United Teachers Los Angeles supports merit pay “on a cold day in hell”
The Detroit Federation of Teachers shut down city schools to stop 15 charter schools from being built for free
The California Teachers Association has compared school vouchers to child prostitution
The Washington Teachers Union has withheld kids’ college recommendations for parents who didn’t oppose school reform
In Illinois (outside of Chicago), two union-protected teachers out of 95,500 are terminated for incompetence annually
In Illinois (outside of Chicago), it costs $219,504.21 to fire a bad union-protected teacher
In New Jersey, five union-protected teachers out of more than 100,000 are terminated for incompetence annually
In New York State, seventeen union-protected teachers are terminated a year
In New York State, it costs $128,941 to fire a bad union-protected teacher
In New York City, only ten out of 55,000 tenured teachers were terminated in 2006-2007
In Los Angeles, only eleven out of 43,000 union-protected teachers are even considered for termination annually
The National Education Association received $50 million for shaky investment advice in 2004 alone
NEA members are suing over the union’s endorsement of “Valuebuilder,” a plan with over $1 billion of members’ money invested
New York State United Teachers received $3 million for shaky investment advice in 2005
Washington Teachers Union embezzlement tab: $5 million
United Teachers of Dade (Miami) embezzlement tab: $2.5 million
Massachusetts Teachers Association embezzlement tab: $800,000
Michigan teachers unions' embezzlement tab from one thief: $218,000 in bad checks
 
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American Federation of Teachers (AFT)

National Headquarters
555 New Jersey Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20001

The smaller of two national education unions, though no less contentious, the AFT is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO.

Like its AFL-CIO brothers, the AFT indulges in the language of conflict. Among its bank accounts are a “solidarity fund” and a “militancy/defense fund” -- the union's single largest war chest, with more than $31 million in the bank at last count.

The AFT's militant behavior is best illustrated by its association with one group in particular: the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN). In 2004, the union spent $100,000 of its members’ money on a minimum wage ballot campaign in Florida. That campaign, designed to increase voter turnout for the Democratic presidential candidate, was run by ACORN, which has been tied to voter fraud in at least 10 states. Undaunted by the fraud that beset that campaign, the AFT’s New York state federation paid the radical group more than $125,000 to organize teachers.

The AFT isn’'t afraid to flex its financial muscle in the policy realm, either. In its fiscal year 2005, the union spent $7.7 million on government relations (influencing their own employers) and almost $5.5 million on public affairs (indirectly influencing their own employers).

And while there are countless AFT members who don't like the causes the union supports, there is no one who condones the fraud seen by local AFT unions. One of the most egregious examples of union staff taking advantage of their members comes from the AFT's Washington, DC affiliate, which lost $5 million to embezzlement.

The union’s 2007 financial filings with the Department of Labor show that it gave members’ money to the following left-leaning organizations:

The union’s filings also reveal contributions to the following state-level ballot initiatives:

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