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At least one courtroom trial of greed and corruption ended quickly and quietly this week. A little too quietly. On Monday, Barbara Bullock, former president of the Washington [D.C.] Teachers Union, pleaded guilty to stealing $2.5 million from the union treasury to buy jewelry, custom tailored clothing, seasons tickets to Redskins and Wizards games, limousine service, catered food, and other miscellaneous luxury items. Two additional union officials have yet to be charged.
The U.S. Department of Labor has used this case to raise awareness of the urgent need for more accountability among labor leaders. Unfortunately, the media has been too busy hounding corporate and investment defendants to pay attention to this case that was so clear that Ms. Bullock didn’t attempt to deny the charges in court.
While corporations face increasing regulatory scrutiny, unions have remained virtually untouched for nearly the past fifty years. The last major effort to increase scrutiny and accountability within unions was in 1959. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao is focused on dramatically changing that.
“This case involved more than just the ethical failures of a few unscrupulous officials,” said Chao in prepared comments following the guilty plea. “There was also a failure of accountability, an absence of oversight, and a lack of concern for the well-being of union members.”
It is those union members who should be up in arms about this case, and about the overall lack of visibility into how their union dues are spent by labor leaders. Unfortunately, the most vocal union members are too well versed in their pro-union rhetoric to recognize the need to protect the workers from exploitation by the very organizations that were originally formed to save them from such a curse.
In many parts of the country, teachers are required to join the local teachers’ union and the largest national teachers’ union, the National Educational Association (NEA). The NEA also happens to be the largest union of any kind in the country. Teachers in right-to-work states are often highly pressured to join the NEA, even facing financial penalties if they don’t.
How do the unions spend all the dues they collect from teachers and other workers? Who knows? For example, the NEA claims to not have spent any of the $2.5 billion they collect each year on political activities. By IRS definition those activities are “intended to influence the selection, nomination, election or appointment of anyone to a federal, state or local public office or office in a political organization or the election of presidential or vice presidential electors,” and by law, such expenditures are taxable. However, the Landmark Legal Foundation has performed detailed research and found this to be patently untrue.
- The NEA’s Strategic Plan and Budget for 2000-2002 included nearly $2 million for a “coordinated state-specific campaign developed and implemented to elect bipartisan pro-public education candidates in the 2000 general election.”
- The NEA’s budget for 1999-2000 included over $75 million for the UniServ program, which Landmark quoted an unnamed source to describe as “the largest army of paid political organizers and lobbyists in the U.S., dwarfing the forces of the Republican and Democratic national committees combined.”
- Landmark quoted Randall J. Moody, NEA’s federal policy manager: “Politics move our policy. We work through UniServ.”
- At the 2000 Democratic National Convention, 10% of delegates were NEA members, and NEA President Bob Chase endorsed the Democratic candidate: “Al Gore is a man whose heart and priorities are exactly in the right place.”
The NEA is also very aggressive in supporting ungodly policies. According to Focus on the Family, just this Thursday, the NEA bought breakfast for as many members of Congress as could stomach listening to the NEA’s verbal attack against abstinence-based sex education programs. The NEA regularly takes aim at traditional values, supporting homosexual rights, abortion, and the “rights” of students to access online pornography.
The association isn’t open to hearing from those that disagree. In fact, the annual NEA convention has become a regular scene for reasonable proposals from Christians to be laughed out of the hall. The union even ignores its legal obligations to allow members with personal religious convictions to ensure their dues aren’t spent on ungodly causes. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission has found that the NEA has failed to honor those rights of its members.
So, if you’re a union member, you should be questioning where your money is going. Is it paying for limo rides to Redskins stadium? Or is it just being spent to attack Biblical principles? I’d sure want to know.
Contact Noah.
