NCAE’s little secret

My friend Terry Stoops at the John Locke Foundation first picked up the news on Monday from Mike Antonucci at the Education Intelligence Agency.  But it bears repeating.

According to reports inside the North Carolina Association of Educators (NCAE), staff at the organization have not had a raise in eight years. The local union posted a petition addressed to NCAE Executive Director Rachelle Johnson. The petition read:

We the members of the North Carolina Staff Organization, the unionized workers at NCAE (UniServ Directors, Program Staff, and Headquarters Union Staff), urge NCAE to provide a reasonable salary and benefits package. Bargaining fairly is a critical way to demonstrate your respect for us as colleagues and professionals.

Why is this important?

Our staff is under constant pressure to do more with less since we have not received a salary increase in eight (8) years.   It is vital that we collaborate to address how we will continue to provide quality services, despite management’s refusal to fill vacant UniServ positions while filling management positions, When it comes to creative solutions in a budget crisis we are, in fact, strong together. But the budget should not be balanced on the backs of the staff that  provide quality services to our members.

Thus fare we have been flexible, collaborative , worked overtime, lost sleep, picked up second jobs, lost time w/family, watched friends and colleagues retire, and changed our personal schedules in an attempt to stop/slow the bleeding of the association.

We the undersigned, support our staff in their efforts to gain a reasonable salary and benefits package as they work to rebuild NCAE.

So the organization that never misses a chance to bash legislators for not respecting teachers or to criticize legislative teacher pay increases as insufficient,  has not offered NCAE staff members raises in eight years?

There are a lot of places I could go with this information, but I won’t. The situation generates it own outrage.

I’ve written about the high salaries and salary increases of NCAE Executives in the past. Looks like not much has changed.