Today an NCAE — North Carolina Association of Educators — email became public. This nine-page email details plans for the teacher strike planned for tomorrow, May 16, 2018.
You read that right. Tomorrow, 38 school districts will close and 973,444 students will miss school so that the NCAE and its members can engage in political activity.
Here’s a sampling of their demands:
- Smaller class sizes
- Higher pay
- Affordable housing
- $1.9 billion of taxpayer debt for school construction
- Higher pensions
- Expand Obamacare
- More time off
In North Carolina, public employee unions are illegal, and yet the NCAE writes: “This isn’t union-like activity, It’s union activity.” Their email states that they have been inspired by the “powerful organizing and social justice focus of the Chicago Teachers’ Union”…hoping “to bring similar energy to North Carolina.” They also praise the strikes that took place in West Virginia, Arizona, Oklahoma and more.
In North Carolina, a strike is defined as a “cessation or deliberate slowing down of work by a combination of persons as a means of enforcing compliance with a demand upon the employer.” And it’s also a Class 1 misdemeanor.
The NCAE strategy email describes how this union activity and organizing will help them oust conservative legislators in the next election. It also makes vague and unsupported accusations of racism and sexism.
I’m sure you’ll see the irony here that I see:
- The NCAE claims to love their students – yet they abandon them at a critical time of year, breaking the law and forcing statewide school closures
- They claim to fight for teachers – yet they focus their energy on electing liberal politicians who have continuously failed to deliver
- They protest conservative legislators who have passed the largest teacher pay raises in the state’s history, increased school spending, and improved student outcomes…after 150 years of liberal control, and
The NCAE is a desperate, dying organization. A desperate organization is a dangerous one.
The power the NCAE once had is waning – they won’t even disclose their membership numbers because they’re losing so many.
Tomorrow’s protest is an attempt to regain control over teachers, by promising them that a strike or two will force legislators to care for them from cradle to grave.
Governor Roy Cooper and Attorney General Josh Stein are fully in favor of this lawless behavior because their campaigns will benefit while school children suffer.
Sign the petition below to tell Governor Cooper and AG Stein to enforce the law, prioritize students over politics, and focus on the things that actually help teachers, not use them as political pawns!
