Re “Mielke Says There Is an Explanation. Will Taylor Supporters Revolt?”
In view of yesterday’s revelation of a letter to voters from the Teachers Union president that pointedly excluded one of the three endorsees in the School Board race, the leader of a sister union this morning offered a statement intended to clarify.
“Our support for Vernon Taylor is unwavering,” Debbie Hamme, president of ACE, the Assn. of Classified Employees, told the newspaper.
“The fact he was not mentioned in a particular letter was due to a policy of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.
“It has nothing to do with our having a change of heart. We have not had a change of heart.
“We still support him to the utmost degree,” Ms. Hamme said. “Additional mailings (from the Teachers Union and ACE, the unions that span the employees of the School District) that will be sent out this week, next week that will have his name on there along with our other two endorsed candidates.”
The Culver City unions say they strongly value the prestigious support of the sprawling County Federation. David Mielke, president of the Teachers Union, explained in a statement to the newspaper late yesterday afternoon that the County Fed separately interviews the candidates endorsed by the two Culver City unions.
One condition of their support, for providing a mailing list for example, is that the labor group decides which candidates it will endorse – in this case they did not approve of Mr. Taylor. Only the approved names may appear in a mailing they are sponsoring – though recipients/Culver City voters have no way of knowing of such a stipulation. They, naturally, will presume that since the letter appeared under Mr. Mielke’s signature, and only two of the three endorsees are named, that, for some reason, Mr. Taylor has been dropped.
According to Ms. Hamme, Mr. Mielke said that he had informed Mr. Taylor of the County Fed verdict and the subsequent omission of his name from the recommendation later.
Correction
In yesterday’s story headlined “A New Truth Emerges from the Disputed Fletcher-UTLA Letter,” the penultimate paragraph should have read:
As for another charge in the UTLA letter, “I don’t know that I would characterize UPCC as anti-teacher,” Ms. Hamme said. “I don’t think the Teachers Union was the focus of their animus. I do think there is some anti-union sentiment in the UPCC because they did not want to really learn more about what my union’s proposal was during that time. Some assumptions were made (by UPCC) without knowing the facts.”
