MCC Teachers and Staff Union PAC Endorse MCC Foundation Pres. Mike Smith, Retired College Employee Molly Walsh and Teacher Union Official Arne Waltmire
An email from the Political Action Committee of McHenry County College employees that was sent to Chris Jenner, candidate for the MCC Board:
Dear Chris,Chris Jenner
Thank you very much for coming to the interview with McHenry County College Faculty and Staff. It’s gratifying to see so many public-spirited citizens come forward to seek this challenging job. It was a difficult decision, but the MCCFA chose to endorse Mike Smith, Molly Walsh, and Arne Waltmire.
We wish you the very best of luck, and appreciate all that you do for the college and the community!
Best regards,
Ann Esarco
MCCFA – PAC Chair
Keep in mind the motivation of a labor union.
MCCFA = McHenry County College Faculty Association.
It’s a labor union.
It represents the faculty (teachers) at MCC.
A primary goal of a labor union is to increase union dues, since the salaries of employees at the labor union itself (as opposed to MCC employees) are derived from dues.
If faculty salaries increase, members are more willing to accept a dues increase.
Another way to increase dues would be a building expansion that requires additional union faculty. More members means more dues.
Since Chris Jenner actually represents the public, watches costs, and is not an administration rubber stamper, it would be shocking if the labor union would support him.
Since Community College and public schools are almost always one of the top employers in their community, and teachers and faculty are the largest group of employees in the colleges and schools, teacher and faculty union endorsement has an enormous influence on Community College and public school board/trustee elections.
Parents and students not informed tend to go with the faculty and teacher, thinking that surely the faculty and teachers must know what’s best for the community college or public school, and usually not even realizing the endorsement comes from a labor union since the endorsement doesn’t state “labor union.”
Teachers and faculty tend to vote in these elections since their pay and benefits are determined by board approval.
While the faculty and teachers tend to understand how the system works, the general public tends to not have a clue.
Here’s a glimpse into the machine.
MCCFA is the MCC affiliate of the Illinois Education Association (IEA).
IEA is the Illinois state affiliate of the National Education Association (NEA).
NEA is in turn affiliated with Education International, an International labor union.
MCCFA, IEA, and NEA all have political action committees (PACs).
MCCFA-PAC would be the political action committee for MCC, and since they are not a registered PAC on the Illinois State Board of Elections (ISBE) website one would assume they haven’t ever spent $3,000 or more on elections in a 12 month period.
There are at least two other labor unions at MCC.
One is the McHenry County College Staff Council, AFT Local 1642.
AFT = American Federation of Teachers.
Local 1642 is the MCC affiliate of the Illinois Federation of Teachers (IFT) which is the Illinois state affiliate of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) which is affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
Another labor union at MCC is the McHenry County College Adjunct Faculty Association, IEA-NEA.
This is the part time faculty (instructors).
Where you really see a lot of labor unions is at the four year state colleges in Illinois such as the University of Illinois (Urbana-Champaign) and Illinois State University (ISU), for example.
ISU has about 14 labor unions and U of I Urbana-Champaign has about 12 labor unions.
To research faculty and teacher union political spending of the powerful IEA teacher union, search on the ISBE website for the IEA PAC, IPACE. The ISBE Committee ID for IPACE is 1169.
http://www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisclosure/CommitteeDetail.aspx?id=1169
Clicking on the “print report” or “print this screen” options will print the entire document to your screen so you don’t have to click through many screens.
Let’s look at the IFT PAC.
IFT has a PAC and a COPE.
COPE is Committee on Political Education.
The ISBE committee ID for IFT COPE is 185.
1http://www.elections.il.gov/CampaignDisclosure/CommitteeDetail.aspx?id=185