Teachers union boss loses 40,000 members, gets a raise

National Education Association president Dennis Van Roekel received a huge pay raise this year while the teachers union lost more than 40,000 members.

Van Roekel, who retired this summer, was paid $541,632 during NEA’s fiscal year ending Aug. 31 — a $130,000 increase from last year, driven by a gross salary hike from $306,286 to $429,509. NEA membership dropped from 3,003,885 last August to 2,963,121 this August.

NEA, the nation’s largest labor union, has lost 272,014 members since 2009. The union paid Van Roekel $2.2 million from 2010-2014.

Losing more than a quarter of a million members didn’t keep Van Roekel from getting a huge raise this year, and taking millions of dollars from workers didn’t prevent Van Roekel from being praised by union advocates in a series of videos recorded for an NEA meeting in July.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees president Lee Saunders called Van Roekel “a force for unity in the labor movement, and for protecting all public services — helping bring NEA, AFSCME, AFT and SEIU together in an unprecedented partnership to face our challenges.”

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