News:
Heroes & Zeroes

Frustrated by years of unkept promises for better school funding, thousands of Utah Education Association members walked off the job December 5 to protest a state education funding task force's failure to produce an acceptable long-term strategy. Utah has the nation's largest class sizes and critical shortages of textbooks and school supplies.

UEA members spread their message by waving "Utah Students Deserve More" signs at street corners and leafleting door to door. Those who stayed in the classroom wore red or black all day and showed solidarity by either working to the contract or distributing leaflets on the need for long-term school funding after school hours.

This one-day job action, called by the UEA Board of Directors, received full NEA support. "Your collective action," NEA President Bob Chase wrote UEA members, "sends a message to all public school employees and the public at large: As employees working with the community's children, you need the resources to do your job."

Up in arctic Greenland, contract bargaining has collapsed between the government and IMAK, the teachers union. IMAK is attempting to improve educators' working conditions, which would enable this self-governed Danish territory to fill some 400 vacancies with overseas applicants.

Pending a settlement, members of IMAK and the Danish Union of Teachers are "boycotting" teacher positions in Greenlandic public schools and urging American colleagues to reject employment offers from the territory's government which is quite interested in drawing applicants from Alaska.

Give Greenland the cold shoulder.

The United Auto Workers union and the Ford and Visteon corporations will jointly run more than 30 "service and learning centers" for employee families. These 24-hour facilities will offer services like child and elder care, after-school programs, adult education classes, and even help arranging household repairs and personal travel.

This negotiated program "steps beyond traditional benefit and paycheck issues to provide cutting-edge opportunities for personal growth," says UAW President Stephen P. Yokich.