+  Tim Dedman of the Kentucky Education Association wanted EIA to know that the result of last week's KEA vote on merger endorsed neutrality, not
opposition. A vote to support the merger was defeated, but no corresponding vote to oppose was offered. The union will thus send its delegates to the NEA Representative Assembly with no instructions in either direction. EIA stands corrected.
        Technically, every delegate is free to vote his or her conscience in the
privacy of the voting booth. But the political ramifications of the Kentucky
vote (as well as those in other states) remain the same — as the weeks pass, the chances of an NEA/AFT merger are teetering on the edge of extinction.
        Merger supporters got some good news. NEA state affiliates in Missouri,
Nebraska and Wisconsin voted to support merger over the past two weekends. In Missouri, debate was cut short by a quick motion to vote. The Nebraska State Education Association endorsed merger with a voice vote after a presentation by NEA President Bob Chase. Missouri and Nebraska rank 29th and 30th in delegate representation at the NEA convention. The Wisconsin win was a critical one for Chase. The state has 80,768 members (ranked 7th) and a proportional vote at the convention.
        The Utah Education Association held an hour-long debate on merger, but there was no report of any vote taken. About a dozen delegates addressed the issue, with pro- and anti-merger speakers equally represented.
        The Virginia Education Association voted to oppose merger after two days of debate. The voice vote was taken after a presentation by NEA officials. Affiliation with AFL-CIO was cited as the major reason for the proposal's defeat. Virginia is the 15th largest NEA state affiliate.

        The current scorecard reads this way:

Pro-merger (9.0%) — Wisconsin, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, 
Montana and New Mexico.

Anti-merger (8.4%) — Illinois, Virginia, Iowa.

Neutral (1.7%) — Kentucky.

+  Nancy Hooper, former office manager of the Fontana Teachers Association in California, was sentenced to 180 days in county jail, 500 hours of community service and ordered to pay $11,000 in restitution for embezzling from the union. Hooper pleaded guilty last October to eight felony counts of grand theft and a misdemeanor count of receiving stolen property. She had taken unauthorized advances on her salary and had charged $1,400 on the union's Visa card for purchases from QVC, Mervyn's and Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. An audit of the union's books found the discrepancies.

+  Janet Carrico, president of the Kentucky Education Association, testified
before a grand jury investigating the 1995 Kentucky gubernatorial race. The
grand jury was empaneled to look into charges that Gov. Paul Patton's campaign colluded with unions and a voter education group to spend money on voter outreach. Such an arrangement would be a violation of state law. Carrico's husband, Larry, also testified. He worked as a volunteer in the Patton campaign and was later appointed to head the anti-drug program Champions for A Drug Free Kentucky.

+  Duluth, Minnesota, school board chairman Harry Welty was fed up with being slammed by both sides in teacher contract negotiations. A former teacher, Welty saw himself as a moderating influence in the battle between the district and the union. But he became frustrated with the board's lack of movement, and was harangued by union president Frank Wenner, whose teachers sent 300 angry letters to Welty.
        At the end of his rope, Welty took a voodoo doll, pinned one of the teachers' letters to it and , in front of a throng of teachers lobbying for better
salaries, asked the doll to "exorcise the evil spirits" from the board. He then resigned as board chairman. The union, for its part, has authorized a strike should negotiations fail.

+  Crystal Page Rockwood resigned from her position as the Oakland, California, school district communications chief, citing a "climate of secrecy" within district management for her decision. "My view is this is a public institution and there are very few things that are confidential," she told the San Francisco Chronicle. "I have been asked to do things I am not comfortable doing." The Oakland district has been criticized many times in the past for stalling on public records requests. "There are daily occurrences in
our schools, where students are beat up; incidents that involve knives and
guns that never get reported to the public," claimed school board member Noel Gallo. "The principals try to handle it and hide what's going on so as not to scare people off."

+  The National Labor Relations Board will hear a grievance filed by the staff
of the Office and Professional Employees International Union (OPEIU), based in New York. In what has become a routine occurrence, staffers claim that their attempts to form an in-house union met with "intimidation, threats and
firings" from their union bosses. Former OPEIU organizer Dale Badoud claims he was fired because he tried to organize the staff. OPEIU President Michael
Goodwin denies the charges and says they are politically motivated. The case will be heard in June.

+  Quote of the Week: "If education were a business, it would be out of
business. We would shut it down and refuse to send our kids there." — Michael Marks, president of the Mississippi Association of Educators, the NEA state affiliate.