UTLA’s Face(book)-Saving Efforts Won’t Work

This week, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) private Facebook group was exposed for telling teachers to keep their spring break trips out of the public eye.

The Facebook post reads…

“Friendly reminder: If you are planning any trips for Spring Break, please keep that off Social Media. It is hard to argue that it is unsafe for in-person instruction, if parents and the public see vacation photos and international travel”.

This comes off the heals of a recent vote held by UTLA where 91% of UTLA members voted to refuse to return to in-person work until all ‘health’ conditions are met. The most recent demands are:

1. The county advances out of the “purple”, most restrictive tier of the state’s reopening blueprint.
2. All school employees be fully vaccinated.
3. Schools have satisfactory safety conditions in place, such as PPE, physical distancing protocols, proper ventilation, and daily sanitizing.

Without a doubt UTLA is trying to avoid a Chicago situation, where the teachers union argued that in-person learning was too dangerous and one of its executive board members was immediately caught vacationing in Puerto Rico.

And at this point, no one is going to buy that their kid’s teacher can travel internationally while refusing to provide in-person instruction for nearly a year.

The larger question, however, is why the teacher’s union needs to keep up the charade. Either school is too dangerous to hold in person or it is not; there is no middle ground here. Clearly UTLA wants to make sure that their image is not damaged before being able to extract as much money from the taxpayers as possible.

It is likely too late to worry about their reputation.

When asked by FOX 11 about the leaked Facebook screenshot, UTLA responded, “We have a diverse membership and they are able to post their views on personal Facebook pages and in this Facebook group – however UTLA does not monitor nor is responsible for the content. We do not want to discourage a robust dialogue for members in the public square of opinion”.

A robust dialogue about what exactly? How to best fool the public?

If we’ve learned anything so far, it’s that UTLA isn’t serious about safety – they’re serious about politics. Just like when UTLA demanded that we defund the police and introduce Medicare for all as part of their COVID-19 reopening plan, they’re using the virus as a political tool to get what they want without staging an official strike.

California parents are getting tired of it, and it appears they are finally waking up to the fact that union bosses do not have their best interests in mind.