Teachers reject union on 8-3 vote

In a rare move, teachers 35 miles southwest of Spokane voted to dismantle their union and replace it with an independent organization.

Eleven members voted 8-3 to reject their union last month.

“I think the times for unions are over,” Sprague-Lamont School District science teacher Jim Dishon said Tuesday.

The two districts, which share a union, serve about 120 students.

Dishon led the effort to toss the former union. He failed in a similar attempt in 1998 in the same district.

“I think unions are harmful to the economy in the private sector,” Dishon, a former businessman, said. “They’re not helpful to education at all.”

The state union, the Washington Education Association, responded to the news by pointing out that most educators in Washington are part of the WEA, which has almost 80,000 members.

“We are the strongest advocates for public education in the state,” said WEA spokesman Rich Wood.

Dishon said in a news release that it was liberating to stop paying $700 in annual dues, part of which “would have helped fund social and political agendas (of the WEA) which were often personally offensive.”

Dishon is now president of the Sprague-Lamont Professional Educators Association.

By phone, Dishon said he’s never been consulted by the WEA about how it spends its union dues.

“I know they came out pro-gun-control, pro-abortion. I think they may be pro-gay rights,” Dishon said.

Wood said WEA members set the association’s policies through a democratic process, and they believe in safe schools and protecting human rights.

Dishon points out that like his town, he is a little bit conservative in his views.

The change hasn’t generated much attention. He did receive a call from a small-town school district superintendent asking how they managed to discard the union. He wouldn’t name the district.

“He said the last teacher he got rid of cost $58,000,” Dishon said.

What really sparked the effort this time came from an incident in which the union defended a teacher most everyone considered a problem, Dishon said.

“The union defended a teacher the other teachers didn’t want defended,” Dishon said.

Marvin Schurke, executive director of the Washington State Public Employment Relations Commission, received a petition in June, and an election was held in September by mail. Eleven of 15 eligible employees voted. No one contested the results, Schurke said.

While Dishon said in his news release that this may be the state’s first case of a teachers union being dismantled, Schurke said he’s heard of others

“It’s certainly not something that happens every week or year,” Schurke said. “It’s certainly not the only one.”

The group received help from a nonprofit, nonunion organization in Spokane called the Northwest Professional Educators. They helped with support services such as liability insurance, legal services, professional development resources and teacher scholarships.