As stated before and now this proves my point.

Dillard is in the unions corner, DO NOT vote for him.

Voting for him will cost the taxpayers money in the long run.

I wonder what all the Dem cross-over voting will do to the counts for votes exercised by elected GOP committeemen in April?

Will the Dems work to elect one of “their own” to McHenry County GOP chair?

Oh, I forgot, that is what has been happening already :-).

There it is.

The IEA is asking their members to vote Republican in the March 18, 2014 primary.

So it’s apparently legal for public sector unions to email political messages to the email accounts of union members employed by a public school district.

Public sector employees are not supposed to be doing political work during work time.

That rule seems to be lightly enforced.

Is it legal for a public sector employee to read a political email from their union during work time?

What are the odds some teacher union members are reading this political message from the teacher union president during work time, for example while students are doing quiet reading, homework, group projects, study hall, etc.

So if Kirk Dillard wins the Republican Primary for Governor, would the IEA endorse Republican
Dillard over Democrat incumbent Pat Quinn?

That issue is not addressed in the letter.

The same Quinn who beat Republican Bill Brady in the 2009 General Election for Governor?

That’s apparently how afraid the IEA is of Rauner.

IEA = Illinois Education Association.

IPACE = Illinois Education Association Political Action Committee for Education.

IPACE = IEA PAC.

Here are the IEA local union associations in Community Unit School District 300 (CUSD 300).

1. Local Education Association of District 300 (LEAD 300), IEA-NEA. Members include teachers, school counselors, certified school nurses, non-certified school nurses, certified social workers, certified school psychologists, certified speech/language therapists, certified physical and occupational therapists and all other certified, non-administrative staff.

2. District 300 Educational Services Personnel Association (DESPA), IEA-NEA. Members include secretaries, custodians, and buildings and grounds.

3. District 300 Educational Support Association (DESA), IEA-NEA. Members include teacher aides known more specifically as paraprofessionals and paraeducators.

Those three locals, plus the Support Staff of Elgin Community College Association (SSECCA), make up IEA Region 25.

SSECCA consists of Educational Support Personnel (ESP).

IEA Regions are a layer between the locals and the State association.

There are approximately 75 IEA Regions at approximately 22 IEA regional offices.

IEA Region 25 is located at the Elgin regional office at the Randall Point Executive Center, 2230
Point Boulevard, Suite 400, Elgin, IL which is at the NE corner of Randall Rd and I-90.

The Edward Ferrarini mentioned in the letter is not a teacher.

Ferrarini is a President of the DESPA local at CUSD 200.

See the above comment about DESPA.

DESPA members would receive an IMRF pension, not a TRS pension.

CUSD 300 has roughly 19,000 students at approximately 27 schools covering some or all of
Algonquin, Carpentersville, Dundee, Gilberts, Hampshire, Lake in the Hills, Pingree Grove, Sleepy Hollow, and West Dundee in parts of Kane, McHenry, and Cook Counties.

Not all of the union members whom receive the letter will follow Kickna’s advice.

Since the majority of IEA leaders are elected at local, regional, state, and national elections, the majority of the members are drinking the Kool-Aid.

There are a sizeable number whom are in disagreement on any given issue including the Governor race, pension reform, etc.

But the further up the food chain you go, the more left leaning the organization becomes.
Where the IEA has pretty much flat out lost a lot of credibility is in the pension debate.

IEA radio advertisements and letters to the editors over the years about the “average” teacher pay and “average” teacher pension, while leaving out the “average” teacher contribution to their pension plan (typically a teacher recoups their lifetime pension contribution in 1-3 years) and “average” years worked (20 some years not 45 needed for full Social Security) mislead the public and IEA members themselves.

Furthermore the IEA has lost more credibility by not acknowledging during pension debate that if one were to go back 1970 pension benefit levels, and if pay hikes would have been more reasonable, there would be no underfunded pensions.