For a group claiming to defend teachers, We Are Ohio doesn’t hesitate to attack teachers who step out of line. In response to the Building a Better Ohio ad featuring Baltimore teacher Kyle Farmer, We Are Ohio released a pathetic YouTube response that begins with this:

Oooo-kay, “teacher” in scare quotes. Farmer publicly supports government union reform, so it’s fair to assume he’s a Republican. Does that mean he’s less of a teacher than peers who vote Democrat? Is that really an argument We Are Ohio wants to make?

We Are Ohio then proceeds, “Here’s What Real Teachers Have to Say About Issue 2? – as if conservative political beliefs make a teacher a fraud. Cue a series of monologues diligently parroting We Are Ohio talking points: Senate Bill 5 was crafted in the fires of Mt. Doom! The GOP wants to steal our cars and kick our puppies!

Coming from union bosses who create propaganda for a living, this is amazingly stupid propaganda (and not the first example of it). Why should voters blindly accept We Are Ohio’s rhetoric? Because We Are Ohio claims to speak for all public teachers. Why shouldn’t We Are Ohio’s millions from D.C. unions cause alarm? Because We Are Ohio claims to be a nonpartisan group, floating above petty politics.

Truth is, you’d be hard-pressed to find a more partisan bunch than We Are Ohio. Union bosses are so desperate to smear a teacher who won’t toe the union line, they’ve taken an axe to their own platform.

Teachers, make sure your voice is heard – unless you’re a Republican, in which case you can go straight to Hell. (Thanks for the dues, though!)

Cross-posted from that hero and Third Base Politics.

Before an Ohio Education Association (OEA) staffer wiped the content from the official Professional Staff Union (PSU) blog, emails from OEA leadership played a starring role on its “Hall of Shame” pages. Apparently OEA decided the public shouldn’t see what union bosses think of their own employees.

OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks,
paid $190,000 in 2010,
crosses her employees’ picket line

Here’s part of an email from OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks:

I can say that in my opinion PSU is excessively aggressive in its rhetoric, almost outlandish in its rendering of the OEA positions, and very close to the vest about what their members make relative to what contract raises they’ve negotiated for US in the past two years.

Surely Ohioans aren’t expected to treat OEA employee talking points as gospel except when they disagree with OEA bosses – right?

Also–note that some PSU people are more vocal and adamant than others–of course they have a strategy–they’re the folks who teach us how to negotiate.

Here, the OEA president sounds like the OEA vice president: Frost-Brooks accuses OEA staff of putting on a show, while affirming that OEA does the same thing to taxpayers. “Of course they have a strategy” – berate the evils of management until management caves.

but [sic] they’re also the same folks who’ve gotten our locals 0-2% contracts for the past year. They need to live in our economic world, in my opinion.

In OEA President Patricia Frost-Brooks’s economic world, you’re paid $190,000 a year to pat yourself on the back for demanding unsustainable compensation while demonizing reforms that would reward the best educators. Speaking of excessively aggressive rhetoric:

In a message to her members, Ohio Education Association President Patricia Frost-Brooks called the bill’s passage a “final stamp of approval on an attempt to silence your voice as an advocate for Ohio’s children.”

She said SB5 was “a clear attempt to gut the ability of educators, nurses, firefighters, police and all public employees to have a voice on the job,” adding that it “does nothing to create jobs and instead gives politicians free reign to cut public education in Ohio.”

“An attempt to silence your voice” – like, for instance, by deleting an official staff blog. Is this sort of transparent class warfare what Ohio teachers have in mind when they fork over hundreds each year in OEA dues?

As a graduate of an Ohio public school, I can say without a doubt that handsomely-paid, wildly hypocritical OEA bosses do not speak for all Ohio teachers. On November 8, vote for sensible reforms that will empower taxpayers instead of professional agitators: Vote Yes on Issue 2!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

Before some Ohio Education Association (OEA) staffer pulled the plug, the official Professional Staff Union (PSU) blog featured a number of emails from OEA bosses. As OEA employees represented by PSU fought for their contract demands, the bosses of Ohio’s largest government union reassured concerned members.

OEA VP Bill Leibensperger:
Paid $186,471 in 2010

Here’s one of OEA Vice President Bill Leibensperger’s September 2009 emails, which figured prominently in the now-defunct PSU Blog’s “Hall of Shame”:

As your representatives, we value the contributions of our professional employees as well. I don’t take the rhetoric and posturing to heart.

By “rhetoric and posturing,” Leibensperger is referring to the complaints and criticisms of OEA employees against OEA. Interesting, since OEA uses the same “rhetoric and posturing” when fighting elected officials for taxpayer dollars! From another Leibensperger email (view source as PDF):

You know the negotiations process and understand posturing and rhetoric.

This seems awfully close to an admission that OEA’s entire business model is founded on cynical theatrics. Here’s yet another email from OEA’s vice president:

It is unfortunate that some of our professional staff use only one technique with these kinds of issues, and that is to gin up the emotions and play fast and loose with the facts. It seems especially cruel these days.

Hello there, Kettle; haaave ya met Pot? I wonder what the OEA Vice President Leibensperger from late 2009 would have to say about the OEA Vice President Leibensperger from March 2011:

“This is a real war. I am not overstating it,” said William Leibensperger, vice president of Ohio Education Association, during an informational meeting for OEA members at the United Auto Workers Hall in Bath Township.

Or this Vice President Leibensperger:

“These amendments really shine the light on what this bill is all about, which is silencing the voice of people who collectively bargain on behalf of their members and, in our case, on behalf of the children we work with,” OEA Vice President Bill Leibensperger said.

Or this one:

Another teacher said the bill leaves them with no protections.

Leibensperger agreed. “SB5 is all about removing any and all protections. You’re vulnerable,” he said.

Take it from Leibensperger himself: when the union bosses behind We Are Ohio engage in rhetoric and posturing to gin up emotions, we shouldn’t take it to heart.

Need more proof We Are Ohio doesn’t deserve your trust? There’s plenty of it. On November 8, Vote Yes on Issue 2!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

How much can you learn from a 404 “File not found” error? Plenty, when it replaces content critical of the Ohio Education Association (OEA) - written by OEA employees.

When I stumbled across the official blog of a union representing more than 100 OEA staff, I could hardly believe how its authors reamed – over the course of 2+ years – the selfish, dishonest, hypocritical leadership of We Are Ohio’s biggest in-state donor.

In late August I began sharing quotes and context with readers of the Ohio sites I write for in my free time. By early September, years of union employees’ entries had vanished down the memory hole. Like this gem from 08/29/2009, which used to be at the web address above:

OEA apparently does not care that it is rife with hypocrisy, adamant in taking positions it tells its local affiliates to fight at all costs, and shortsighted.

Unfortunately for We Are Ohio, I printed every page of the OEA staff union’s blog to PDF a month ago. Here’s the full source for that quote. And here’s another example of what We Are Ohio doesn’t want you to see (view PDF):

The truth of the matter is that OEA failed to bargain in good faith with PSU.  In fact, they wasted five bargaining sessions before even responding with a written counter-proposal.  Does that sound like collaborative leadership?

Like the first quote, this OEA staffer insight was publicly visible until I began asking why Ohio voters should rely on union bosses who can’t be trusted by their own employees. Now…

Imagine, if you would, being paid heaps of public dollars to stand between elected officials and the voters who fund their operations. You don’t actually do any of the things taxpayers need, but you have considerable power over how much those services cost – and how they are (or aren’t) delivered.

The obvious brokenness of current Ohio law is why the unions created “We Are Ohio” in a desperate effort to market themselves as reg’lar folk. Senate Bill 5 threatens their cozy arrangement, and they plan to block reform using the usual tired lines about “solidarity” and “speaking for working people.”

What do you think – should Ohio voters buy what We Are Ohio is selling?

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.

A year ago the Ohio Education Association (OEA) forced more than 100 of its employees into a strike. Why should you care? Because the OEA is Ohio’s largest government union, and the primary in-state donor to union front We Are Ohio.

Opposition to the reforms in Senate Bill 5 means support for the status quo, with union bosses wielding vast power over public funds. Would you hand a blank check to an HR consultant with miserable people skills? That is the effective result of Ohio’s government union law, passed in 1983 on a party-line vote.

OEA Employees on Strike, Summer 2010

Though OEA employees most recently went on strike last summer, fights between the union and its staff represented by the Professional Staff Union (PSU) seem to recur each time the PSU contract expires. Here’s what one OEA employee had to say in an August 29, 2009 PSU blog post titled “STRIKE VS. RESOLUTION: WHY DOESN’T OEA ‘GET IT’?” [Update, 09-16-2011: Here's a PDF copy, since union staff have blocked access to the website]:

OEA apparently does not care that it is rife with hypocrisy, adamant in taking positions it tells its local affiliates to fight at all costs, and shortsighted.  Perhaps the only interest of OEA’s Bargaining Team is to “bring PSU to its knees”.  Be forewarned, those legs and knees are CARRYING OEA. If the work performed by members of PSU ends, OEA will undoubtedly topple very shortly afterward.

If the OEA management team truly cares about its members and the stability of the organization, it will bargain a fair settlement with its professional employees prior to September 1.

These are not my words, folks, or a quote from some sca-aa-ry Right to Work advocate. “OEA apparently does not care that it is rife with hypocrisy” – according to one of the union’s own employees! On November 8, vote for sensible reforms to the power of government union bosses. Vote Yes on Issue 2.

If you need it, there’s plenty more proof that OEA should not be trusted.

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.