American Federation of Teachers (AFT) President Randi Weingarten breathed a sigh of relief November 17, when members of the Baltimore Teachers Union voted to accept a concessionary contract after rejecting a similar deal that the AFT had helped to negotiate.
The contract, modeled on similar bargaining agreements that Weingarten has helped to negotiate in school districts across the U.S., creates an elite pool of highly paid teachers but makes their jobs subject to evaluations based heavily on student test scores.
But in Washington, D.C., the backlash over a similar contract has thrown the Washington Teachers Union (WTU) into crisis. The incumbent president, George Parker, has become unpopular among WTU members for his collaboration with the anti-union agenda of outgoing Mayor Adrian Fenty and his former schools Chancellor Michelle Rhee.
Nathan Saunders, who is vice president of the WTU, opposed the concession--and was stripped of his full-time union position by Parker as a result. Nevertheless, Saunders won the first round of voting for the WTU leadership with 37 percent of the vote.
INTERVIEWER: WHAT WAS the issue that caused you to break with Parker over his approach to Rhee?
SAUNDERS: IT WAS an accumulation of many things. I think that Michelle Rhee got inside help from the union in terms of the termination of teachers. For example, she came to the District and got on top of the 90-day plan, which was essentially a way to terminate teachers within three months under the old contract. Well, she mastered it very quickly, suggesting that she had internal help as to how to manipulate the process...As opposed to advocating for the teachers, he appeared to be in Michelle Rhee's pocket....
http://socialistworker.org/2010/11/19/fighting-leadership-for-wtu 
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