Issue link: http://digital.copcomm.com/i/29842
ACTION State Council declares ‘state of emergency,’ plans bold action dent David A. Sanchez when State Council met in Los Ange- les April 1-3. “We are in a state of emergency, T and we need to take bold action that sends a crystal clear message to Sacramento,” said Sanchez. The delegates agreed and put forward a plan to wake up law- makers. For details, see “State of Emergency” (page 8). CTA leadership team elected Eric C. Heins and Mikki Cichocki were elected vice presi- dent and secretary-treasurer of CTA, respectively. Along with Dean E. Vogel, who was elected president of CTA at Council’s Feb- ruary meeting, they will begin their terms of office June 26. Heins currently represents Dis- trict C (Contra Costa County and part of Alameda County) on the CTA Board of Directors. A resi- dent of San Francisco, Heins has taught elementary school in the Pittsburg Unified School District for 20 years and is a member of the Pittsburg Education Association. He has served as a CTA Board member for four years. Cichocki (pronounced “chuh- husky”) is also a member of the CTA Board of Directors, where she has represented District O (parts of San Bernardino and Riv- erside counties) for almost nine years. A resident of Riverside, she 36 APRILMBER he state budget crisis was very much on the minds of delegates and CTA Presi- right: CTA President David A. Sanchez introduces Miguel Ruiz (left), CTA Education Support Professional of the Year, to Council. is a youth services teacher in San Bernardino City Schools, and has served as president of the San Ber- nardino Teachers Association. She has a daughter, Olivia. Doggett talks about attacks on middle class On Sunday, the day before the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., CTA Executive Director Carolyn Doggett used her morning ad- dress to talk about how some of the things King strove for are eroding today. She made note of a few in- equities: • The average CEO earns 185 times more than the average worker. • The richest 5 percent of Amer- icans claim nearly 64 percent of the nation’s wealth, while the bottom 80 percent hold just 13 percent. • The corporate share of our na- tion’s taxes has fallen from 30 percent of all federal revenues in the mid-1950s to 6.6 percent in 2009. • General Electric, which had a profit of $14.2 billion, paid zero taxes in 2010. “At the same time, 14 million 30 California Educator | SEPTE 2011 2009 right: Dean E. Vogel (left) will begin his term as CTA president June 26. State Council also elected Eric C. Heins (middle) as vice president and Mikki Cichocki (right) as secretary-treasurer. Americans are without a job,” Doggett said. “Child poverty rates and homelessness are at an all- time high. Students can’t afford to go to college, and public schools are shutting their doors. This is not the America I want for my nieces and nephews.” Doggett summoned the words Dr. King said to sanitation workers in Memphis: “You are reminding the nation that it is a crime for people to live in this rich nation and receive star- vation wages.” “The best anti-pov- erty program for a worker is a union.” “Now our struggle is for genuine equality, which means economic equality. For now we know that it isn’t enough to inte- Photo by Marc Sternberger CTA photo by Dina Martin