Why Didn’t We Know Randi Weingarten Was a DNC Member?

Teacher unions are practically a wing of the Democratic Party.  No, it’s worse.  Teacher unions are actually a wing of the Democratic Party.  The heads of both national teacher unions, the AFT and the NEA, were actual members of the Democratic National Committee.  It’s news that Randi Weingarten, the head of the AFT, resigned from the DNC because nobody knew she was a member.

Being a DNC member is not the same as being a registered Democrat. The DNC is responsible for setting the party’s national platform, overseeing presidential nominating conventions, and coordinating campaign and fundraising efforts.

President Franklin Roosevelt was a Democrat and a big supporter of private sector unions.  FDR didn’t think that public sector unions were appropriate.  He said,

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.

It’s deeply unethical for the head of a government union to set policy for the government.  That happens when a Democrat is elected to office.  They are playing both sides against the middle.  Government officials and government employees are on the same side, against the citizens.

Most of the Covid crisis took place while we had a president from the Democratic Party.    There was no reason for schools to be closed, and the damage to American children is substantial.  Some conservatives blamed the teacher unions, but that always seemed unfair.  Knowing that the heads of the AFT and NEA were members of the DNC, it’s likely that they set the policy for educational issues.  They are entirely to blame.

While a public school teacher, I would not join the union.  I had a number of reasons to not join the union, but one was the unethical nature.  The union helps with the campaign to get a school board member elected.  The school board negotiates a collective bargaining agreement with the union.  Then, the board and the union hit up the district residents for more money.

The leaders of my local union were almost always congenial and respectful to me.  On my first day at Normandy and North Royalton, the union president presented me with paperwork to join the union.  I declined, and in both cases, we had a good conversation about my objections. 

At one point in my time at Royalton, the union president would email campaign literature for the Democratic candidate in the upcoming election.  I told him that it wasn’t appropriate to use district resources that way, and at the least, remove me from the distribution list.  He basically told me to suck it.

All of the other union officials were good people, and even offered to represent me when a problem developed with school administration.  I never tried to get people to quit the union, and they didn’t try to get me to join.  I also didn’t think I should attend union meetings or vote on union issues.

Education Week conducted a survey of teachers prior to the 2024 election.

That survey shows that 50% intended to vote for Harris, 39% for Trump and the rest for a third party.  The standard number is that about 40% of teachers are conservatives, so this survey is not surprising.

Consider how messed up that is.  40% of teachers are pressured to support a political party that they find objectionable.  It used to be a condition of employment to join the union.  For most of my career, I was required to pay an amount equal to union dues.  This was called “fair share”. 

In the Parma District, the collective bargaining agreement permitted me to direct that money to a charity.  At North Royalton, the CBA stipulated my fair share money to the union.  That felt like a blatant disregard of my political beliefs.  The union president agreed with me, and attempted to get that clause omitted from the next CBA.  Before that happened, the game changed.

The Supreme Court’s decision in the Janus case made it illegal to require membership in public sector unions and the mandatory payment of dues or fair share.  That was a blow to teacher unions, but since they confiscated my money for so long, I don’t have any sympathy.

There is a lot of corruption in American government.  More should be done to expose it.  Everyone should have known that the teacher unions were running educational policy for Democrats.