McKee

CUMBERLAND — Fresh off a decisive victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, Mayor Daniel J. McKee called out three of the state’s unions for throwing their support to former Mayor David S. Iwuc and criticizing his educational policies.

The National Education Association of Rhode Island, the Rhode Island American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) and the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals sent out direct mailings, phone calls and paid for TV ads in the days leading up to the election, according to McKee and others in his campaign.

In their ads, the unions claimed the incumbent mayor was “out to destroy public education,” saidMcKee.

“It shows the state leadership of NEARI and the AFL-CIO as not caring about our taxpayers, our families, and our teachers when they would promote someone who would not be a good mayor,” McKee said yesterday. “If they had backed an unknown it would be a different story. They have to be held accountable for trying to strong-arm our leadership.”

The unions’ concern lies with McKee’s proposed mayoral academies, which would create a system of charter schools for the Blackstone Valley that would not be subject, as all public schools in the state are, to union-negotiated collective-bargaining agreements.

“The academies are something that could seriously undermine public education in the state,” said Rhode Island AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer George H. Nee. “We felt it was important to make that statement to show our commitment to a well-funded public-education system. The mayoral academies will help a small number of kids. We are interested in helping all kids.”

Nee added that the AFL-CIO had a “working relationship” with Iwuc during his tenure as the town’s state representative from 1996-2002. Iwuc “is not an unknown quantity,” said Nee. “It was as much an endorsement for him as it was against McKee.”

In the days shortly before the election, the AFL-CIO sent a direct mailing endorsing Iwuc, which reached the approximately 2,000 residents who are members of the union, according to Nee.

NEARI Executive Director Robert A. Walsh Jr. said the union, which represents Cumberland School District teachers, threw its support to Iwuc, as well as candidates for General Assembly seats who came out against the mayoral academies.

“It’s just a plan now, a plan with a lot of questions,” Walsh said of the academies. “We are very concerned with how [the proposal] passed the Legislature in the last minute. There were questions that were never answered and there was never a public hearing.”

NEARI sent mailings to its approximately 500 members in town that called the academies a “one percent solution,” in reference to the fact that the academy would be open to about 50 Cumberland residents, while the public school system has about 5,000 students.

The support of the unions wasn’t enough to sway voters, however, as McKee cruised back into office, winning 64.4 percent of the 6,010 votes cast in the third primary between the two political rivals.

“I can’t blame the teachers’ unions for protecting their own turf,” said Anthony J. Silva, McKee’s campaign manager in 2006 and one of his close advisers. “That’s the political process.”

According to Silva, McKee’s campaign had known early on that the issue of the mayoral academies would galvanize the opposition, but it had not anticipated that the unions would jump into the fray.

“We knew people would have issues with it, that there was some confusion and some misinformation out there and that they might not understand it because it was such a new concept,” said Silva.

Iwuc criticized the mayoral academies as an “educational experiment” that would “siphon education dollars” from the public school system. Iwuc did not return a call seeking comment yesterday.

Although much of McKee’s campaign literature made no mention of the academies, Silva said the campaign decided to take the issue “head on” through conversations on campaign stops and door-to-door visits.

“We were very forthright. We gave the best answers we could,” said Silva. “People appreciated that.”

pmarcelo@projo.com