First: Once again we have the horribly heated rhetoric in which your opponents are automatically the equivalent to Hitler and or the Nazis. This, as it was with the protest on the right, is simply absurd. While the move to break a set of public worker unions is a major political step, one certain to generate intense feelings, it is not in any way comparable to the degenerate, racist, insane positions of the NAZI party. This is a perfect example as to why I dislike extremes in nearly all its forms, it is blinding and when you are cocooned in its comfortable black-and-white world you are unreeachable by reason or rational thought.
Second: We can see that there is no left/right axis for violent imagery. Target scopes images and threats really have no place in rational discourse.
Third: I am not inclined to feel sympathetic towards public employee unions in general. While I do not have the deep hostile view of union that I know is on the right, the public sector is a unique situation. Unions came into existence for very real and very justified reasons. By the end of the 19th and the start of the 20th centuries there was wide scale systematic abuse and maltreatment of workers by major industries. Unions, for the warts that they do have, did a lot to correct those injustices. Reasonable working conditions, reasonable working hours, and much more that we take for granted — and is now protected by law in most cases — are all the product of those early desperate labor battles. That said I am not aware of any cases where the workers were badly mistreated on the job when the employer was the government. It was not local, state or even federal government that acted so carelessly with workers safety and lives.
The second major reason for unions existence is equitable division of profits. Capital, especially when it is highly concentrated into just a few hands such as with the trusts at the end of the 19th and start of 20th centuries, will tend to drive down the price of labor as low as can be obtained. Because labor is diffuse, the actions of many workers all competing with each other, it bargains from a weaker position for just compensation derived from the pool of profits. (If there are no profits there is no industry and no jobs for labor to perform, profits must exist for the system to function.) Unions, through their collective voice, allows labor to bargain with capital on a more equal footing. This tool is an essential function. However public employees are in a different position than their fellow co-workers in the private sector as there is NO POOL OF PROFITS to divide. Schools, cities, and prisons are not keeping vast amounts of wealth, earned on the back of workers, for the benefits a few oligarchs, they are serving the public and are compensated by that public. In the private sector if labor succeeds in demanding too much compensation the market will react, profits will drop or vanish entirely until the situation is corrected . (Cost control or bankruptcy) With the public sector taxes are raised, or worse the money is simply borrowed with future tax payers responsible for the costs. There is no immediate feedback loop to correct for over-compensation. Sadly, the only feedback system with public employees is one where the money from the union flows to the politicians most likely to reward the unions with richer compensations which concentrates more money in the union to be used to help friendlies politicians succeed to office repeating the who damn cycle. (This is not the only corruption feedback cycle prone to republics, see crop price supports and military equipment development and procurement. That however is another topic.)
Given a lack of abuse or workers and that there are no profits to be won, I really do not see the need for public workers to be unionized.
Our union does function very differently from many other unions. The union is not strong and we can not strike. The current state of affairs is that our union works collaboratively on the local level – dealing with the budget available and focusing on keeping staffing levels appropriate (not laying off teachers.) At the local level, things have been relatively successful. St. Lucie County has never laid teachers off during the numerous budget crunches that we have been through. At the state level, they lobby for better funding (Florida remains in the lowest number of dollars spent per capita, usually ranked 46 or 47 in that statistic.) and collaboration and input in the school improvement process. My husband believes that the differences between my union and his (they are part of the same parent union) has to do with the fact that are membership is educated. Oh, how I would like to believe that makes the difference, but I know there is more to it than that. I agree that there can be problems when unions simply won’t connect to fiscal reality. As Rome realized, we can not vote ourselves bread and circuses and never pay for them.
Understand that although one can not generalize from the specific, I can tell you that my situation is far, far from unique. I took a class on the principalship (to fulfill a requirement – NO ambition that way, I assure you!) and the gentleman giving the class (a principal) stated that there are two kinds of principals- those who have been sued and those who will be sued. I would expand this to say that there are two kinds of ESE teachers – those that have been accused of abuse or of not doing their job and those who will be accused. I can’t give you hard data on this because abuse reports are confidential, particularly unfounded ones, which is how it should be. I will say that most of my colleagues have expressed a sense of being constantly under fire and attack from parents – why did YOU give my child a bad grade? Why didn’t you give them extra time when they missed the assignment deadline? You sent me three notices in the mail but you never called and spoke to me about the fact that s/he was failing so I insist that you change the grade to a D (even though I wasn’t answering calls from the school.) I wish these were exagerrations but the sense of entitlement is downright scary. (and failing college, with the professor not caring is a big shock for many of them.) Since we have moved to standards-based education, if the kid doesn’t meet the standard, we are supposed to state that and grade them accordingly.
I would love to discuss your thoughts on edcuation reform.
Education reform as another topic entirely, perhaps one I will take on sometime.
I understand your personal examples, but also understand that to generalize from the specific is a logical fallacy. (This dog is brown, therefore all dogs are brown.) Your example certainly speaks to the issue and need for worker protection, but I think that there can be other solutions than unions with powers to bargain for pay and benefits.
I do think we are in part speaking from our different regional experiences. In your region, union are a counter balancing force, your state doesn’t even have an income tax if I remember correctly. In my state union, coupled with a left and center-left electorate have crafted financial agreements that are nearly, if not in fact, impossible to keep. where there is a left or center-left electorate union money and influence can have a synergistic upon the budget process. (No one in this state crosses the Prison Guard union and survives politically.)
An additional assessment, not just on Unions, but on education reform:
http://www.slate.com/id/2285650
(Bob’s original post is regarding why public employees need unions. Teachers are one of the largest groups of public employees. They are not the only group of public employees so please do not extrapolate from this farther than you should.)
Greetings, Bear!!
The Union is NOT against reform and it is not against getting bad teachers out of education. This is part of the misinformation being put out by the faction in the Republican party that wants to privitize education. They ARE against reform that is done WITHOUT INPUT from teachers (this si a BIG, BIG part of the problem) and they are against firing WITHOUT DUE PROCESS. Since due process is supposed to be something we all should have, this should not be a problem for anyone.
Bear, I work at a large school and I have been in teaching for 20+ years. Rarely (very rarely) have I run into a truly BAD teacher. I can think of five off the top of my head. Considering the nubmer of teachers I’ve encountered, this is pretty good and it speaks well of the profession.
The reason ESE Teachers are held up as the example of “what about her” is because we are the most neglected part of the profession. I have been through the cycle of reform five times now in my district and it always goes something like this: The “gods” come down from the state and they tell us, “Hey, we’ve got a new system and it’s going to be GREAT! the kids are going to be learning like never before and teachers are going get all this support like never before and…oh…uh…ESE…uh…we haven’t figured out where you fit in this yet but…uh…don’t worry! We’ll get back to you! And they do, in a few years and just about the time that they figure out what they want us to do, Tallahassee comes up with something new and the “gods’ comedown from the state and they tell us…(etc.) Bear, I can’t make this up! It happens every time! This is one of the core problems with reform. People with no connection to the day-to-day operations of schools make the changes and blame us when they don’t work! A HUGE issue in American education is planning time. I have researched and had contact with our counterparts from Asia and Europe. (We have a Russian and a Japanese ex-pats. teaching here.) They are great teachers BUT they have the same complaint: lack of planning time. In Europe and in Asia they have a unit of planning for every unit of instruction. If you REALLY want better education you must have better lessons. If you want better lessons, there must be time scheduled in the work day to plan them. Right now more planning went into the placement of toilets in my building than is available to plan the typical lesson, let alone actual, coordinated units of instruction. This is one of the sad travesties in American Educaiton. We have great teachers but most of them work a 60-70 hour job and are paid for about 38 hours. We need our Union.
Bob, I’m not sure how illegality in the 30s through the 60s has anything to do wth what I said. Am I confused? As far as changes, I can only talk about individual ones. My union rep. sat with me when a stranger in my room (a nurse) accused me of abuse unjustly. She was not paying attention to what was happening in my class and objected to me “yelling at” a student. (The student had been verbally prompted in a normal tone of voice three times prior to me raising my voice to elicit the required behavior. The student was ignoring me, as was the nurse, which is why she had no idea what was going on and accused me of abuse.) Without my union, I would not have a job or a teaching certificate because of this wrongheadedness. This kind of thing happens very, very frequently – more often than you ever hear about – and this is the kind of thing our Union protects us from.
Unless I am mistaken, and I am always open to admitting error, from about the 1930’s through the early 1960′ public worker unions were illegal. Yet, I am unaware of any systemic abuses by the system that these unions corrected. That is really a core part of my conclusions.
Missy, I have nothing but the deepest respect for what you do, your work is vital. I have a nephew who is mentally disabled and needs constant care, so I have an idea of what you do. You more than earn the money you make. The big problem is that those awful, useless so and so’s that your husband hates and rails against, use you as their shield against needed accountability. Whenever needed reform comes up, they hold you up and say ‘but what about her?!!’. I’m very much against throwing out the baby with the bath water, but it is also very true that the water very much needs to be changed.
My two cents
I wish to address your point about why public employees should have a strong union. [Please know that my husband HATES (!!!!) his union, as he has watched it protect those who were/are lazyy, useless so-and-sos, which is one legitimate problem with unions – in protecting the good, they often protect the absolutely awful.)
I am a public school teacher and a union member. I teach children with handicaps and often, (OFTEN!!!) what we do is misunderstood by the public. I have been attacked by students and I have restrained students. I have worked with students who are.were very mentally ill. I have watched colleagues have their bodies ruined from having been repeatedly attacked by students whose parents didn’t think their child needed medication (I am not talking about ADHD meds. – where there is room for argument about the need or not in some cases. I am talking about anti-halucinogens for those in the grip of delusions because of scitzophrenia.) I had a child die in my room. I have had children have full-on tonic-clonic seizures and waited – under parents orders – 90 minutes for the parent to show up with the hard seizure activity, only to have it stop two minutes before the parent walked into the room. I have seen the evidence on student’s bodies of abuse and rape. Why do I need a union? Because I need protection from being misunderstood. I have been fortunate so far in that I have mostly had administrators who understood what they were looking at. when a student charged at me and attacked me last year, it would have been easy for my administration to throw me under the bus. They didn’t. BUT the possibility is always there and I need my union for those times when what I am doing is misunderstood.
I need my union for salary negotiation! Florida has been harder hit than almost any state as far as tax revenue – or lack thereof. My district has had no salary increases for four years. While I have no issue with this for my sake – I can manage – those who are in their first five years of employment have it very rough, indeed. Our union keep salary on the table, even in these tough times. It reminds the upper administration (Earning 100,000+) that many, many of us earn less than 30,000 and can’t make ends meet.
I need a Union to deal with my state capital. Our current elected leader have made it very plain that they think education should be privatized. This will be a disaster for education and for teachers. Our salaries suck now when compared to other professions that require a degree. Our workload is obscene when compared to our European and Asian counterparts. Privatize, and things will get worse. Please believe me that if there was money to be made in running schools, then all these private schools would not need to do all the fundraising that they do to keep going (& They do a LOT of fundraising!!) The only way these companies will make money is by squeezing the teachers. I need my unionto speak for me to Tallahassee and to remind them that the best countries in the world have a strong PUBLIC educations system and that this costs money – more money than gets generated by out (funds surplanting) state lottery.
I need my Union. This is not about profit sharing. It is about a voice and it is about protection.