An important Election coming early in May - let's keep the Political Stench Hanging over this Town out of it

 Well, as I understand it, my good friend, Jeff Bowden will be retiring this year from an amazing 40+ years teaching and doing an Outstanding job Leading the ETEA for over a decade now. I'm sure I'll have more to say about him when the retirement time approaches.

You know, I've lived in this town for a long time and been an outspoken critic of how the Edison Board of Education spends our money and have been to more Board of Education Meeting over the years arguing about that for more years that I care to remember.

As much as I may have argued against their School Budgets & Bond Referendums and Defeated School Budgets over the years, I always remember and been impressed how well the ETEA team did in their Contract Negotiations representing their Members every time their contracts came up for renegotiation - dating back to Emil 'Do the Right Thing' Ferlicchi.

I now see that Matt Hrevnak, ETEA Vice-President is looking to replace Jeff as ETEA President in an on-line election scheduled for May 6th through May 15th by its Members. A Math teacher for the last 36 years at JPS as well as part of the ETEA Leadership team for the last 17 years.

If you pay attention to what goes on over there at Board Meetings, and I do, you'll see here's an extremely intelligent and knowledgable guy, with a host of experience at this doing this work, who makes his presence known speaking out and standing up for the Students and for his Members.

A vital and instrumental Member of the Negotiating Team that just settled a new 5-Year Contract for the Professional and Non-Certified Employees (see below for the financial results).

Now, as someone who doesn't like all that BoE Spending and a staunch critic of the BoE, if your honest with yourself - you have to give credit where credit is due. So, Wow - don't know how you did it but Hat's off the ETEA Team.

Now, I don't say that lightly. If you had a chance to go through those Contracts like I did, it's hard not to be impressed with the Results achieved by the ETEA Team and the Results they achieved for their Members - not just in the financial areas but also in the language and work conditions areas. A lot of times, while money is certainly important, there are other non-monetary matters that need to be addressed in these contract negotiations too. 

Clearly, this contract did both for the ETEA Members and Matt was instrumental in negotiating and achieving these results. 

Here's Matt's Qualifications & Association Involvement:

Now, I'm not a Member of the Union but I am someone who can tell if the result of a Union Contract Negotiation is either Good or Bad for its Members under the given circumstances - and this one was Good, since you had an experienced team knowing what was important in these negotiations and getting it done for all their Members. 

You know, Experience is Very Important and absolutely Required to be ETEA President but Experience along with a Proven Record of Performance is even Better - and, from what I see, Matt has Both.

Here's the 5-Year Contract Numbers ( you can see the previous Four 3-Year ETEA Contracts with similar results in a previous post):

Anyhoo, to all Union Members, please recognize What You Have in Matt Works for You in and for Your Best Interests and You Should Keep it Going with Matt. When it comes to the ETEA Matters, Matt's knowledge and experience and understanding of Union Representation along with Contract Negotiations comes with a Proven Record of Performance over the years.  And if it means anything to you - as someone who understands all the jibber-jabber about Scattergrams & Salary Guides, I wouldn't even dare take him on when it comes to these matters.