How your vote can save UTLA

The most important person at UTLA is the President. That person controls all communications, the lawyers, can assign and remove powers and duties of other Officers, etc.

 The most well known person running for President is Julie Washington. She has a very impressive appearance. However, Duffy also has a very impressive appearance and he has been a disaster for UTLA. For now you need to know why only Warren Fletcher has the chance of saving UTLA and why Julie can’t.

 Julie is a caring, intelligent person. I personally like her very much. And if it weren’t that the very future of UTLA is at stake I wouldn’t be telling you of the flaws that disqualify her. My loyalty is to UTLA and our students ahead of any individual.

 I have been in District negotiations with Julie and separately with Warren. They are not afraid of Julie. She will openly admit that they lie to her. On the other hand the District people fear Warren. He knows the contract so well he can tell you who wrote which part, when it was written and the reason it was written. The District people are very quite when Warren talks. They seem afraid of how knowledgeable he is.

 But even though Warren Fletcher is a far better negotiator than our current lead negotiator Julie Washington, Warren says he will hire an expert negotiator when he is elected. When the District negotiates with UTLA they don’t send one of their $200,000 a year administrators. They hire a professional negotiator for $250,000 to negotiate for a few months. All teachers know that just because you know a subject doesn’t mean you can teach it. But Julie believes that because teachers know what needs to be negotiated, that means they know how to negotiate it. Julie may be a great kindergarten teacher but she isn’t a professional negotiator.

 When you consider the hundreds of millions of dollars the District directs away from the classroom every year, the extra money that always seems to appear after any negotiations are complete and the fact that the most recent negotiations completed by Julie in recent years included layoffs, furlough days and class size increases, what she is doing isn’t working. Every other school district in Los Angeles County except one is doing better than us.

 The UTLA policy and Constitution say that the representatives of special UTLA member groups are supposed to be included in negotiations that deal with the members they represent. That way the lead negotiators have the benefit of expertise from members with the knowledge in special categories. However the only way I was able to get into negotiations was by getting the House of Representatives to direct Julie to include me.

 Julie is our lead negotiator on the Health Benefits Committee. So I was amazed to find out that she didn’t know about the millions of dollars schools are charged to cover health benefits for Substitute Teachers that are never used to cover the thousands of Substitutes who work without any health benefits. Who knows how other special category members have suffered because they weren’t included in the part of negotiations that dealt with their UTLA membership category.

 The District meeting was about where to get the money to cover Substitutes with health benefits. They lost them due to the unratified agreement between President Duffy and LAUSD that gave away the seniority of Substitutes for 5 months of the school year. Approximately 1,000 Substitutes lost their health benefits. Many of these Substitutes had earned health benefits for many years but lost them after this deal made between the District and some of the current Officers, though the only UTLA Officer who signed the agreement was President Duffy.

 Julie reminded me that it was her that renegotiated with LAUSD to get the Seniority rights back for the Substitutes. However, she was directed to do that by an overwhelming vote of the House of Representatives. And she was helped by a rally at the School Board of over 100 Substitutes that made all the news stations. The two primary Substitute activists that lead the rally have since been fired. UTLA has done nothing to help them. And there were also many other Substitutes who personally called and wrote Superintendent Cortines and school board members.

 Julie is the only Officer that personally apologized to the Substitutes for the loss of their seniority. This cost Substitutes millions of dollars of income and their health benefits. Julie is our lead negotiator on the Health Benefits Committee. There is a two hundred million dollar surplus in the Health Benefits budget. A lot of that surplus money is there because of all the Substitutes who lost their health benefits. Only 2% to 5% of the surplus would cover all the Substitutes. Superintendent Cortines personally told me he is ok with using that money to help the Substitutes if it is ok with the Health Benefits Committee. However, Julie refuses to let the Health Benefits Committee offer to use any of the two hundred million dollar surplus in the Health Benefits budget to help them. Julie also refuses to let me speak to the Committee.

 The majority of these Career Substitutes are more likely to need to preventative wellness versus the newer teachers. A certain percent of people without healthcare die. The percent of Career Substitutes are more likely to have complications if they don’t have access to regular care. A higher percent of them are likely to suffer and die.

 I think these actions ethically and morally disqualifies Julie Washington from being President of all UTLA members. Many other member categories have suffered because of her lack of knowledge. Every member has suffered because of it. You can’t blame everything on Duffy. If there is only one Officer Duffy takes with him to a meeting it is usually Julie. When I have been at negotiations with Julie and Duffy, it is Julie who does almost all the talking.

 Julie has done some good things. If it wasn’t for the huge amount of work she has done for the last 6 years UTLA would have probably collapsed by now. She has done much more than her fair share of work among the Officers. Her closest friends will acknowledge her inability to delegate. It has taken a toll on her health. We should thank her for her service and ask her to continue to stay active. But when it comes to voting for President of UTLA Warren Fletcher is far more able to do the job.

 Warren Fletcher is one of the only active members with the intuitional memory of how UTLA was when it worked and what went wrong, when and why. When I am searching for answers about how UTLA is supposed to work, questions about the UTLA Constitution or the Contract he is one of the only ones who knows the answers. I usually see people lining up to ask him questions at the House of Representatives. Sometimes he is the only one who knows the answer. He has been watching and learning about UTLA and the District since the time of UTLA Presidents Wayne Johnson and Helen Bernstein.

 One of the reasons UTLA is having so much difficulties is because the current leadership has locked out all the smartest people like Warren to try to make it easier for them to keep control of UTLA and win UTLA elections. Now that you know you may only have this last chance to save your job, UTLA and perhaps public education in Los Angeles but only if you get enough people to vote.

 Sign up for the email list and I’ll send you updates about what went wrong with UTLA and how to fix it.

 Good luck and God Bless all Educators,

Leonard

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“The information herein represents the views and opinions of the candidates
and does not necessarily represent or reflect the opinions of the UTLA.”