WHY TEACHER UNIONS?

Workers join unions. Teachers are professionals and don’t belong in unions. That is pretty much a common belief, especially in the media. However, a close look at teaching shows that it is, actually, ahybrid - part profession, part labor. In common with doctors and lawyers, for example, teachers must qualify through extensive and specific college courses and then pass a stringent exam. But in common, say, with retail clerks and TV technicians, teachers once hired are told where, how, when and in detail what they are to teach. Teachers dissatisfied with or fired from a specific school district must go elsewhere to find a job, to a new city or even a state, unlike the clerk, who can leave Wal Mart for Sears. Include low wages, submission to a well-paid and distant bureaucracy, and substandard working conditions, and it is obvious that though prepared and eager to be professionals, teachers are treated like workers. And workers join unions.

Why then do we hear so much negative chatter about teacher unions? Attacks on public education from right wing politicians focus on teacher unions, implying that if only the “too powerful” unions were out of the picture, education would have a chance to improve. How powerful are teacher unions? In fact, unions can only negotiate, not dictate. Even where a contract has been won, the union (and the teachers) still have no say over curriculum, textbook selection, district organization, salaries of administration, and much more. The power of the unions is, despite all the hullabaloo about them, very limited.

Teacher unions do use whatever power they have by engaging public interest and public power through political activity. Political action committees (PACs) implement a basic principle of democracy, the right of individually powerless people to collect money as a group in order to level the playing field with such big players as corporate interests and major political factions. PACs are attacked again and again for trying to “buy“ politicians and influence legislation; if teachers support candidates and issues that affect their profession, they are doing no more than every other organized sector in a democracy. As it is, though, unions spend on average only about 20% of what business spends on causes they favor.

Using whatever power they have, teacher unions play a triple role: they protect individual teachers from administrative injustice, they preserve the rights and standards of the teaching profession, and they promote the cause of education for all children. A teacher union does for teachers what any union does for its members: provides support and strength which come only with many acting as one - unity. So, precisely what is on the agendas of teacher unions? What do they fight for? Here are their chief goals.

Quality education for all, across the community: the same levels of funding for supplies, for experienced teachers, for proper buildings and equipment, regardless of economic levels.

Class size reduction as a key element of successful education.
Minimal proportion of education budgets for bureaucratic costs, which can absorb as much as 30% of a district budget; education funds must go to the classroom, where education happens.

Improvement of teacher pay, aiming for professional levels. It is commonly acknowledged that the hard work and dedication of teachers are seldom rewarded properly; only the power of many united into one bargaining unit can achieve progress.

Protection of due rights processes for teachers, whose professional activity and status should never be subject to the whims of individual administrators. Mistakenly lumped under the word tenure, “due process rights” simply means a teacher won’t be fired without due cause.

Maintenance of supportive services provided by librarians, school nurses, and counselors; their specialized professional work is not expendable.
Advancement of education goals and methods as they are recognized through professional experience: educational reform. It must originate with teachers, not be imposed by theoreticians far removed from real classrooms.

Proper funding in local and state budgets for education. Legislators too often fail to prioritize the cost of education: California, for example, pays $50,000 a year to keep someone in prison but balks at $8,000 a year to educate a child.
Inclusion of teachers in planning school district budgets and curriculum. Classroom experience knows the needs: the administrative bureaucracy is too far removed from day-to-day education activities to have total power over them.

With such goals, teacher unions are a positive force in a community, often the only group fighting to keep alive the American dream of quality education for all the nation’s kids. They need all the power they can muster to meet that goal.