r/VirginiaLabor

NORFOLK — Executive leadership and officers of the city’s largest public school employees’ union have been dismissed after an internal investigation.

It concluded that the former president of the Norfolk Federation of Teachers, Laquetta Mackey, used over $100,000 marked for the organization toward personal purposes, according to officials with the union’s parent organization, the American Federation of Teachers. Until new elections are held, AFT Vice President Karla Hernández-Mats will administer the city’s chapter, AFT Local 4261, which represents approximately 1,300 members.

Mackey has not responded to repeated requests for comment. The internal investigation by the national union noted that the former leadership maintained that their actions had been appropriate.

A 15-page decision and order signed by Hernández-Mats and two other AFT vice presidents, dated April 28, found that Mackey in a two-year span increased her salary as president from $98,000 to $172,000 while tripling her retirement benefits. The salary and benefit increases were not communicated to members and had not been authorized by its executive board.

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Source: https://lis.virginia.gov/bill-details/20261/HB1263/text/HB1263VG

"Pursuant to Article V, Section 6, of the Constitution of Virginia, I veto House Bill 1263, which aims to establish a system for public sector collective bargaining.

I support establishing collective bargaining rights for public sector employees. Under current law, state employees are prohibited from collective bargaining, and local public sector employees can only bargain if their locality opts in to collective bargaining. Public servants should have the same right to collectively bargain that Virginia's private sector workers have.

I appreciate the General Assembly for their work on this legislation. I know we all want to create a strong, feasible, and durable public sector collective bargaining system that gives public servants a collective voice while we work to strengthen our schools, keep our communities safe, and deliver services to our neighbors and communities across the Commonwealth.

In an effort to achieve these shared goals, I put forth amendments which would have required the state to setup a system allowing state employees, home care workers, and higher education service employees to enter into collective bargaining agreements first, in order to demonstrate the efficacy of this new system, with public employees in localities following closely after. While preserving the enrolled bill's focus on allowing public employees to achieve collective bargaining, my amendments would have also provided additional flexibility for public employers to take into account existing local budget timelines and processes. However, the General Assembly rejected these amendments.

I remain committed to continuing to work with the General Assembly, unions, localities, and public servants across the Commonwealth to develop a public sector collective bargaining system that works for Virginia. However, I believe additional amendments are needed to the enrolled bill currently before me.

Accordingly, I veto this bill."