OEA Retiree: "OEA is once again wasting time and member goodwill"

OEA employees on strike

The Ohio Education Association (OEA), Ohio’s largest government union and We Are Ohio’s biggest in-state donor, has quite the history of strife with its own employees. Since OEA takes hundreds of dollars a year from public teachers in return for “organizing” and “solidarity,” this should be a huge red flag to Ohio taxpayers.

Here’s one of many revealing blog posts from the Professional Staff Union (PSU), which represents more than 100 OEA employees (note – union staff have deleted or blocked access to content critical of OEA; view a PDF copy):

The following message is from PSU’s brothers and sisters at CORE:
Our PSU Brothers and Sisters are in a stranglehold grip by OEA management–or so OEA management would like to believe. For OEA staff retirees, well, we’ve “been there, done that!” In what appears to be from the playbook of previous OEA management contract-gutting-proposals, OEA is once again wasting time and member goodwill (as well as public PR) on another impotent showing of bad management.

Why the bitterness from a retired OEA employee?

Remember the impact of the 1997 strike when dozens of retirees–including former OEA Executive Director Glenn Darr–descended on the OEA headquarters building when OEA was proposing take-backs in insurance and retiree health insurance (yes, post-65 insurance). We not only carried signs and created a huge crowd, but we spoke on TV about OEA’s two-faced management stance. Who can forget Glenn Darr speaking to the press about OEA’s mantra to members of “no take-backs” in support of continuing our lifetime health-care benefits bought and paid for in previous negotiations.

Fast forward to 2009…PSU and OEA negotiations opened with a take-back proposal that would have had a local association on the street and OEA management crying “foul.” But as we know only too well, OEA management can forget who they really represent and what they stand for when THEY go to the bargaining table with hard-working staff…the very ones who keep local membership dollars coming in to OEA coffers.

Cross-posted at that hero.