Duane Tron: Elimination of spousal coverage hitting the actives now (Xenia schools, home district of OEA prez Gary Allen)

".....now maybe they will see what STRS did to spouses of STRS retirees"

-- John Curry

From Duane Tron, Friday, February 24, 2006

Subject: Whoops!

Dear All,

The Xenia City School teachers rejected a proposal tonight during negotiations with the Xenia City Schools BOE.

Where have we heard this before? The school system wants to eliminate health insurance for all non-employees. I think at STRS they called this eliminating the spousal subsidy.

Xenia City Schools wants to only provide insurance for employees and everyone else will have to go outside and obtain health insurance!

Folks, this is just the beginning! We are ALL under attack! Actives thought when it was happening to us it was exclusively OUR problem. Guess what!??

I think there are a lot more actives who are going to start listening to what we have been saying! Our political leaders are deaf, dumb, and blind. This cannot continue!

Xenia is just the beginning of this movement. The Xenia Teachers Association rejected the proposal almost overwhelmingly. I want to hear the OEA explain all of this to actives across the state. I want to hear how they're going to spin and weave this one.

Do you know what's disgraceful in all of this? Gary Allen, OEA President, was a teacher with Xenia City Schools before moving up within OEA. I would call it poetic justice except my heart honestly goes out to the Xenia teachers!

I will support them 100% to put a stop to this nonsense! Please ask all retirees to step up and help actives put an end to this disgraceful conspiracy!

We have a lot of political clout and it's past time for us to step up and start exercising it in elections. We MUST impact the upcoming governor's race to demonstrate to the political elite of this state that we have power and we mean business. If we fail to act we might as well go and crawl in a hole without a whimper. Just crawl!

Please share with everyone!

Duane Tron
St. Paris, Oh 43072