March 10 , 2005 Volume 9, Issue 8

COSTCO
At the next General Membership meeting, March 14th, a representative from COSTCO will be there to give you information on becoming a member. If you sign up, you will receive a $10 cash card towards your purchase at COSTCO, including the use of their gas station. The cost for membership is $45/year for 2 cards.

CONTRACT
The PVFT/PVUSD Contract is now available on line at PVFT.NET. Also for your information hard copies of the contract are being printed now and should be available within the next couple of weeks. PVFT will be delivering these contracts to each site.

TAX GUIDES
2005 Educators Tax Guides are now available for $10.00 at the PVFT office. For more information call (831) 722-2331

UPCOMING DATES
Next General Membership/Building Rep Meeting will be March 14, 2005 from 4:00-6:30pm in Conference Room C

THE GOVERNOR'S BROKEN PROMISES
Governor Schwarzenegger has announced that he intends to call a special election in November 2005. He is touting a package of proposals and his allies among big business and the right-wing groups have proposed yet additional items. In response, labor and consumer groups have filed a series of initiatives. In total, more than 80 initiatives have been filed.

The stakes are extremely high because Schwarzenegger has allied himself with President Bush is his effort to privatize pensions and reduce public services. He is also directly attacking labor as part of a strategy to get himself a friendlier legislature. The initiatives that the governor is touting in his package are:

Public education funding : This would amend the CA Constitution to require an “auto pilot” across-the-board reduction in all general fund payments absent legislative action during a fiscal emergency. It would also eliminate the essential “maintenance factor” in Prop. 98. The initiatives are called California Live Within Our Means Act and California Deficit Prevention Act … don't sign any petitions .

Public Pensions: This would amend the CA Constitution to replace current guaranteed “defined benefit” plans with a “defined contribution” plan for all employees hired after July 1, 2007 and would allow current plan members to transfer money from their existing defined benefit plans to the riskier defined contribution plans. The initiative is called The Fair and Fiscally Responsible Public Employee Retirement Act… don't sign any petitions.

Fair Pay and Seniority: This would put into the CA Constitution the requirement that K-12 school districts make employment decisions based solely on employee performance and the needs of the district. It would only grant permanent status to probationary teacher if their 5 most recent annual evaluations were satisfactory. The initiatives are called The Excellence in Teaching Act and Put the Kids First Act… don't sign any petitions.

Public Services: This repeals Senate Bill 1419, a 2002 bill that provides protections against contracting out. It would, instead, authorize districts to outsource any noninstructional services. The initiative is called The Fair Competition and Taxpayer Savings Act… don't sign any petitions.

Workers' Voice: These initiatives seek to set severe limits on how unions can participate in political campaigns. They are similar to the anti-union Prop 226 that was soundly defeated by CA voters in 1998. These initiatives take aim specifically at public service workers and their unions – the largest bastion of union strength in California and the United States. The initiative is called Public Employee Voluntary Political Contribution Act of 2005… don't sign any petitions.

While the Governor keeps reiterating that he wants to “take it to the people”, he is ignoring former Propositions that the citizens have already spoken to loudly. Of his initiatives, three of the five have already been spoken to by Californians. His own nominees (whose names he has subsequently removed from consideration) on the STRS board have voted against his pension proposal, and his staff can offer no data that merit pay or tenure are a problem, nor do they have any models to propose. The game is on and the stakes are higher than they've ever been. Everyone must join in this effort to stomp on the governor at the ballot box. The message must be clear: Californians still believe in the California Dream which includes well funded schools, world-class community colleges and universities and a wealth of public services that provide for our state's collective welfare and prosperity. An ex bodybuilder and second rate actor shouldn't be allowed to take away that dream.

SHORT TAKES...

AFT Member Plus Benefits: Just a reminder that AFT has some excellent benefits for it's members. One of the benefit is their dental discount program. It is not insurance, it is where participating providers offer services at a discounted rate. With our max payout being only $1000, it can be used up quickly. It offers 20% off Orthodontic work, 35% off major dental, and over 50% off basic dental work. For more information or to apply for this service, call 1-888-949-8184, or go to www.aftdental.com

March For Peace: On Sunday, March 20th the 2nd Anniversary of the U.S. Invasion of Iraq. San Jose March & Rally. Bring the troops home NOW! Money for human needs not war. At 3:00 pm at the Cesar Chavez Plaza come rally, bring a friend, signs, and banners. For more information visit the official web page: www.peaceandjustice.org/march20

Carolyn's Corner

It's been awhile since I sat down to write my column. Please accept my apologies, but my energies have been diverted by the never-ending mandates from the state and feds regarding NCLB and the ever escalating attacks on the public sector by our governor and his ideologue cronies. So I'll take a few moments of your time to catch you up on what the union's been doing within both of these venues.

NCLB is an ever-moving target of sanctions and mandates that is constantly diverting attention and energies away from student achievement due to the required reports, paperwork and changing rules. The latest salvo seems to be the federal government's determination to get in the way of California's rating system for districts and impose their own more stringent system and make it retroactive to August 2004. The California rating system used a combination of AYP and API scores to determine whether a district was a “program improvement” district or not. By changing the rules in March, California would go from 14 “program improvement” districts to about 184! Does this look like a plot to foster support for vouchers or what? Blessedly, PVUSD has not been named as a “program improvement” district, but our neighbors in Santa Cruz, Scotts Valley, and San Lorenzo have all been designated in that category. The insanity continues!

If you are in a Program Improvement school, you are probably familiar with the Academic Program Survey, or APS, which is a tool to measure how much of the state's mandated components your school has in place and which areas need to be looked at further. There are nine components that are required, including longer blocks of time for Language Arts and Math, coaching assistance and support for those core subjects, monitoring systems for student achievement, required collaboration of staff, and professional development for principals and staff. Many staffs are currently collecting the data from their sites to use as they write their school plan for next year. Year 4 schools are part of a district wide Task Force Team that is monitoring their data with them. If you are unfamiliar with this process, it will be coming to you soon. As is usually the case, the district has included union leadership in all of these processes.

Finally, as our governor continues his unrelenting assault on the public servants of this state, unions have been forming coalitions, strategizing counterattacks, and trying to figure out how to find the funds to fight the huge, national big business contributions to the governor's insanity. CFT has been in the midst of each of these coalitions, and they have been trying to keep local leadership apprised of their plans. PVFT, through our C.O.P.E. committee, will be keeping you informed of what each of his initiatives means to you, and will be searching for ways to raise funds for this most important fight. Nobody can sit this one out, folks! This is the fight of our careers…it's the fight for the California dream. We need to raise $100 per member, which amounts to $100,000 from our local! We cannot use dues money to fund this, so we need a commitment from everyone to find a way to contribute $100, either by check, through payroll deduction at $10 per month, or whatever other option works for you. The PVFT Executive Council has kicked off the fund-raising by each contributing $100 to the fund. Checks can be made out to PVFT C.O.P.E. and we will forward them to the CFT war chest. Thanks in advance…from all of the workers in the public sector, the “monster” that the governator wants to slay!

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