Posts tagged school districts
California Teachers Association president denies organization ordered coordinated strikes | California Politics 360
March 17, 2026 // "CTA doesn't line up contracts," said CTA President David Goldberg, stating local unions coordinated the effort that was then supported by the statewide group, not mandated. "It's the result of the conditions in which educators are working under decades of disinvestment." Goldberg noted that teachers statewide are asking for better pay and more resources for students. He said school districts in the Sacramento area, such as Twin Rivers and Natomas, are "hoarding millions." But school districts are not cash cows or revenue generators. Several school districts impacted are struggling financially, and they rely on state tax dollars. California has been grappling with back-to-back-to-back state budget deficits that are expected to persist over the next several years.
Willamette Week: Impending PCC strikes might be testing ground for new benefits law
March 10, 2026 // Last year Oregon became the first state in the nation to pass controversial legislation allowing workers on strike to collect unemployment benefits. The law went into effect Jan. 1. Two unions of employees working at Portland Community College could go on strike next week.
Youngkin administration moves to protect public employees and taxpayers from union excesses
May 27, 2025 // First, the regulations would expressly extend to public employees the right to select a union pursuant to a secret-ballot election. In so doing, the proposed rules would protect public employees from being pressured or coerced into unionization via the infamous “card check” process, by which union organizers approach employees directly about publicly signing union petition cards. In its brief comment on the proposed regulations, the Virginia Education Association (VEA) claimed that, “All collective bargaining resolutions adopted by Virginia school boards, to date, provide for free and fair secret ballot elections…” But, as the Freedom Foundation documented in its comment, this is simply incorrect:
Unions are failing to protect the privacy of members from hackers and DOGE
April 11, 2025 // Last year, Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which serves 100,000 California state employees, also fell victim to ransomware. And in a similar lack of transparency, the California union masked what happened behind vagaries and euphemisms, calling the crime “a network disruption by an outside actor.” This dereliction of duty comes at a great cost. Following another data breach, UNITE HERE, a New York-based labor union that exposed 800,000 people to a data breach, paid $6 million in out-of-court settlement. In 2023, a Boston union lost $6.4 million of member health funds to hackers. Most corporations have sensitive personal information. And that comes with a duty to protect it
Hackers Ransom 500,000 Union Members’ Personal Information
March 23, 2025 // The attack targeted the Pennsylvania State Education Association (PSEA) and impacted more than 500,000 individuals, including public school teachers and support staff. During the breach, hackers accessed individuals’: Date of birth. Social Security numbers. Driver’s license numbers. Passport numbers. Bank account information, including account and routing numbers and passwords. Credit and debit card information, including card numbers, PINs, and card expiration dates. Health insurance and medical information. Why does the PSEA have access to all this information, especially since most have nothing to do with work or union representation? Simply put, unions often obtain personal information to contact employees about political causes and union organizing outside the workplace. They also send unpaid dues to collections.
Complaints allege Idaho school districts’ collection of union dues violates state law
March 23, 2025 // According to Freedom Foundation research, Idaho school districts collected at least $4.4 million in union dues from the paychecks of about 5,000 teachers’ paychecks in 2023 alone. The funds are divided among the district affiliate, the statewide IEA, and the Washington, D.C.-based NEA, which received about $1.1 million of the dues collected that year. Using government records, the complaints document how the NEA spends tens of millions of dollars on political activity and lobbying each year, including $1.8 million spent on Idaho since 2018 including, most recently, a $20,000 contribution to Idaho Students First, a political committee focused on backing the union’s preferred state legislative candidates in the 6th District in the 2024 general election. Bonneville, Caldwell, Coeur d’Alene, Idaho Falls, Kuna, Lake Pend Oreille, Marsing, Middleton, Mullan, New Plymouth, Post Falls, Shelley
Ending the free ride: How school tax dollars subsidize union activity and politics in Missouri
February 26, 2025 // In 2018 and 2020, the NEA and MNEA together spent more than $3.2 million bankrolling high-profile Missouri ballot campaigns over legislative redistricting and government ethics. A component of their effort — which remains on the books to this day — was an amendment to the state constitution that strictly prohibits Missouri state lawmakers and candidates from engaging in political fundraising on state property. Despite seeking to enforce this principle on others, however, teachers unions like the MNEA are one of the few — if not the only — special interest groups that regularly abuse it by routinely taking advantage of taxpayer-funded school resources to support their own political agenda.
REPORT: How government unions work against interests of private-sector unions, taxpayers
January 22, 2025 // First, there is no archetypal profit motive in the government sector. Congress passed laws promoting collective bargaining in the private sector to prevent the exploitation of workers by employers who were seeking to increase their profits through long work hours and poor working conditions.
Government Unions are Down — But Not Out
September 10, 2024 // For nearly a decade, the Commonwealth Foundation has tracked state-by-state changes in labor laws. Every two years, the Commonwealth Foundation releases its research on the ever-changing legal landscape for public sector unions, assessing each state’s efforts to promote public employees’ rights or cave to unions’ entrenched influence. This fourth edition examines government unions’ attempts, following Janus, to hold onto and expand special legal privileges under state laws. The research also highlights the states reining in government unions’ power and influence by empowering workers.
Illinois school official sounds alarm over personnel shortage as school begins
August 22, 2023 // The Illinois Association of Regional Superintendents of Schools conducted an Educator Shortage study and found that 76% of school districts reported problems with staffing shortages. “At first it was a teacher shortage. Then there was a teacher shortage crisis. Then it was a teacher shortage catastrophe, and it just escalates,” IARSS President Mark Klaisner said. Klaisner said some downstate districts are trying to come up with ways to open their schools despite a lack of educators.