The Illinois Policy Institute is taking advantage of a worldwide pandemic, capitalizing on fear, and urging you to give up your rights in your workplace. How? By lying.
Suspicious Anti-Union Activity
Help us set the record straight when they try to divide us. If you or someone you know has been approached by an anti-union organizations, let us know about it.
Membership Protection Center Fact Sheet
All of these organizations have ties to people and institutions that want to privatize public education and “defund and defang” unions.
Stronger United – Don’t Knock Window Cling
Order your free “Don’t Knock I’m Sticking with My Union/Stronger United” window cling to put on the front door of your home.
Illinois’ news propaganda machine
Do you know who is funding the newspaper you’re reading, the radio show you’re listening to or the evening news you watch on TV? In Illinois, the answer to that question can be alarming. Watch this video to learn more about the Illinois Policy Institute and the powerful conservative forces behind them like John Tillman, Dan Proft, former Governor Bruce Rauner and billionaire business man Dick Uihlein.
Get the FACTS
How is the Illinois Policy Institute lying to you to get you to give up your rights in your workplace?
IEA FACT: 84 cents of every dollar is directly spent on representing members and how your dues dollars are spent is reported in detail to you every year. The remainder is spent on conferences, full-service printing, governance meetings, professional development and support services.
IEA FACT: More than 71 percent of every NEA dues dollar is spent on representing members and assisting locals, which was reported to members in detail for 2019-20. The remainder is spent on conference and facilities management; governance meetings and support; business and financial services; technology and other support services.
IEA FACT: Those groups will try to bill themselves as alternatives to the union. What they won’t tell you is they provide liability insurance, pared-down legal services—and pretty much nothing else. Little or low-quality professional development, no help on contract negotiations, no support on working conditions, no lobbying for public education and public school students and staff. One of these “union alternatives” touted by IPI has fewer than 10,000 members in the entire country. IEA has more than 135,000 in Illinois alone. To have power, you need people. IEA has both. We are truly stronger when we are united.
IEA FACT: Chicago educators belong to the Chicago Teachers Union, not the IEA. In addition, 69 percent of IEA members live north of Interstate 80 and 31 percent live south of Interstate 80.
IEA FACT: The IPI notes its figures are for five years. Rest assured, all NEA travel is vouchered and accounted for on NEA books and includes travel not only for NEA staff in all states, but NEA members in those states to travel to national meetings for programs and trainings.
IEA FACT: The IPI, opposes unions and public education. It was behind the Janus case, which sought to take away the rights of public employees to have a say in their workplace conditions. They want to silence the voice you use to advocate for your students, your schools and your community. They want to privatize public education. They want to slowly chip away at us—knowing the more people who drop their union membership, the less power the union has to bargain contracts that benefit educators’ working conditions and students’ learning conditions. Millionaires and billionaires fund the IPI. They want to protect their own corporate interests, not yours.
IEA FACT: Those groups will try to bill themselves as alternatives to the union. What they won’t tell you is they provide liability insurance, pared-down legal services—and pretty much nothing else. Little or low-quality professional development, no help on contract negotiations, no support on working conditions, no lobbying for public education and public school students and staff. One of these “union alternatives” touted by IPI has fewer than 10,000 members in the entire country. IEA has more than 130,000 in Illinois alone. To have power, you need people. IEA has both. We are truly stronger when we are united.
IEA FACT: As IPI notes, its figures cover 2013-2018. All NEA travel is vouchered and accounted for and includes staff and members from all state affiliates who travel to NEA meetings for various programs and for trainings.
#ImStickingWithMyUnion
Anti-union organizations like the Illinois Policy Institute are trying to silence our collective voice.
The voice we use to advocate for our students, our schools and ourselves. We won’t let them.
Anti-Union groups to watch
Conservative foundations and think tanks are putting an increased emphasis on attacking public sector unions and public schools after the Supreme Court made its decision in the Janus v. AFSCME case.They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars across the nation to elect anti-labor and anti-public education candidates and to produce so-called “research,” television ads and mailings to bash unions. The Koch network alone plans to spend $400 million this year. Virtually all of these organizations aren’t required to report their donors.These groups try to bill themselves as pro-worker – they are not. They want to privatize our public schools, take away your voice for your students, lower taxes for corporations and the wealthy, block access to health care, cut pensions, suppress voters, gerrymander and weaken the political power of unions.The tentacles of all of these groups are already reaching into Illinois, advocating for vouchers, more charter schools, defined-contribution pensions and the destruction of public employee unions. Their goal is simple. They want to divide Americans across racial, religious and economic lines.
The Illinois Policy Institute (IPI) is a so-called “think tank” that pushes a right-wing agenda in Illinois, all while reporting little or no lobbying activities.
It has close ties with former Gov. Bruce Rauner, who last summer fired most of his closest staff to replace them with IPI employees.
The IPI also runs various media entities, including the Illinois News Network, so you should listen closely and look closely when you consume news to see if it was produced by INN because you can guarantee it’s going to have a slant. Learn more about IPI’s media outlets here.
The IPI has been filing Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests with school districts across the state seeking personal information about IEA members in hopes of reaching out to you to encourage you to drop your union membership. In fact, they want to make it as easy as possible. In at least one city, the IPI applied to the post office for return postage paid envelopes to send mailings to the district and to the local education association office so you could opt out. The post office denied the IPI’s application and reported the organization to the postal inspector for shady practices.
The IPI is part of an $80 million nationwide State Policy Network (SPN) that works to rig the system against working families by pushing for privatizing public schools, blocking expanded access to health care, lowering taxes for corporations and the very wealthy and undermining workers’ rights and unions. SPN and many of its affiliates are members of the controversial American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), where corporate lobbyists and special interest group representatives vote as equals with state lawmakers behind closed doors on “model” legislation that in many cases ends up benefiting the corporations’ bottom line.
IPI and its affiliates are not required to disclose their donors and almost none of the groups publish a list of funders. But, former Gov. Bruce Rauner has been a major one, donating $625,000 between 2009 and 2013. SPN and its affiliates are not required to disclose their donors, and almost none of the groups publish a list of funders. Tax documents and other available records reveal that SPN is funded by large corporations, right-wing foundations, and wealthy conservative ideologues such as the Koch brothers, the family of U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and the Walton family of Walmart.
This is another so-called think tank that is really just another arm of the State Policy Network’s rightwing propaganda network. You may have received an email from the Mackinac Center at your school email address the day after the Supreme Court ruled in the Janus case.
The Mackinac Center, founded in 1987 in Michigan, has pushed for more charter schools, vouchers for charter schools, decimating pensions for educators and other public employees, putting caps on educators’ health insurance, using test scores to evaluate teachers, getting rid of tenure – the list goes on and on. Like other groups backed by dark money, the Mackinac Center doesn’t disclose its funders. Tax documents and other available records reveal that it is funded by the usual suspects of wealthy, conservative ideologues such as the Dow Chemical family, the anti-worker Bradley Foundation, the Koch brothers, the family of U.S. Secretary Betsy DeVos, the Walton family of Walmart and other anti-union, anti-public education organizations.
The Mackinac Center has launched a “My Pay, My Say” website to try and get union members across the nation to opt out of their union. Fellow State Policy Network groups like the Center of the American Experiment are pushing this out as well.
Project Veritas, a conservative media organization dedicated to secretly infiltrating progressive organizations to produce unflattering and deceptive videos, is targeting educator unions across the country.
The organization was founded by James O’Keefe, a protégé of Andrew Breitbart, in 2010. Project Veritas has frequently been criticized for editing its videos to deceive its audience and misrepresent its subjects. Operatives have targeted a number of high-profile organizations through the years including ACORN, Planned Parenthood and, most recently, National Education Association (NEA) and American Federation of Teachers (AFT) affiliates around the country.
These organizations swoop in once a state becomes right to work.
They will try to bill themselves as alternatives to the union. What they won’t tell you is they provide liability insurance and pared-down legal services – and little more. Little or low-quality professional development, no help on contract negotiations, no support on working conditions, no lobbying for public education and public school staff, and no help passing your local levy.
And they proactively work against the things we know are good for students and educators.
AAE, established in 1994, doesn’t represent teachers in collective bargaining and claims to be free of any political agendas or political activism. It provides members with liability insurance, legal counsel in workplace employment issues, and teacher scholarships and grants.
So far, AAE has about 6,200 members at most with state chapters in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho Kansas, Oregon and Washington and a partner organization in Louisiana. Two of its biggest donors are the anti-union Walton Family Foundation and Bradley Foundation. Several other conservative foundations have given the association grants as well.
This group was one of the plaintiffs in the Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association Supreme Court case, one of the slew of cases brought on by anti-union interests before Janus v. AFSCME.
Despite its name, 95 percent of its members are public school educators. CEAI started in 1953 and now has about 6,500 members, experiencing much of its growth since 1991 when the association started to provide liability insurance.
The group’s mission is to “proclaim God’s word as the source of wisdom and knowledge,” including preserving “our Judeo-Christian heritage and values through education” and “the legal rights of Christians in public schools.”
A group of Los Angeles teachers formed the first Professional Educators chapter in 1972, two years after a teachers strike. The group has opposed teacher strikes and supported a National Right to Work Act as well.
Like other independent groups, they have no office in the Washington, D.C. area nor do they have a regularly staffed office anywhere. It appears they have no website and have affiliates in 24 states. Many of those are also affiliated with the American Association of Educators.
NAPE is not well known and seems to have hit its peak many years ago. No membership information is available for them. Some estimates had their paying membership as low as 2,000 in the 1990s.
As former NAPE Executive Secretary Philip Strittmatter has written, “We do not criticize teachers for joining the unions if they want to do that. We just want to be free to represent those educators who prefer a professional organization that does not get involved with radical social political issues not related to the education of children.”
The CIEA is a cooperative of associations. The coalition is loosely structured. It wants to bill itself as an alternative to the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers, but Iacks an independently staffed office, operates on a very low budget and has no presence or visibility at the national level. CIEA lists 24 independent state groups as members. The Texas group (ATPE) reports that it is the largest teacher organization in the state, with at least 100,000 members, but has used this unchanged figure for several years.