Montana Members Speak With One Voice

Unified NEA-AFT state affiliate puts the resources of two national unions to work.

Photo by Tom Bauer/Missoulian

Blood used to be so bad between the old Montana Education Association (MEA) and Montana Federation of Teachers (MFT) that labor-unfriendly legislators got to savor the sight of these organizations presenting opposing positions on collective bargaining and pension legislation.

Lawmakers would "find ways our unions differed in approach and look for reasons not to support us," recalls former MFT President Jim McGarvey, today vice president of MEA-MFT, the merged Montana state affiliate of NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT). "They don't do this anymore. We speak with one voice."

In Montana, a state currently governed by hard-right Republicans with little love for public education and public services, there simply isn't room for labor disunity. Despite an economic downturn, legislators have slashed income and capital gains taxes and passed a biennial budget that cuts K-12 education funding by a total of $24.1 million in Fiscal Years 2004 and 2005, freezes higher education spending, and imposes an 11.5 percent tuition hike.

Grim news for sure, but MEA-MFT leaders say "it could have been much worse" if MEA and MFT hadn't combined forces in 2000, unifying 16,000 public sector employees--from kindergarten teachers to correctional officers.

Despite daunting political odds, MEA-MFT made its mark in the last legislative session. Voucher and private tuition tax credit bills fizzled and anti-union "right to work" legislation died in the cradle.

"And we got a better education funding bill than we would have without the merger," says MEA-MFT staffer Terry Minow. "We made it politically dangerous to oppose public education. Legislators now know how vulnerable they are on that issue."

Candidates for top state office now seek meetings with the union and "the media has been very friendly to us," notes MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver. "We have an incredible presence in this state. Our backbone gives backbone to school boards and administrators in their fight for adequate funding."

The backing of NEA and AFT has helped make it all possible. That support has enabled MEA-MFT to engage in:

Public outreach. With funding and advice from its national partners, MEA-MFT has produced two low-cost, high-yield programs to motivate the public to support quality state services and preK-graduate public education.

The "Work That Matters" campaign introduces taxpayers to dedicated MEA-MFT state employee members, while the "Stand Up for Education" (SUFE) coalition and campaign identifies and mobilizes grassroots friends of education through media outreach and public meetings and rallies across the state.

Through regional SUFE rallies they organized in 2002 and 2003, Bozeman Education Association (BEA) members informed the community about the funding crisis in public schools and the flight of Montana teaching program graduates to other states.

In the budgeting process that followed, "we didn't fix the broken arm, but we helped stopped the bleeding" through the SUFE campaign, says BEA President Marco Ferro. "Ultimately, we changed one 'impossible' state senate seat last November and got another legislator to change her tune a bit on public education. She's not willing to walk out on votes like she used to!"

Member organizing. Those SUFE rallies "gave us the idea locally that we can make a difference in schools and the community," says Ferro. "Our union membership climbed from 60 to 90 percent of potential and people now feel the power of MEA-MFT to protect us."

Contributing to MEA-MFT's clout is AFT's financial commitment to "organizing the unorganized in all constituencies and ensuring everyone is in a union," says Vice President McGarvey.

"We've organized almost all K-12 units and we're still organizing," adds President Feaver. "In fact, we've just signed up employees of the National Guard Youth Challenge Program."

Strong connections. "It's nice to have a large, growing state organization behind you," says University of Montana economics professor Mike Kupilik, president of the University Faculty Association. "Higher education has a lot of visibility within MEA-MFT."

So does the rest of the public sector. Debbie Willis, an activist in the Montana Federation of Parole and Parole Officers, once feared that MFT's merger with MEA would result in the concerns of state and local government workers taking a back seat to those of educators. Her concern was unfounded.

"MEA-MFT has taken the time to identify the needs of state employees, so that when it lobbies for us in the legislature it knows our issues," Willis says.

This lobbying expertise comes well-supported. MEA-MFT receives political and picket line backup from the Montana AFL-CIO and courtroom assistance from NEA's Kate Frank/DuShane Unified Legal Services Program--which will help finance a school funding adequacy suit to be filed in January by the Montana Quality Education Coalition.

Together in Tough Times

NEA and AFT state affiliates lobby jointly in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

At least one reporter in Rhode Island calls them the happy couple. Larry Purtill and Marcia Reback, respective presidents of NEA-Rhode Island (NEARI) and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals (RIFTHP), have developed a reputation for working closely to promote the interests of their members and of public education.

"I can't imagine that we could have a better relationship," Purtill says. Those close personal ties have extended to Purtill's and Reback's respective organizations. Earlier this year, NEARI and RIFTHP scored a legislative win when the Rhode Island General Assembly rejected Republican Governor Donald Carcieri's proposal to increase teacher and state employee pension contributions and to limit cost-of-living adjustments on pension benefits.

"It was an enormous cooperative effort," Reback says. Just seven days after the governor included the pension cuts in his budget proposal, the unions organized a huge rally in front of the General Assembly.

At the same time, lobbyists and leaders from both groups were communicating one-on-one with key lawmakers, sharing information daily on their contacts with legislators, and jointly producing literature on the pension issue to distribute to the General Assembly. (The effort also included public employee unions in the state whose members would have been hurt by the cuts.)

The governor's proposal would have increased employee pension contributions by 2 percent, creating an even heavier burden on workers in a state that already has one of the country's highest employee contribution levels. Over a 30-year career, the unions calculate, a teacher could earn $150,000 by investing that 2 percent in his or her own tax-sheltered annuity.

Although the intense lobbying paid off, Purtill laments the energy expended to stop an attack on union members' benefits. "I wish that instead of having to fight the governor, we were looking at professional issues and at how to spend more money on kids," he says.

In neighboring Massachusetts, meanwhile, one of the worst state budget crises in the country has brought the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and the Massachusetts Federation of Teachers (MFT) together in a united effort to limit the impact of cuts on public education.

Both organizations, together with a broader coalition of AFL-CIO unions that represent public employees, waged a successful fight this year to get the legislature to impose a variety of new fees and taxes to help close at least part of the huge budget gap.

The legislature approved some $1.2 billion in new revenue, which helped fend off some layoffs, but the state still faces a structural deficit that can only be fixed by serious, longer-term reforms.

To help bolster their lobbying on budget issues, MTA and MFT support an independent think tank that produces reliable data on fiscal matters. The organizations also are supporting the plaintiffs in an ongoing court case aimed at forcing Massachusetts to fund schools and education reform efforts adequately.

Another recent cooperative initiative is focused on higher education faculty and staff (represented by both unions). These employees are without a contract, so MTA and MFT leaders have developed a strategy to help win a decent agreement. As in many states, budget cuts in Massachusetts have hit public higher education especially hard.

NEA and AFT leaders in Massachusetts and Rhode Island acknowledge that although their organizations will continue to differ on some issues, overall their common interests will continue to bring them together.

The NEAFT Report is a project of the NEAFT Partnership. A primary aim of the partnership is to keep members of NEA and the American Federation of Teachers informed about joint programs and activities in areas of common concern. These articles were written by AFT staff writer Dan Gursky and NEA Today's Dave Winans.