CTA Loses 19,000 Members In One Fell Swoop

An avowed socialist at my school and I agreed many years ago that our district's teachers would be better off if our local union disaffiliated from CTA and went solo.  Without all that money going to CTA and NEA, our local could hire the best labor law attorney firm in Sacramento County to represent us at contract negotiations, rather than fellow teachers who received a little bit of training from CTA.  Our teachers would get better representation at a lower cost by cutting out the middle man; teachers could join CTA or NEA as individuals if they wanted to.

That's not going to happen in my district barring some catastrophic event, but it does happen every once in awhile, usually in a small district somewhere.  This announcement, however, is a biggie:

Ending a decades-long connection, the association representing California State University faculty has severed its ties with the California Teachers Association, resulting in a significant loss in membership for the state’s largest teachers union.

In a little noticed move, the board of the California Faculty Association voted in late May to “disaffiliate” from the CTA. The association, whose members include faculty, part-time lecturers, librarians, counselors and coaches on the 23 CSU campuses, is an affiliate of the CTA, which means that its members can be CTA members as well...

In a letter addressed “to whom it may concern” at the CTA, Charles Toombs, the CSU faculty association’s president, said the decision to disaffiliate was made following a review of the contract between the two organizations that “has taken place over the last several years” and to “optimize the association’s resources, members and operations.”  The faculty association also ended its ties to the National Education Association, of which the CTA is a state affiliate. Toombs, a professor of Africana Studies at San Diego State University, did not provide any further details in his letter to the CTA.

19,000 members off CTA's rolls.