Richard Berman’s Center for Union Facts, using a style that smacks of inebriated college sophomores, has launched yet another series of attacks on unions – this time focusing on us and our friends at the NEA.

I’m still reading it, but my favorite part so far, is the charge that Texas unions prevent teachers from being fired.  Note to all: Texas teachers generally lack due process protections  You can get fired at the end of the year and not be able to do anything about it. For example, see this.  If you’re going to attack unions for upholding tenure, at least have the sense to do it in states that have teacher tenure. See also the response of the peer review lovin’ Columbus Education Association.

Berman also charges the AFT with giving money to groups like the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and the Children’s Defense Fund. There’s a whole section on how we block education reform. On merit pay, they dig up a quote from Day Higuchi, who was the President of UTLA before the guy who was president before the current president. And of course, their charges don’t reflect AFT’s actual policy.  They think vouchers are in fact a panacea, and accuse the Washington Teachers Union of working to the rule... in 1992.  

Berman told of the coming of this campaign last year in an appearance before right wing activists in Nevada, and we told you about it then.  His remarks indicate that this is part of a broader effort focused on the Employee Free Choice Act. From the article in the Las Vegas Sun:

“As Berman said in a Sun interview after his Sparks speech, nearly all Americans have some contact with teachers and their unions. If the public doesn’t trust the teachers unions, he reasons, surely they won’t trust steel workers or other unions that don’t have such a seemingly beneficent pedigree.”

In other words, it's just a smear job.  The Center for Union Facts is just one of a number of Berman front groups. Some of the others include:

• The Employment Policies Institute (EPI) and the Minimum Wage Coalition to Save Jobs. These groups oppose raising the minimum wage.
• American Beverage Institute (ABI) and Beverage Retailers Against Drunk Driving” (BRADD). These groups oppose Mothers Against Drunk Driving’s agenda; and.
• The Center for Consumer Freedom. (Pro cholesterol, fat and nicotine)

The Center for Consumer Freedom has a web site "ActivistCash.Com" that is currently hosting an attack on the Humane Society of the United States.  It also describes Robert Redford as an example of celebrities who “now see fit to exert their clout and money in order to restrict our choices.” It has similar profiles of other celebrities.  In this context, Berman’s anti union efforts are one more product from the cookie cutter.

As for sophomoric writing: "Like its AFL-CIO brothers, the AFT indulges in the language of conflict." Yeah, yeah. I got yer language of conflict right here....