LAS VEGAS – Once a year, the Clark County Education Association holds an unadvertised sale of sorts.

From July 1 through July 15, the Las Vegas-area teachers union gives educators the chance to save a cool $768 in union dues. All they have to do is provide written notification to the CCEA that they want to cancel their union membership.

But this two-week escape hatch is buried deep within the CCEA’s teachers contract (Section 8-4), because it’s not an option the union wants members to know about.

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In fact, the union has conveniently arranged for the opt-out period to arrive when teachers are enjoying their summer break, and are more apt to worry about SPF ratings than CCEA dues. As a result, only the most vigilant teachers ever escape.

Enter the Nevada Policy Research Institute.

The free market think tank recently decided that somebody should make educators aware of this limited opportunity. Late last month, NPRI Communications Director Victor Joecks sent a friendly email to 12,000 CCEA members, notifying them of the dates when they are allowed to get out of the union.

“Nevada is a right-to-work state, but once teachers in the Clark County School District join the Clark County Education Association, their ability to leave the union is tightly restricted,” Joecks writes in the email.

Joecks not only tells Clark County teachers how to leave the union, but he also provides reasons why they might consider it: To save hundreds of dollars a year in dues payments, avoid funding union leaders’ exorbitant salaries and protest the union’s far-left political agenda. The email even links to “a generic opt-out letter,” complete with the union’s mailing address.

Quitting the union has no impact on teachers’ health insurance plans or retirement benefits, but it does leave educators without the liability and legal protections provided by the CCEA.

However, teachers can purchase superior legal and liability protections – for a fraction of their CCEA dues – from the Association of American Educators, a nonpartisan professional association, according to Joecks. He provides teachers a link to AAE’s website, adding that the alternative association offers “better benefits for less.”

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Joecks’ informative email is causing union leaders a serious case of heartburn. The Nevada State Education Association, CCEA’s parent union, denounced the informational email as “union busting at its finest.” CCEA Executive Director John Vellardita is threatening to file an unfair labor practice complaint against the school district over the email, claiming the district provided NPRI with teachers’ email addresses.

Both Joecks and Clark County officials deny the district played any role in the process. Joecks even has a rejection letter from the district denying his freedom of information request for the addresses.

Regardless, the email seems to be having an effect.

“During the union drop period, AAE has indeed seen a surge in membership from teachers in Nevada and especially from Clark County,” AAE Executive Director Gary Beckner writes in an email to EAGnews.org.

“We know that these teachers are frustrated with the unions and are exercising their rights in this tiny summertime window,” Beckner says . “That speaks volumes.”

‘Triple-dipping’ union boss inspired email

The CCEA’s over-the-top reaction to the email is understandable. The union has suffered two recent public relations disasters, and has become very sensitive to criticism.

The first embarrassment came earlier this year, when the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported that former CCEA executive director John Jasonek earned over $625,000 in salary from the union and two union-affiliated organizations in 2009. The paper reported that the CCEA spent “more than one-third of its $4.1 million budget toward the salaries of nine leaders, with the lowest-paid official making almost $140,000.”

Joecks reminds teachers of the “triple-dipping” executive in his email, and points out their $768 in annual dues might cover a mortgage payment or a family vacation, but it would only pay one-tenth of one percent of Jasonek’s 2009 salaries.

“You can spend your own money better than a union boss who takes your money to fund his $625,000-plus per year in salary,” he writes.

The CCEA’s other public relations disasters came a few weeks ago when an arbitrator settled a contract dispute in favor of the union, forcing the district to give raises to most CCEA members. The raises are being paid for by the elimination of more than 1,300 teaching jobs, including approximately 400 that were held by younger educators.

While Joecks doesn’t mention the layoff debacle in his email, Nathan Warner, a fourth grade teacher in the Clark County district, made the connection in a recent op-ed in the Review-Journal.

“There’s one obvious reason for relatively new teachers to not support the union: self-interest,” Warner writes. “The union does not represent these teachers. It eats its young, demanding raises for senior teachers at the expense of new teachers’ jobs.”

Suddenly, the little-known opt-out clause hidden deep within the CCEA contract is the basis of community-wide discussion. And it’s making union leaders squirm. They need over 50 percent of Clark County teachers to stay with the union, in order to retain the legal right to bargain on behalf of educators.

The stakes could not be higher. The CCEA stands to lose millions of dollars and an untold amount of political power if members begin leaving in droves — two more reasons the union is scrambling to limit the damage from NPRI’s informational campaign.

‘A Hotel California policy’

Joecks says the feedback he’s received from the email has been mixed.

Some respondents have cussed him out for daring to share the opt-out information with teachers, while  others have been very appreciative for the information.

“Some teachers have been very excited to learn about the AAE,” Joecks tells EAGnews.org. “They are uncomfortable with the union’s politics, and are thrilled when they find out there’s a nonpartisan alternative that offers better (legal and liability) coverage.”

Since the two-week window seems to be standard, he thinks NPRI’s public relations campaign would be “very transferable all across the country,” though he hasn’t heard of any similar efforts.

AAE’s Beckner agrees that the problem is nationwide.

“It’s a ‘Hotel California’ policy,” he says. “Once a teacher signs up for the union, it’s ridiculously difficult to get out. The bottom line is, it shouldn’t be harder for a teacher to opt out of paying for membership dues than it is to get out of a cell phone contract.

“Restricting when a teacher can join or leave infringes on individual rights,” Beckner concludes.

Joecks says NPRI is looking to expand the campaign next year to inform Clark County’s support unions and Nevada’s other teacher unions about their opt-out options.

He adds that the email that sparked this controversy went out on June 29, well after most Clark County teachers had left for the summer.

“We aim to send it out earlier next year,” he says.