A Grim Fairy Tale: April Fools Rules the IFT
Once upon a time it was April in the city of Chicago, which was still stuck, saadly enough, in the sorry scandal-ridden cheapskate state of Ill-A-Noise, as well as the increasingly embarrassing county of Crook, and the membersheep of the CTEwe were back to work after their annual spring fling, which was always timed to include Good Friday as a part of the “vacation”, instead of the separate paid holiday it had been for a long, long time.
Until, of course, a truly brilliant and politically correct teacher chose to question the validity of a day off for religious purposes, thereby providing the Big Baad Bored of Education with a perfect excuse to take away a paid holiday, the observance of which had truly offended no one. Instead of fighting for that paid holiday, as well as other, equally important religious holidays, which were provided by most suburban systems, the UPC-leadersheep of the CTEwe just shrugged; the truly brilliant and politically correct teacher promptly retired before her colleagues had a chance to demonstrate their appreciation.
“What was the big deal about one stupid day, anyway?” asked Nancy Naive.
“Well,” answered Millicent Militant as she graded papers, “many teachers take days off for religious purposes, and there aren’t always enough substitutes to go around. Some substitutes observe religious holidays too, you know.”
“Like what else could there be?” said Nancy. “We get plenty of time for Christmas, and Easter is always on a Sunday. So what’s the problem?”
Everybody just rolled their eyes as Ewenice, who was still Toonice for her own good, tried to explain things. “You know, Nancy, there are people of many different faiths, and when they take time for religious holidays, they either have to misuse a sick day, or take a religious holiday, where their pay is reduced to accommodate the cost of a substitute, whether one is provided or not.”
“And it’s usually not,” added Millicent, “for reasons we already discussed.”
“So?”
“So the Bored gets to take away a lot of money from teachers without having to pay for substitutes, and the kids frequently don’t have any teachers.”
“So?”
Once upon a time, the 06-07 school year was rapidly drawing to a close, as was the current contraact (Agreement) between CTEwe (us, sort of), and the Big Baad Bored of Education (them, definitely).
The selected leadersheep of the CTEwe were rattling lots of sabers and threatening — no, actually promising — a strike, even though their proposed contract demands had yet to be circulated amongst the dues-paying membersheep. And those are pretty hefty dues — $800.00 (eight hundred American dollars) is a lot of money to pay for a date book and a “newspaper” filled with pictures of the leadersheep putting captive membersheep to sleep at various school-based CTEwe meetings.
Baaack at the opulent riverfront offices of the CTEwe, where the multimillion - dollar lease had been quietly and surreptitiously renewed, along with the special in-house parking privileges for the leadersheep, things were humming along as ewesual.
“It’s so wonderful that baad baad Debbie is gone,” the questionably selected leadersheep agreed. “Now we can keep celebrating our birthdays the right way.”
The “right way” consisted of a paid day off and a three-pound box of Fannie Mae chocolates, if one happened to be part of the in crowd.
“And why not?” went the reasoning. “After all, birthdays are special, and Fannie Mae has a store right here at the maarvelous Merchandise Maaart. It’s a great time saver, and at only $55.00 or so per box, it makes a nice little present.”
“Right,” they agreed.
“Debbie said no,” they gloated.
“She said that wasn’t what the dues were for. See where that got her?”
“But isn’t she running again?”
“Don’t worry. We have all the bases covered this time,” said Teddy, the Obsequious Toady.
“And guess what else we’re doing,” they boasted to one another. “We’re going to get rid of that stupid residency requirement.”
Once upon a time, of course, it had been the self-same leadersheep who had meekly rolled over and accepted the residency rules in the first place, much as they had accepted all the other odious regulations as devised by the smarties in Ssspringfield.
“Does this affect US adversely?” they had asked rhetorically,
“Do we have Chicago addresses WE can use?”
“Is it worth anything to US to fight over this stuff?
”Let’s just say we did our best. The membersheep will never know.”
And sure enough, the membersheep suffered in solitude, while their overpaid and underworked field drips just shrugged and blamed Ssspringfield. (It was pre-Debbie time, so they couldn’t blame her.)
Back at school, Scott Skeptic, journalism teacher-in-exile, had just dropped by to visit with his friends. Of course, like everyone else, he had heard about the proposal to rescind the residency requirement. It was all over the news.
“Do you think this has anything to do with the upcoming CTEwe elections?”
“Of course not,” laughed Millicent. “They tolerated everyone being a residunce for twenty years, and they did nothing when it was really being enforced in ‘95. Helloo, Tom Reece, wherever you are.”
“Now Pammy Pretty, our overpaid and underworked lobbyist, has actually gotten to Sssspringfield a few times, and they have a bill under consideration. What a coincidence.”
“You are so cynical,” hissed Nancy Naive.
“After decades of doing nothing?” asked Ewenice. “It’s amazing, that’s all.”
“What’s amazing?”
“What some people will do to stay in power.”
Once upon a time, at the same time, the nice new IFT office building in Westmont, Ill-A-Noise, right next to Oakbrook, was the scene of a real power play, wherein triple-dippers from the CTEwe were getting another turn at the trough.
At the IFT convention in March—(that is the Ill-A-Noise Federation of Teachers) — it became evident that some strange sort of compromise had been arranged between the CTEwe and the rest of the locals throughout the state.
The IFT had traditionally served as an additional salary opportunity/caash cow for the leadersheep of the CTEwe, with the CTEwe president also acting as IFT president, and several other officers and some very special assistants serving on the IFT Executive Board as vice-presidents. It was a profitable and largely unpublicized perk.
But then, someone fell asleep at the baallot boxes, and Debbie Lynch won the 2001 CTEwe election. Even worse, after wondering aloud how anyone could handle two full-time jobs at the same time, she opted for vice-presidential positions for herself and her team. That unleashed a battle royal among all the pretenders, who had been seething with resentment against the heavy-handed CTEwe leadersheep for years. At the same time, it was yet another reason for the suddenly unemployed UPC leadersheep to trounce Debbie at every turn. And, although it took them a few years to do it, they finally managed to wrest back some of their power.
The 2007 convention results weren’t perfect. The new IFT president was a former IFT chief of staff, now resurrected as another retired retread, whose pension was already quite comfy, thank you. Now he could add another $170,000 or so to his annual salary. While poor Mumbles, president-select of the CTEwe, had to settle for secretary-treasurer at a lower salary.
“Two jobs for the price of one,” she muttered miserably, even though she was really getting two giant salaries at the same time. Boo-hoo.
The IFT remained quite a mystery to most of the CTEwe membersheep, who were so busy with their own difficult jobs that they had little time or energy for anything else.
They would have been surprised to learn that their CTEwe dues financed a large part of the budget, including the obscene “stipends” that the Executive Board received. It should also be noted that one of the first things that Mumbles engineered was an increase in the stipend, to $500.00 per meeting, plus mileage and expenses. They would also probably have been shocked to learn that, in addition to the selected UPC-CTEwe leadersheep, Pammy Pretty, Diana Heifer and Special Sandy were also on the roster. It was a game of musical chairs at its finest.
Meanwhile, baack at the headquarters of the Big Baad Bored of Education, there was lingering consternation over the mis-mailing of pages of confidential teacher and staff information. The fact that a private firm was responsible for such a lapse of security made for front-page reading in the Scabune and the Scum-Times. Investigations and apologies were ongoing.
That was then.
And suddenly, this was now.
It was all over the radio and television, as well as the print media.
Lightning can strike twice!!
Once upon a time, a pair of laaaptop computers, containing highly sensitive information pertaining to more than 40,000 CPS teachers and administrators, was stolen from the Clark Street headquarters of the Big Baaad Bored, when some un-named “consultants” left them unattended in an unlocked room.
This was admittedly a baad, baad thing, given the proliferation of identity theft currently afflicting the country.
Millicent and Ewenice and even Clara Clark, the clerk, were discussing this latest lapse in Bored security when Nancy came in.
“What’s wrong with all of you?” she asked.
“Didn’t you hear the news?”
“About what?”
“Our names and social security numbers and other personal information — everything — is floating around, somewhere out there, since those laptops were stolen. Doesn’t that worry you?”
“Oh, that,” she conceded. “I guess so.”
“You guess so? Aren’t you worried about identity theft?”
“Of course not. I belong to the UPC, and we already have a credit check and identity security plan in place,” she pronounced proudly.
“I am a bit concerned,” admitted Ewenice.
“So am I,” added Scott. “But not for the reasons you think.”
“What do you mean?” asked Millicent. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”
“You mean, like, is something fishy?”
“Do you smell an inside job?”
“Well,” said Millicent, “The timing is rather suspicious.”
“And the news coverage has been auspicious. Particularly for a certain CTEwe president who gets to hold an oh-so-convenient press conference, very close to an election, bragging about such major accomplishments after having done nothing.”
“Very funny,” snapped Nancy.
“And your attitude doesn’t help, either,” said Ewenice.
“And I have some pertinent questions,” said Scott, whipping out his little reporter’s notebook. “Such as: How did anyone know that those laptops were in that particular room?”
“And how did anyone know it would be open?”
“And how come they have strange people wandering around with no identification tags?”
“Right!” said Ewenice. “Every time I go there it’s like airport security times ten.”
“You don’t think the CTEwe engineered this debaaaacle!!” said Nancy.
“Gee,” said Scott as he flipped through his notes. “That’s the same big word that Mumbles used just yesterday. Talk about coincidence.”
“The UPC wants the Bored to pay for a credit monitoring service for all their employees for at least a year,” persisted Nancy. “After all, it was their fault.”
“And who owns the credit monitoring company?”
“How would I possibly know that?” said Nancy. “Besides, even if I did, I wouldn’t tell you. She would get really angry with me.”
“Oh, I see,” they nodded in amusement.
“O.I.C.”
