"Teachers Unions No More: Are We Prepared for the Union-Busters? "...

[YvonneCa]

...by Gary Anderson, Professor of Education, New York University


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-anderson/teachers-union-busters-education-reform_b_797984.html

Although most of the new crop of self-described "reformers" have denied it, we've all suspected that union-busting is ultimately behind the scapegoating of teachers for turning America into a "nation at risk." But in case there was ever any doubt, New Jersey Governor, Chris Christie, former DC schools chancellor, Michelle Rhee and L.A. mayor and former union guy, Antonio Villaraigosa aren't mincing words about going after teachers unions.


This hurts in a way that is difficult for me to describe. As a teacher and a Democrat, I attended a rally, headlined by John Kerry, for Antonio Villaraigosa when he was running for mayor. To have my profession...and my colleagues...treated this way by 'those I entrusted with high office' really hurts. I really hope President Obama backs away from this.

[WingDinger]

1. Wrong, it is about indoctrinating our youth with right wing theology

They have been talking about capturing the curriculum for some time now. Union busting, and funding charter and religious schools with public funds is the rest.

[YvonneCa]

2. I know this is true about the GOP. Where it hurts is...

...if Dems enable it.

[Brickbat]

4. There's no "if" about it anymore. The full-scale destruction is in progress.

[lonestarnot]

11. Bottom line.

Can't keep the tax cuts if there aren't any tax cutters. Inculcation is their miracle.

[The Wielding Truth]

3. Talk about attacking the middle class! Teachers are professionals and should be respected as so.

[LWolf]

5. I can describe the hurt. It's a gross betrayal.

A betrayal of public education, a betrayal of labor, and a betrayal of the middle class, the working class, and the poor. Education is just one facet of a neo-liberal agenda that betrays us all.

Increasingly, we are seeing both republicans and "new" democrats going after teachers unions. We have got to be prepared to defend teachers unions, while also pressuring them to take courageous political positions and engage in collaborative practices like PAR that show they are willing to work with districts to get rid of bad teachers. They also need to reach out to their international allies, since Neo-liberalism is not just an American phenomenon. Lois Weiner's book, the Global Assault on Teaching, Teachers, and their unions: Stories for resistance, provides a good overview of what some progressive teachers' unions are doing in other countries. Now that Christie, Rhee, and Villaraigosa have made it politically popular (and opportunistic) to go after unions, we will see an avalanche of more explicit anti-union rhetoric and policies. How prepared (and willing) are we to defend teachers unions and to keep pushing them toward progressive change?[/div}

[YvonneCa]

6. It is a betrayal...

...and I know you also 'get' why it hurts. :hug:

[notesdev]

7. It's really pretty simple

Everyone is taking a hit right now, government workers are going to have to suck it up a bit too.

If the teachers want to be angry at someone, don't take it out on the poor schmucks who tell them the truth about the impossibility of sustaining the present highly dysfunctional and abhorrently expensive system.

Take it out on those who make their living sucking the blood out of everyone else so that the average man's labor can't afford him the means to support a family.

Teachers/public unions in general have been alienating many potential friends who see them only interested in getting for themselves, and uninterested in the horrible time everyone else is having of it right now.

People who stress over finding the money to eat and keep a roof over their heads are not going to be sympathetic to $100k+ compensation public employees whining that they weren't getting the raise they expected, or bitching about having to contribute to their own health plans. When coupled with the inevitable demands for tax hikes to cover pensions and the like, it turns the otherwise-just-annoyed into invigorated and determined opponents.

Unions - most especially public unions - which have not yet adjusted to the present economic circumstances need an attitude adjustment, stat. Those which don't are going to get a lot of people fired who may have otherwise just had to take a compensation cut. Governments don't have the money and states can't print it (California's attempts notwithstanding). Most states are already broke - and they can and will privatize and those union jobs will be gone for good.

You mad? You should be! Then join the crowd hankering to put a stop to the depravities on Wall St. That's where the money went, and we will never recover until we stop them from siphoning off nearly the entire economic surplus of the nation.

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. If I retired today...

...at 53, after 22 years of public school teaching, my pension would be $6850. Not per month. Per year.

If you 'adjusted' that, it would disappear altogether.

[notesdev]

9. who retires at 53?

There are a lot of people out there who would love to get any kind of pension at all, never mind being able to retire before their 60s and get it. I'd wager a good majority of people in this country now believe they will never retire. A full quarter of the working population has nothing at all set aside for retirement, and many more have so little it won't garner much, if any, retirement income.

And that's not even mentioning the many other benefits that are part of the standard public employee package that private sector employees cannot get unless they own the company.

Appreciate what you got while you still got it.

[Davis_X_Machina]

10. After I get laid off this year...

..I won't have any choice. Who's hiring 53-year old teachers?

[notesdev]

13. Nobody is

hope you have other skills... if not, I would start learning some now.

[proud2BlibKansan]

14. Teachers don't make $100K a year

Average salary is less than half that amount. They don't have pensions that make them wealthy either.

[notesdev]

15. That's just teachers and just salary

Tack on another 25%-50% (depending on state) in benefits to come to total compensation, that's teacher numbers.

So taking an average we're talking average total compensation for a teacher in the USA is ~ $65k.

The median total compensation for the country as a whole is closer to $40k.

So the average Joe is looking at teachers who make 60% more than he does, complaining that they're not getting enough - and that he should have to pay more taxes so the people who make more than he does can pull even further ahead of him.

See why that might not play so well to the public?

[proud2BlibKansan]

17. That's still not even close to $100K

As far as the average Joe, if he has a college degree and as much specific training as the average teacher has, then he would have a point. But when you look at college graduates, teachers are paid LOWER.

If the average Joe wants to make the same salary as a college graduate, he should go to college.

But on a personal level, I worked my way through college as a waitress. Most of my customers were kids my age. The majority of the ones who weren't in college like me worked very well paying jobs at a local power plant, for the railroad or in a local manufacturing plant. Every single one made at least double what a first year teacher made at that time. The manufacturing plant is now closed but the railroad and power plant are still the largest employers in that area. And my peers in those jobs STILL earn more than I do. The ones who worked for the railroad are mostly retired now, living on excellent pensions. I don't resent that, and I don't want to reduce their pensions because mine won't be as good.

Sorry no sympathy here.

[notesdev]

18. You'll have no trouble finding examples

3200 teachers in Orange County CA alone make over $100k in salary.

And keep in mind that on average, a $67k salary for a teacher is $100k in total compensation.

These numbers compare favorably with others of similar education, experience, and training.

Any teacher looking at prospective cuts should ask himself: if this feels as bad as it does for me, how bad has it been for my non-public-employee friends, who probably work much longer hours and took a pay cut, if they're even still lucky enough to have a job at all?

I'll leave this with my bottom line point: Unions need to fight for ALL workers and not just ones paying dues to the union. It is the failure to do that which has left the unions with too few friends in times of trouble. And in order to do that, union leaders and members are going to have to be a lot more understanding of the condition and plight of their non-unionized counterparts. At this time with the current "I'm gonna get mine" attitude that oozes from the tone of unionist complaints, they are pursuing a bridge-burning strategy while marching in exactly the wrong direction.

[proud2BlibKansan]

23. "Unions need to fight for ALL workers and not just ones paying dues to the union."

How do you propose unions do this? Should they be looking for money trees to pay for the work they do? Or should they just do it for free because all of the non-union workers will be ever so grateful to the unions?

You must not realize that resources cost money. And as a union member, please explain why I should pay my union while you don't have to yet you get the same benefits? Huh??

[NashVegas]

24. Orange County Is One of the Wealthiest Counties in the US - Disingenuous

Here in Nashville, which is far more representational of the country, on average, someone who's been teaching for 20 + years can make $62k.

Meanwhile, the school districts database administrators make $87k-$97k with less than two years.

The average high school math teacher in this district has been teaching less than 10 years and makes about $42k.

For the price of two database administrators, we could have 4 math teachers.

[dsc]

26. actually they do

for one example, unions fight for minimum wage laws despite the fact that virtually no union workers make minimum wage.

[YvonneCa]

28. And they organize in support of candidates that work...

...for these things.

[notesdev]

29. That's self service

That's just so they can raise what they ask for when negotiating salaries, by calculating the value of the unionized workforce as a premium over minimum wage.

I'm talking about unions going to the mat to oppose things like "free trade agreements" and labor dumping. Those are the practices that created the conditions where the unions' choice is pay cuts or layoffs.

Having done nothing consequential while non-unionized workers lost their jobs to offshoring and foreign labor, and saw their work days get longer and their paychecks shrink, union members are now faced with lower cost competition from these very same (American) workers who are willing to do the same job without all the union's demands.

Narrow self-interest is self defeating; one has to stand on the principle of supporting ALL labor, and modern day unions simply haven't done that. If all a union is, is a private club for its members with no objective other than their own self-advancement, then that organization is little different from the rest of the brigands running rampant in this country to make sure "I've got mine, everyone else be damned!"



edit... and I should add that raising the minimum wage is 100% completely useless if one does not also make sure the currency that those wages are paid in does not have its purchasing power inflated away! And the unions are totally MIA on the banking crisis, another venue where their influence would be most welcome and is befuddlingly very absent.

[dsc]

31. unions did oppose NAFTA which is why it passed

with GOP and southern Dem votes.

[mike_c]

25. the "average joe" is looking at professionals with more education...

...and in most cases a specialized and difficult skill set. Let's be clear about something: teachers should be paid MORE money than they typically are, not less. They spend years in specialized training, both in an academic discipline and, in the case of K-12 teachers, an entirely separate and parallel instructional training program. Then they learn how to apply that knowledge through apprenticeships or managed internships, in most cases.

The notion that teachers inexplicably have it better than your "average joe" fails to take into account that teaching professionals have invested a great deal of their lives and effort into achieving basic competency, let alone excellence in their profession. They perform a vital social function. They DESERVE to be compensated accordingly.

[notesdev]

27. The word "deserve" is very dangerous

and it evokes exactly the kind of entitled attitude I am warning against. Almost everybody deserves better than they are getting right now, finance sector aside.

Keep in mind that we are talking about more than just teachers here as well. There are other workers that are part of the union who do no teaching at all; in particular, administrators have been running up the bill on us for a long time.

But if the money is just not there, what is deserved isn't even a question on the table. And the money isn't there.

There is a very strong correlation between state insolvencies and doling out "deserved" generosity. The top three - IL, CA, NY - are all quite generous with public employees. Illinois right now is forcing those who do business with the state to wait until they are teetering on the edge of bankruptcy to get paid. CA has been paying its vendors in IOUs for two years running already. In NY the budget crunch is just beginning, so if IL and CA didn't get the message through, a repetition of the same that you can watch unfold in real time is on deck.

What's going to be the result of this? Even in these liberal strongholds, unions are going to get destroyed - the cost of maintaining them is far higher than the cost of alternatives, and we're going to see out of financial necessity many union jobs get replaced by lower-compensated private workers.

Unions and union members need to get a grip on the situation and realize that cooperation with the paymaster is the order of the day. Failure to cooperate to save these jobs will inexorably result in permanent losses.


With regards to the "specialized training"... really, how much training does one need to teach children? One project I am working on involves professional development for teachers, and in the data sets I am seeing teachers with MA degrees or more teaching middle school and elementary school kids. It's unnecessary, it's economic waste in the vast majority of cases, but it's done because it's a route to get more money. Oh, and this stuff being paid for by the employer is yet another of the many benefits that teachers enjoy that simply doesn't exist in the private sector.

There's a major scale-down happening, there's no avoiding it. The only choice left at this time is to get on the austerity train or get run over by it.

[YvonneCa]

16. You know, I read all your posts here...

...and agree with your basic points about the perceptions of those not in education. The problem, though, as I see it is that 'some politicians' have decided they have to attack educators(teachers, unions) to reach their goal(s) and...instead of the rest of us Dems pulling together to stand up for our values...we are allowing them to divide us and push us to attack each other instead of the problems in education.

It appears to be working... sadly.

As to Wall Street...I'm with you on that one too. :)

[WinkyDink]

12. Ya know, I would be more upset if I weren't retired and NOT SEEING YOUNG TEACHERS FIGHT FOR THIS.

[YvonneCa]

20. It's like Roe v Wade...

...taken for granted, without realizing how hard people fought to get it passed into law.

[Tansy_Gold]

22. Absolute 200 proof truth, that. n/t

[Rex]

19. The 'powers that be' want us to go back to pre-industrial times when

we all worked like serfs and the lord of the manor got to call all the shots.

[Omaha Steve]

21. K&R!

Save the middle class with solidarity!

[Hannah Bell]

30. kr. obama won't back away. teachers better stand up, because the ruling class has it in for them &

all public employees, & it's going to accelerate after christmas.

rhee has a new PAC dedicated to the destruction of public ed, funded by big & unnamed money (thanks to citizens united).

a number of anti-teacher advocacy groups have adjusted their tax status to accept said big money.