Teamsters give up trying to lure teachers

An attempt by the Teamsters to snatch support from the union representing Clark County's public school teachers ended Thursday because the organization didn't collect enough signatures to bring the matter to an election, a member of the Teamsters said.

Jim Wright, an organizer with Teamsters Local 14, wouldn't disclose how many teacher signatures his organization collected, but said the Teamsters fell significantly short of the goal of the required 9,000 signatures.

The Teamsters were attempting to win the right to support Southern Nevada's 18,000 public school teachers. The Clark County Education Association teachers union, or CCEA, is the incumbent union, representing about 13,000 teachers. The Teamsters had until today to submit signatures collected from teachers to the Employee-Management Relations Board in order to justify an election.

Wright said the campaign against the CCEA is not over. Wright said he's learned beating the CCEA may take up to a year of planning before a campaign is launched. The Teamsters began collecting signatures from teachers in late June.

Even if the Teamsters did get to an election, the union had an uphill battle. State law dictates that the winner of an election receive support from more than 50 percent of all eligible voters.

John Jasonek, executive director of CCEA, said the Teamsters' announcement was "a victory not only for CCEA, but for teachers. Now we can give our full attention to real issues like retirement health benefits and the gaming initiative."

CCEA's parent union, the Nevada State Education Association, recently launched a campaign to get more funding for education by raising the gaming tax on the state's largest casinos by 3 percentage points, to 9.75 percent.

Ron Taylor, a teacher at High Desert Prison in Indian Springs and a former consultant with the Teamsters, announced Thursday that he would file a charge with the Employee-Management Relations Board today attempting to de-certify CCEA as a union.

Taylor said CCEA did not win an election in the 1960s to gain the right to represent teachers. He also said that CCEA does not represent 13,000 teachers. According to the Clark County School District's payroll department, there were 12,807 CCEA members in late July.

"They were anointed" by the school district, Taylor said of CCEA.