To: WIS Colleagues
From: C. Rosenlee, HSTA President
Date: 5-23-2017
Posted by J. Grabar
| Brothers and Sisters of the Hawaii State Teachers Association:
Next school year will be a very trying time for all unions across the country. With the election of President Trump and the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, anti-union forces are pushing court cases that will erode worker rights by forcing all states to become “right to work.” Right to work may sound nice, but it should be called “right to work for less” or “right to freeload.” In these cases, people receive all the benefits of a union without having to pay for them. The union still negotiates the contract and fights for its members, but some people will choose not to pay for those crucial services. Who does pay? The teacher next door has to pay for the person who pays no dues and who still reaps the benefits of the union. That is why unions call it the “right to freeload.”
When HSTA went on strike in 2001, one teacher crossed the picket line at Roosevelt High where I was working. Unlike us, that teacher got paid during the strike and still received the salary increases that all the rest of the teachers on the line struck for. That is not fair, nor is reaping the benefits of a union without paying your fair share. That is why in 1977, the Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the case of Abood v. Detroit that fair share fees are legal. Now, this is most likely going to change. In states where right-to-work legislation has passed, teachers and other unions have seen pay and employees’ rights severely decreased.
As members of HSTA, our desire to give our keiki the schools they deserve and the need to protect union and workers’ rights is too important to allow this to happen without a fight. This past weekend, HSTA’s Board of Directors began adjusting and prioritizing our budget to ensure that our core mission and our ability to advocate for and organize our members will not be diminished. Some of the major changes include reducing the state convention from once a year to once every two years and funding fewer people to attend the national convention. These budget cuts were difficult and I thank the board for making these tough decisions.
I ask everyone reading this email for your help. Reach out to all teachers and have that vital conversation on what it means to you to be part of HSTA. Maybe it’s the better pay or benefits of a contract or getting air conditioning for your classroom, fighting for student travel, or knowing that a UniServ Director’s protection is only a call away. Maybe it’s the $1 million liability protection at no cost to you or how the union is able to bargain for lower prices on insurance programs, the classes HSTA offers for professional development so you can improve your practice and your paycheck, or that as a united union, we advocate for social justice for our keiki and our community.
We need to be there for each other and that is how we stay strong as a union. They may try to take away workers’ rights, but they can’t take away our union.
In solidarity,
Corey Rosenlee
HSTA President
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