Sept-Oct 2012
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MEA-MFT ELECTION 2012 Sept 2012 Vol 15 No 1 NewsletterToday for MEA-MFT Members in Montana Public K-12 Schools, Higher Education, State & Local Government, Head Start, & Health Care pMEA-MFT volunteers rock ‘This is about voting your JOB’ the phone banks in Helena, Missoula, hat would drive MEA-MFT mem- all 18,000 MEA-MFT members across Billings, Kalispell, & Great Falls, talking to fellow Wbers to give up a beautiful summer Montana, talking about how crucial the members about the 2012 election. Clockwise or fall evening to sit inside and make November election is. from top: Nicole Peterson, John George, Jennifer Kirby, Ashley Glover, Tom Glover, political phone calls? “We are mobilizing as never before,” Paul Northey, Mary Verploegen, Pat Rosenleaf, Carole Addis, a member in Missoula, said MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver. Marilyn Hamer, Jean Tutskey. put it succinctly: “If we don’t elect Steve “Never have the stakes been higher, Bullock (as governor) and Denise Juneau and never have the choices been starker. INSIDE: (as superintendent of public instruction), We’ve seen what happened in states like What’s at stake for you? 4 everything we’ve worked for will be down Wisconsin, Ohio, and Idaho, where ex- the drain.” tremists got elected in 2010. We’re not Candidate endorsements 5 Addis is one of dozens of volunteers letting that happen here in Montana.” Candidate comparisons 9 participating in a massive effort to reach (Continued on page 3) Good-bye, Jim ’ve lost family and friends before. Rode each what I don’t know.” Ievent out pretty much whole. Jim’s three cell phones buzzing at once, one But losing Jim McGarvey has been a hard ride, in his ear. maybe not yet over. Jim and his fat, beat-up book of multi-colored OUR POINT Jim was my friend. OF VIEW And I was his. Jim was a comrade in arms. Right now, losing Jim, I feel empty . somewhat the way I felt another raw moment 43 years ago on a godforsaken LZ hard by the Ho Chi Minh trail. A huge part of MEA-MFT has died. At first Jim and I warred against each other as MEA and MFT competed for members and af- BY ERIC FEAVER filiates . sometimes oblivious to MEA-MFT PRESIDENT the wreckage we left around and the outside, predatory, anti-union dangers our warfare invited. But once we figured out our Jim McGarvey and his wife, Suzanne, at his Montana State AFL-CIO Jim McGarvey passed respective union interests were retirement party in 2011. away suddenly August better served united than not, we 28. He was president built one hell of a union. note pages that he carried everywhere but rarely of the former Montana Then we warred together, joined at the hip in opened in my presence. Each color meant some- Federation of Teachers, common cause, for the best things good govern- thing to Jim. I don’t know what. vice president of ment exists to provide: public schools, public Jim forcefully calming troubled waters be- health and human services, public safety, mini- tween MEA-MFT and the governor’s office MEA-MFT, president mum wage, universal health care . and against setting the stage for successful legislation creating and then executive right-wing, libertarian, political evil that would state-funded quality educator payment, education secretary of the destroy the social compact, drown government in loan repayment, and full-time kindergarten. Montana State AFL-CIO, a bathtub, privatize public schools, sell out Social Jim and the iron-clad friendships he built, and a vice president Security and pensions, and prohibit workers from nurtured, and never forgot. of the American organizing to bargain collectively for competitive Jim and the implacable enemies he made, nur- Federation of Teachers. salaries and benefits — the stuff that makes the tured, and never forgot in the rough-edged world He will be greatly American middle class. of union organizing...because, well, because he missed. The war continues. It is a war, you know. was Jim . and he despised jealous competitors Now without Jim. who failed to grant or even acknowledge his And I have other memories: success. They gave it back in kind. Decoding Jim’s history lessons and instruc- Jim and Butte, the sacred city of his birth. tional stories. He was a book of infinite chapters, Jim, a Montana organizer, without peer. and he never began a story on the first page. Jim’s funeral was Monday, Labor Day, as it Fishing Jim out of truly dangerous rapids in should be. the Alberton Gorge. Goodbye, Jim. Jim painstakingly ordering dinner a la carte and Eric Feaver not eating most of it. P.S. Despite rumors to the contrary, I don’t Jim and his damned tea bags. believe Jim ever really fished with dynamite. n Jim calling whenever and demanding, “Tell me 2 MEA-MFT Today • Sept 2012 • www.mea-mft.org ‘Vote your job’ (from p. 1) MEA-MFT leaders, staff, and volunteers have MEA-MFT’s endorsed candidates. “Nearly a been working for a year to inform members thousand said they would volunteer,” said Minow. ELECTION about the issues in this year’s election. “Our members get it. They know this election is The phone calls are part of that effort. They about saving their jobs. It’s about their ability to began in June and will continue through Election provide for their families, the very existence of 2012 Day, November 6. Volunteers have been calling public education and public services in Montana.” and writing fellow members from phone banks in Meanwhile, MEA-MFT leaders and staff are Billings, Great Falls, Missoula, Helena, Kalispell, meeting with members around the state, talking ‘Our members get and Laurel. More phone banks are planned in about the election and showing the now-famous it. This election other towns. The calls focus especially on Steve “Not in Montana” presentation, which explains Bullock for governor and Denise Juneau for what happened in states where public employees is about saving superintendent of public instruction. lost collective bargaining rights. (See p. 4.) their jobs. It’s “These are the offices that have the most As MEA-MFT board member Mike Picking, direct impact on our members and their jobs, president of the Great Falls Education Associa- about their ability though every race is crucial,” explained MEA- tion, recently wrote to his local members, “I know to provide for MFT Political Director Terry Minow. some of you may have a hard time separating their families, the “Our volunteers are having a great time, your other political views from your professional and they’re making a huge difference. They’re views. I understand that, believe me, but this is very existence of finding that most other members appreciate about voting your JOB.” Picking’s advice: “Vote public education & hearing from them about the candidates.” your job, lobby your hobby.” public services in Volunteers are also recruiting more members Join the team! Want to help elect candidates to help elect candidates who support public who support you? Contact Terry Minow at MEA- Montana.’ education, public services, and employees’ rights: MFT: [email protected]. n Super Volunteer JANE SHAWN 1st grade teacher uJane Shawn has cheerfully reported for phone bank duty at MEA- MFT’s Helena office more than a dozen times. For two hours, she talks to fellow MEA-MFT members about the importance of electing Steve Bullock as governor and Denise Juneau as superintendent of schools. She plans to keep volunteering until Election Day, November 6. “I think it’s important to do whatever I can to help get people elected who are going to support me in my job and support my community,” she says. “I’m really impressed with Denise’s Graduation Matters program and her Schools of Promise program. Steve Bullock and I are on the same side of the issues. We share the same values.” She adds, “It’s not just about my job security. I’m advocating for the kids I teach and their families. Teachers can’t do their jobs with crowded classrooms, without resources. Balancing the budget on the backs of public employees doesn’t make sense. We’re part of the economy. We shop locally, we put money back in the local economy. We pay taxes.” Thank you, Jane! You are making a difference. MEA-MFT Today • Sept 2012 • www.mea-mft.org 3 Not in Montana! We’re not following Wisconsin & Idaho Workers have a right to stick together, so by $156 million. Similar atrocities happened in their employers take them seriously. It’s as many other states in 2011. fundamental as the right to free speech and And in Montana’s 2011 legislature, Tea Party religious freedom. legislators tried to follow suit, with bills aimed at But powerful interests, acting on a national destroying workers’ rights, ending public educa- level, want to destroy that right, especially for tion as we know it, and privatizing public services public employees. Why? It gets in their way. like the Montana Veterans Home. Take a look at Wisconsin: Scott Walker, “The only thing that saved Montana from What’s at stake with help from the billionaire right-wing Koch following Idaho and Wisconsin in 2011 was in Montana’s brothers, won election as governor in 2010 and having a governor who vetoed bad bills,” said November election: immediately set out to unravel Wisconsin’s public MEA-MFT President Eric Feaver. • Your job, salary, employee unions. “We’ve already seen similar bill draft proposals working conditions, & Without warning, the lives of thousands from the same Tea Party legislators for the 2013 benefits.