We received the following letter from someone fed up with the lies constantly being repeated by Kyle Olson and his Education Action Group. If you want your voice heard, please email us at eagtruth@gmail.com.
Hi,
My name is Craig Culver. I taught HS science for 16 years and negotiated for about 12 of those years for my local association. I took a job with MEA as a UniServ Director in 2001 and still work in that capacity. In all of my years of negotiating, I have represented over 40 local Associations (including my own local). In all of these experiences, the negotiations to keep MESSA have always been driven by the priority of the members of each local Association as surveyed by their local leadership.
That being said, none of the districts I have represented have settled contracts with MESSA insurance that resulted in financial ruin for the school districts. Both school employees and school boards have agreed to and ratified these contracts.
In the county I now work, most teacher groups now consume a smaller percentage of their district's revenue in total compensation (salary, insurance, FICA, and retirement costs combined) than they did 4 years ago. I suspect this trend is similar in other places as well.
I wish Kyle Olson, reporters, legislators, and others would actually look at the facts surrounding collective bargaining, cost savings generated from benefit reductions in MESSA (and all other) school employee benefit plans, and actual facts surrounding the collective bargaining of school employees and embrace the fact that our current status of collectively bargaining with our employers has worked for many years and continues to work.
It is true that, at times, employers and employees have differing views of "what their best interest" is. However, these differences keep getting sorted out eventually in ratified agreements. The truth is, by prioritizing district expenditures towards benefit costs vs. salary (no contract I have represented contained a COLA adjustment for the past 15 years), taxpayers actually get a break. When you factor FICA and retirement costs on salary increases, the public taxpayer actually has to pay about $1.25 for each $1.00 of salary improvement. With insurance, a dollar only costs a dollar.
I also would like to address the comment made in Kyle's November 17th entry. In it he says:
"We have been told multiple times, by people all across the state, that UniServ directors, those overseeing negotiations on behalf of the MEA, earn some type of bonus for keeping MESSA in a contract. Therefore, it's in that UniServ director's interest to keep MESSA."
It's just not true Kyle. NONE OF US GET THE URBAN LEGEND MESSA BONUS. This type of deceipt serves only to continue your lack of convincing facts to contradict those I've outlined above. I am paid to represent members and their interests (the amount, no doubt, Kyle will spread to the world as some sort of atrocity once he reads this). That is my "bonus". It is a particularly gratifying job that I take seriously, as do my colleagues.
As far as MESSA goes, it is a health insurance plan that has provided many MEA members, administrators and their families security and assurance that should their health turn bad, they won't have the hassles and hardships many others have experienced with non-MESSA plans. . . . and it continues to prove to be affordable as exemplified in many ratified agreements throughout the state.
Just because other sectors of the public haven't joined unions to protect and preserve this priority for themselves and their families, or because other unions have made insurance concessions to preserve COLA rights in their contracts, etc. doesn't make one group right or wrong.
The proof is in the fact that our schools haven't gone broke due to MESSA benefit negotiations, and they won't in the future either. Most of the people that negotiate these benefits are teachers who are college educated professionals. They aren't going to negotiate themselves out of existence.
Please feel free to post this e-mail on your blog. I believe that in time, those who agree with what EAGtruth represents and stands for will prove how politically charged Kyle and others are in their anti-union campaign that is so void of facts and truth.
Hi,
My name is Craig Culver. I taught HS science for 16 years and negotiated for about 12 of those years for my local association. I took a job with MEA as a UniServ Director in 2001 and still work in that capacity. In all of my years of negotiating, I have represented over 40 local Associations (including my own local). In all of these experiences, the negotiations to keep MESSA have always been driven by the priority of the members of each local Association as surveyed by their local leadership.
That being said, none of the districts I have represented have settled contracts with MESSA insurance that resulted in financial ruin for the school districts. Both school employees and school boards have agreed to and ratified these contracts.
In the county I now work, most teacher groups now consume a smaller percentage of their district's revenue in total compensation (salary, insurance, FICA, and retirement costs combined) than they did 4 years ago. I suspect this trend is similar in other places as well.
I wish Kyle Olson, reporters, legislators, and others would actually look at the facts surrounding collective bargaining, cost savings generated from benefit reductions in MESSA (and all other) school employee benefit plans, and actual facts surrounding the collective bargaining of school employees and embrace the fact that our current status of collectively bargaining with our employers has worked for many years and continues to work.
It is true that, at times, employers and employees have differing views of "what their best interest" is. However, these differences keep getting sorted out eventually in ratified agreements. The truth is, by prioritizing district expenditures towards benefit costs vs. salary (no contract I have represented contained a COLA adjustment for the past 15 years), taxpayers actually get a break. When you factor FICA and retirement costs on salary increases, the public taxpayer actually has to pay about $1.25 for each $1.00 of salary improvement. With insurance, a dollar only costs a dollar.
I also would like to address the comment made in Kyle's November 17th entry. In it he says:
"We have been told multiple times, by people all across the state, that UniServ directors, those overseeing negotiations on behalf of the MEA, earn some type of bonus for keeping MESSA in a contract. Therefore, it's in that UniServ director's interest to keep MESSA."
It's just not true Kyle. NONE OF US GET THE URBAN LEGEND MESSA BONUS. This type of deceipt serves only to continue your lack of convincing facts to contradict those I've outlined above. I am paid to represent members and their interests (the amount, no doubt, Kyle will spread to the world as some sort of atrocity once he reads this). That is my "bonus". It is a particularly gratifying job that I take seriously, as do my colleagues.
As far as MESSA goes, it is a health insurance plan that has provided many MEA members, administrators and their families security and assurance that should their health turn bad, they won't have the hassles and hardships many others have experienced with non-MESSA plans. . . . and it continues to prove to be affordable as exemplified in many ratified agreements throughout the state.
Just because other sectors of the public haven't joined unions to protect and preserve this priority for themselves and their families, or because other unions have made insurance concessions to preserve COLA rights in their contracts, etc. doesn't make one group right or wrong.
The proof is in the fact that our schools haven't gone broke due to MESSA benefit negotiations, and they won't in the future either. Most of the people that negotiate these benefits are teachers who are college educated professionals. They aren't going to negotiate themselves out of existence.
Please feel free to post this e-mail on your blog. I believe that in time, those who agree with what EAGtruth represents and stands for will prove how politically charged Kyle and others are in their anti-union campaign that is so void of facts and truth.
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