have worked for other government/union jobs and all I have to say is God help you if something goes wrong because grievances have been terrible for the majority of UTLA members I have spoken to.
- Christine Ferreira I know. I know someone who just retired from teacher jail and a couple of others who returned but were never the same. That's why I think we need to be supporting an increase in dues to fight this.
- Michael P Dominguez Leadership. Maybe the HOR is out of touch but leading requires that one lay out clear goals and a plan of action to advance a cause. I haven't even mentioned AFT or NEA. Randi Weingarten is all starry-eyed about Broad Academy, CCSS and getting rid of bad teachers and Van Roekel is mising in action. During this election we have to decide who needs whom. Do we need them as much as they need our dues?
- Michael P Dominguez Christine, please get these people in touch with me. I am collecting stories and will publicize what is going on on my blog, "Mean as a Snake." I'm not mean, I refer to LAUSD all of the time and UTLA when it doesn't support us. I'll keep everything confidential..-.-.-.-One more issue, some teachers are being sent back to school from teacher jail but they have targets on their backs. Tell me what you know about anyone in this situation and have them contact me. There are others that are being targeted at the school site with false charges but are left in the classroom. The teacher is hit with a suspension near the end of the semester or the school year. This of course means that teachers that the district says are dangerous to children are left in classrooms with children. Huh? We need the info on this too.
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