The Park Ridge Education Association turns folks out for Lobby Day. Maybe that’s one of the reasons the IEA leadership cancelled it for this year.
Spring is over in the Heartland.
Thursday night about eight inches fell on Chicago. That is enough to make the commute difficult but not enough for a snow day. A cold blast has now followed the snow. At 11AM it is fifteen degrees.
I’m still pissed and amazed at the news that the IEA leadership has cancelled Lobby Day in Springfield.
At a time when teacher union locals like Milwaukee and Chicago are mobilizing their membership in the tactics of direct action as never before, our leadership is telling its membership to stay home.
While the IEA Board of Directors voted to support Occupy Wall Street, its tactics reflect everything that the Occupy movement is not.
Why?
When I first became active in the IEA several decades ago, Lobby Day was an integral part of our organizing efforts. But as the ideas of interest based bargaining and new unionism took root in our Association, direct political action by the rank-and-file got phased out.
In the last few years, as the attacks on public employees intensified, Lobby Day was brought back from the dead. A few years ago more than 8,000 teacher union, community and school activists jammed the streets of Springfield for blocks around the Capitol.
Last year was the smallest Lobby Day since its rebirth. Asking teachers to go to Springfield to lobby for Senate Bill 7, which took away our seniority and tenure and restricted the right to strike in Chicago, was a non-starter. Teachers stayed away in droves.
The reason that the IEA leadership has given for canceling Lobby Day this year is that the Capitol building is under renovation and can’t contain us all.
This is nonsense. When the Park Ridge Education Association meets with our State Senator Dan Kotowski, he has always been willing to join us outside on the front lawn to speak to as many members as possible.
We don’t meet with Park Ridge State Representative Rosemary Mulligan anyway. A twenty year veteran of the House, endorsed each time she has run by the IEA, she wasn’t even able to collect the 500 signatures required to be on the Republican ballot this coming March.
I think the reason behind this year’s cancellation is that the IEA leadership and Government Relations want to control the message.
Several thousand teachers meeting with their reps in Springfield is a messy business. Last year, for example, our PREA members refused to lobby for SB7. In fact, we lobbied against it.
This is a crucial year for a Lobby Day. It is very likely that there will be two pension bills. One on the House side. One on the Senate side.
Senate President John Cullerton has suggested that the IEA leadership is willing to negotiate pension benefits. The IEA leadership has openly stated that they are willing to negotiate pension benefits as long as they are constitutional, “fair” and preserve the stability of the pension system.
The IEA Government Relations office, headed by Jim “there is no pension bill” Reed, is telling local leaders to visit their state reps at their home office instead of Lobby Day.
But Reed knows full well that this doesn’t have nearly the impact of thousands of teachers rallying at the state capital.
And will rank-and-file members be willing to repeat talking points that agree to changes in pension benefits?
Probably not.
NOTE: The IEA Board of Directors is meeting next weekend. If you agree with me that this is a terrible year to cancel Lobby Day, contact your Region Chair and tell them to get an explanation from the leadership and report back to you. Let me know what you hear.
Fred Klonsky 
Fred, you need to replace your blog header backdrop “Recall Scott Walker” with “Recall Cinda Klickna.” As I’d written to someone else, IEA members need to call their own Lobby Day right after all the schools are out because, of course, one’s school district would allow that day in May, as it was official. Since it won’t be (& you all know what a field day the Chicago Tribune would have with THAT–“133,000 Teachers Call in Sick; Don’t Care About Kids!”
So, let it begin with us, the retired teachers (one of which you will be come June, correct?!)–let’s roll on this one! I gladly volunteer to help organize this.
Yes, ReTiredbutMisstheKids, I will be one in June. Here is the way I look at it, however. I feel your sense of duty. As my wife said, “It isn’t cancelled if we all show up.” But first things first. There’s an IEA Board of Directors meeting next Wednesday. Region Chairs, who make up the Board, should ask why it is cancelled. Members should contact their Region Chairs this week and direct them to ask the question. This was a decision made without the input of the Board, which hasn’t met since November. Then there is the RA in Chicago in March. Delegates should go to the mic (with an orange sweater if necessary to get noticed) and ask the question again. See, we NEED an IEA leadership. We just need a fighting IEA leadership. I’m sure you are one hell of an organizer. But we pay our dues so that we have an organization that organizes. We should demand that the leadership do the job we pay them to do.
Yes, yes–I wholeheartedly agree with you! (I’m NOT at all “one hell of an organizer,” I’m just MAD as hell!!)
But–as I had written in an earlier blog, how about recalling Cinda Klickna? After what you’d written in an earlier post about the NEA Obama endorsement (while we’re at it, oust Dennis, as well) & the knuck-under response of the delegates (w/the exception of 30%
{I believe that’s the # you gave}), what can & will be accomplished?!
I hope that the Region Chairs & the RA can get this done, but, so far, not a good track record. I have the utmost respect for the locals–the one I belonged to for 34 years was FANTASTIC (so good, in fact, that the president’s chops were busted, the contract was so solid that I was able to bypass the silly & useless IEA Uniserv Director {who gets big $$$–& for what, we don’t know} to get a leave of absence {when she told me I couldn’t, then asked,”How did you do that?”–well, I READ our contract}, & filed a grievance on behalf of the special ed.students {yes, unions DO help students} so that they all would not be dumped into gen.ed. w/no assistance {&, yes, the grievance went all the way to the school board, & the students won!}).
In the meantime, do what Fred says to do (just like Pension Call Tuesday which, in some part, the IEA leadership is taking credit for–in all those “We Did It!” BS communications)–call the Region Chairs. BUT–one more thing–tell EVERY educator you know to read this blog. Especially your fellow IEA members. I believe the locals are powerful, even if the state structure is not.