Clintons and NSEA disenfranchising 60,000 Las Vegas Culinary workers

[LVZ]

Jon Ralston - Las Vegas political columnist


http://lasvalley.com/702/viewtopic.php?id=1342

http://lasvegassun.com/blogs/ralstons-flash/2008/jan/15/culinary-takes-hillary-clinton-fliers/

http://media.lasvegassun.com/media/video/2008/01/obama_leaflet.pdf

http://media.lasvegassun.com/media/video/2008/01/obama_leaflet2.pdf

http://lasvegassun.com/news/2008/jan/13/culinary-leader-closing-sites-strip-would-strike-c/

http://lasvegassun.com/blogs/early-line/2008/jan/15/federal-court-hearing-thursday-strip-caucus-sites/

January 14, 2008

Ms. Lynn Warne, President
Nevada State Education Association
3511 East Harmon Avenue
Las Vegas, NV 89121

Dear President Warne:

As teachers in Nevada, and members of the Nevada State Education Association, we are deeply dismayed that our union is trying to stop our students’ parents from caucusing on Saturday. We urge them in the strongest terms to drop this lawsuit immediately.

Many of our students are Hispanic Americans and come from low-income families. Their parents are construction workers, McDonald’s employees, and other shift workers on the strip, who work around the clock, and won’t have time to travel to their caucus locations on Saturday. That’s why the state Democratic committee set up nine at-large precinct locations on the strip – to provide nearby caucus locations for Nevadans who otherwise wouldn’t be able to caucus.

These at-large locations were approved back in March of 2007, and no one raised any concerns about them for nearly a year. But now, our union is filing a lawsuit making the baseless charge that these at-large caucus locations are discriminatory, when the fact is they were set up to make sure as many Nevadans could caucus as possible.

This lawsuit is all about politics. It’s widely known that many of our union’s top officials support Senator Clinton and now that the Culinary Workers Union has endorsed Senator Obama, they’re using our union to stop Nevadans from caucusing for Senator Obama.

We never thought our union and Senator Clinton would put politics ahead of what’s right for our students, but that’s exactly what they’re doing. As teachers, and proud Democrats, we hope they will drop this undemocratic lawsuit and help all Nevadans caucus, no matter which candidate they support.

Sincerely,

Tamara Anderson, Elementary School Counselor
Monica Baldwin, 3rd grade teacher
Jodi Brant, Government teacher for 12th graders
Mari Calderon, Kindergarten teacher
Jessica Cohn, 3rd grade teacher
Ketica Guter, 3rd grade teacher
Sarah Irby, Kindergarten teacher
Padmini Jambulapati, 7th and 8th grade teacher
Tracy Kamhi, 10th, 11th, and 12th grade teacher
Jennifer Kehs, 4th grade teacher
Clara Munk, Primary Reading teacher
Matthew O’Keefe, 4th grade teacher
Frances Rabbitt, Special Education teacher
Chantae Readye, 5th grade teacher
Jessica Tolliver, 1st grade teacher