BETSY DeVOS: DECLARED THE “WORST EDUCATION SECRETARY EVER!”

…Betsy DeVos:  Worst Education Secretary ever!

Anti-union groups are taking to social media to urge teachers to actually quit their unions.

I come from both a military and a union family.  My father was in both the US Navy in WWII, and in the US Army during the Korean Conflict.  He was also later a “dues-paying Journeyman Electrician in the IBEW”.

I personally was neither in the military nor in a union, but I have always questioned the concept of those non-union workers having to pay a fee for not joining a union.  Oh, I am aware that those non-union workers would also receive the benefits of the union’s wage negotiations and other benefits, so I understand the basis of those “agency fees”.  But for a supposed, “free nation”, I always thought that instead of their paying a fee, a worker that didn’t believe in joining a union, should not be allowed to receive those negotiated union level wages or benefits.

But in any case, all of that is now a moot point as today’s conservative US Supreme Court has turned around that 1977 decision that allowed the unions to collect those non-union, “agency fees”.

Today, the unions are reeling from the US Supreme Court’s recent 5-4 decision in the Janus v. AFSCME case.  In this case, the court’s conservative majority struck down those laws that allowed public-sector unions to collect “agency fees” from nonunion members to help cover the cost of collective bargaining and other benefits.

Labor Unions are now preparing to take in less money, and the National Education Association (NEA), the largest public union in the country, is cutting $28 million from its budget and is expecting a decline in membership of nearly 15%.  The American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the NEA, both delivered tough speeches at their annual teachers conventions.

The presidents of both teachers’ unions mentioned today’s massive strikes staged by teachers in a number of states earlier this year to protest low pay and inadequate education funding, declaring that a new era of teacher activism may be here. They didn’t happen to mention that the majority of those strikes were not actually conceived and led by these national unions.  They were examples of grass-root activism from the teachers themselves.

The real problem for the teachers is that conservative groups in the US are today waging a major social media campaign to persuade teachers to quit their unions.

However, the NEA President Lily García has said that the United States is living in “dangerous” times when today's US, “billionaires believe that they are our rulers.”  And I totally agree with the AFT President, Randi Weingarten who in her speech called Betsy DeVos, the Trump Education Secretary, “the worst education secretary in US history”.

Meanwhile, the anti-union groups have been taking to social media on Twitter, Facebook and other media outlets to urge teachers to actually quit their unions. The Mackinac Center for Public Policy in Michigan, for example, is pushing its “My Pay My Say” campaign to help union members opt out of their memberships. (This center has in the past been funded in part by the DeVos’ family foundation, more on that later.)

The Guardian newspaper recently published a story saying: “Documents obtained by the Guardian reveal that a network of radical conservative think-tanks (Like the Heritage Foundation) in all 50 states is planning direct marketing campaigns targeted personally at union members to encourage them to quit. The secret push, the group hopes, could cost unions up to a fifth of their 7 million members, and lead to the loss of millions of dollars in income and this would undermine a cornerstone of US progressive politics.”

However, on the same day of the Supreme Court’s 5-to-4 “Janus” ruling, the New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) signed an executive order barring groups from obtaining the personal information of teachers and other government employees. It was an effort to stop conservative organizations from reaching out to educators about leaving their union. Cuomo called the Janus decision an effort to “destroy” America’s labor movement.

But, upon hearing about all of this, and knowing that for the conservatives to wage this kind of war on the teachers’ unions, this must be costing someone a lot of money.  I then started looking into who was financing this kind of activity?  

Here is what I have learned:

• The Donors Trust/ Donors Capital Fund has provided millions of dollars in support of convincing the teachers to leave the unions.  Some of those donating millions to this organization are Charles Koch of the billionaire Koch Brothers.  And as previously mentioned, the Education Secretary, Betsy DeVos, her father-in-law was the late Richard DeVos, the co-founder of the giant AMWAY company.  It is the Richard & Helen DeVos Foundation that has donated millions to the Donors Capital fund.

• The Lynde & Harry Bradley Foundation has donated millions to Donors Capital Fund.

• The conservative Heritage Foundation is a major supporter of this conservative organization.

• The Scaife Foundation and the John M. Olin Foundation, have together donated $40 million annually.

• The Dunn Foundation has donated over $60 million to conservative groups that support this effort.

• As expected, the conservative Cato Institute totally supports this effort for teachers to quit the unions.

Now you know where a portion of this vast financial support for the “worst Education Secretary ever” is coming from.

Copyright G. Ater 2019