California Teacher Fights Back Against His Union’s Support of Cop Killer

By Kyle Olson
Tuesday, May 24, 2011

A few weeks ago I brought you the story of the California Federation of Teachers passing a resolution "reaffirming" support for convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was convicted of killing, execution-style, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Despite numerous appeals and efforts by far leftists to spring him from prison, he's serving a life sentence in an open-and-shut case.
The Fraternal Order of Police issued a strongly-worded letter to American Federation of Teachers' President Randi Weingarten, parent union to the CFT.

The union's absurdly radical action is now producing its consequences.

I received an email from a CFT and AFT member resigning his union membership over the kerfuffle. He wrote in part:

"Having given the matter considerable thought, I have decided to resign from our labor union, an affiliate of the CFT and the AFT. I have already instructed [an administrative staff member] in Davenport to stop deducting dues from my paycheck. I feel some responsibility for briefly explaining the reasons for this difficult decision.


"I did not especially think this faculty needed to unionize when the idea for that came forward, but I did vote in favor of it, in support of the majority of faculty that did think this worthwhile. I did so with the understanding our union would stick to our immediate educational and terms of employment issues at [our school]. Indeed, our local has pretty much done a good job of that, except for having used tactics during the last round of labor negotiations that I rejected as long ago as 1968 as a college student. No, the end did not justify the means. I will leave it at that.


"More to the point, I cannot allow my dues to support either the CFT or the AFT. The CFT recently passed a resolution supporting convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. I have attached a strong objection written by the National Fraternal Order of Police. Frankly, I have no idea whether this person did or did not kill a cop; but I do know that I do not want one penny on my union dues spent on this cause. It has nothing to do with education. Moreover, the CFT also expends considerable resources on state-level political struggles that I do not support, and in fact could bankrupt the state I live in.


"As for the AFT, it is purely and simply an organ of the Democrat party. I have attached some charts below showing that at this time it contributes almost exclusively to the Democrat party. I do not approve of this use of my dues.


"Since I continue to support the mission of our Local insofar as it involves educational issues at [our school], I will contribute 10% of what I have been paying directly to our local, through the treasurer. As the former treasurer, I believe that amount will exceed the portion of my dues that remains in our union's bank account after regular monthly payments to the CFT and AFT."

Kudos to this teacher and former union treasurer for standing up for what he believes. He now realizes that he didn't leave the labor union, the labor union left him.

Many other teachers are beginning to recognize the in-your-face radicalization of the public sector unions, and they don’t like it either. I expect we’ll be hearing similar stories from brave union members who’ve had their fill and simply say, “Enough!”

Teachers, please continue telling them.