Have you ever wondered what the price is for a union endorsement? Orange Unified School District Board of Education trustees Andrea Yamasaki, Sarah Pelly, Stephen Glass and Kris Erickson may have just answered that question.
According to mandatory filings recently released, each of the incumbents simultaneously contributed $2,195.73 to the powerful Orange Unified Education Association teachers union – pushing the union’s campaign war chest to nearly $100,000.
Is this a quid pro quo? The price of endorsement? Or just paying homage to their overlords?
Whatever it is, it lacks transparency – something that has increasingly become a hallmark of their time in office.
The relationship is so tight that Trustee Ana Page was having an extra-marital affair the OUEA President Grant Goodlander (also married) while the district and the union were negotiating the contract and its 10% pay increase. Page and Goodlander subsequently left their spouses and married each other.
An Orange Unified Trustee and a Union President Negotiated Massive Pay Raises—Then Married Each Other. Where’s the Investigation?
The interests of Yamasaki, Pelly, Glass and Erickson are closely aligned. The union wants to extract maximal compensation from the district, and these four trustees – along with their colleagues – have proven themselves amenable to that. And having a Board of Education stacked with union-endorsed trustees certainly puts district negotiators at a political disadvantage during contract negotiations with their OUEA counterparts.
That much was clear when Yamasaki, Pelly, Glass and Erickson voted for a large, budget-straining union contract following the union’s successful recall the previous conservative leadership.
The OUEA – like it’s parent union, the National Education Association – supports the the use of racial considerations in hiring and promotion – a position that is massively unpopular among Americans. It supports teachers’ strikes – which divide communities and disrupt the ability of students to learn. It celebrates the socialist origins of May Day.
Do Yamasaki, Pelly, Glass and Erickson agree with those and other political positions taken by the OUEA?
These are all questions worth asking and answering.
