Saturday, February 25, 2006

Largest teachers union, AFL-CIO step closer

Largest teachers union, AFL-CIO step closer
By Greg Toppo and Brian Tumulty, USA TODAY 2/24/06
The nation's largest teachers union is poised to give its local chapters permission to join the AFL-CIO, setting the stage for a possible merger that could create a mega-union representing 4 million teachers and other employees.

Leaders of the National Education Association and AFL-CIO plan to announce on Monday that they will let local NEA affiliates join the AFL-CIO's central labor councils, local groups that coordinate union activity. The move would reverse longstanding policies separating NEA's 2.7 million members from the AFL-CIO, which includes the NEA's rival, the American Federation of Teachers.

Teachers in several cities and in three states — Florida, Minnesota and Montana — are already members of merged NEA/AFT unions. Teachers in New York are expected to merge this fall. The proposed agreement could pave the way for many more such arrangements.

NEA and AFL-CIO national leaders did not immediately respond to requests for interviews, but several local union officials confirmed the proposal and said they expect it to be announced at the AFL-CIO's Winter Executive Council Meeting in San Diego on Monday.

Dan Kaufman, spokesman for the Maryland State Teachers Association, an NEA affiliate, said he has seen the agreement. Wisconsin AFL-CIO President David Newby said he hadn't seen the exact language, but understood that it would facilitate more mergers. He represents 13 Midwest states as a non-voting member of the AFL-CIO executive council.

While NEA is not proposing a national merger, the agreement could help the AFL-CIO gain millions of members, replacing some of the more than 4 million it lost when several member unions broke off last year. It could also give the AFT a larger presence outside big cities.

"It's potentially very significant because it's no secret that there's a split in organized labor," says Andrew Rotherham, co-editor of the new book Collective Bargaining in Education. "The NEA, which has potentially millions of members, is essentially choosing a side."

The move could also benefit the NEA, which has suffered politically since 2002, when it began forcefully opposing President Bush's No Child Left Behind education reform law. AFT has been more amenable to some of the proposed reforms. "To the extent that there's less daylight between them, it's good for the NEA." Spokesman Dennis Tompkins of the New York State United Teachers, the AFT's largest affiliate with 525,000 members, said he was expecting Monday's announcement to confirm that dual affiliation is allowed.

"We've made the union stronger by bringing people with the same job titles and job descriptions under the same umbrella," he said.

Denis Hughes, president of the New York State AFL-CIO, estimated that 85% of the state's public employees, from teachers to public hospital employees, local highway departments and first responders, are unionized.

"This is a big move," said Mike Antonucci, a Sacramento-based teacher union watchdog who writes a widely read blog on unions.

A 1998 effort to merge the NEA and AFT failed after NEA members rejected it, but Antonucci calls the new agreement "a creeping merger" of the two unions, moving them closer to joining together. Together the two unions would represent about 4 million teachers and other workers, greatly impacting their bargaining authority.

But Antonucci said the proposal could create problems for the NEA, which generally puts every policy change — from major budget proposals to whether or not to authorize articles in its magazine on the dangers of perfume in school — to a vote at the union's convention, or representive assembly, each July.

"If they don't put it in front of the convention for some sort of vote, I'm pretty confident that someone's going to raise the issue," he said.

Brian Tumulty writes for Gannett News Service.