HB 69 & ORTA

RH (Bob) Jones to John Curry, March 23, 2011

To John and all:

Here is where ORTA has been: My ORTA officials have abandoned working for retired teachers in their blind and meek response to the active teacher-dominated STRS board. They back putting the STRS 30-yr funding goals on the backs of retirees; we who can least afford it! Many retired teacher members, like myself, contacted the ORTA officials to inform them that we were aghast at their going along with the 1% cut -- some CORE members calculated it to be, in reality, greater than a 1% take-away.

Until our HC/Rx cut, never in the ORTA history had they ever spoken out against take-aways. How sad that we members have to do our own fighting, which should be done by our ORTA officials. A couple of days ago, I received a letter from Ann Hanning, the hired Director of ORTA, extolling me to buy insurance that I do not need, yet, she cannot write letters to the legislature on the members' behalf to try to save our COLA -- at a time when we have already had, perhaps illegal, cuts to our HC/Rx. As a consequence, they have failed their membership.

When Mr. Wade Underwood was the director of OEA, he was thrown out of office because of accepting kickbacks from the many companies he was endorsing for so-called discounts. Rather than focusing on insurance, all the while ignoring us, the leaders of all our unions need to, spend their time improving on their membership’s welfare; such as, keeping what we retired members have fought so hard acquire.

My opinion,
RHJones, retired teacher and sorry to be a Life Member of ORTA