Daily Archives: January 23, 2012
Testimonial: Decertifying from a Huge Union
“Our unit grew tired of the inadequate representation offered by our big international union. Goyette and Associates has been instrumental in our transition to self representation. From bylaws to Agency Shop membership, Goyette has helped us through the process of establishing an employee association. They are responsive, accurate, and friendly as well. Goyette has made it clear that they are more interested in a long term relationship with our group than they are in making a few extra dollars. I would recommend Goyette to any employee group looking to take control of their own representation.”
Casey Chapot
President, Chico Employees Association
What is CIT’s Political Agenda?
What is CIT’s Political Agenda?
We don’t have one; we have a service agenda to provide teachers with a model of representation that is more responsive, effective and far less costly than the CTA model. Politically, our team is all over the ideological spectrum. Our “agenda” is to give teachers the information and tools to decide for themselves whether they want to stay tied to CTA or be independent. What the independent teacher associations decide to do politically (assuming they want to even get involved in politics) is totally up to them.
So you are prepared, CTA will inevitably accuse us of being conservative and/or liberal extremists out to destroy (“bust”) the unions. Odd, considering we are, labor professionals representing employee associations every day.
How Can You Provide Lawyers Instead of Shop Stewards?
CTA takes a huge amount of dues yet has created a representation model in which your colleagues, as part of a largely volunteer set of officers, bargaining team members, and shop stewards, do the vast majority of the work for your members. The money you send to CTA goes to pay for a huge, and ever growing, administrative bureaucracy, that apparently leaves no money for professional negotiators and lawyers to handle your disciplinary matters, contract enforcement, and bargaining.
Our Better Model is predicated on your independent teacher association having the freedom to hire, and thus fire, the labor and legal professionals that provide services to them. We do this every day and know what it costs to represent public employees, including teachers. The cost is far less than what CTA charges you because we don’t have the overhead and administrative costs they do, nor the political lobbying expenses they incur. Any extra money that you save (at least 50% of your current dues and maybe as much as 80%) can be returned to the teachers or spent on the services and issue that your local association decides is most important to you.