24 February 2011
Collectively Bargaining Teachers
In the dispute with Wisconsin’s Governor in early 2011, Randy Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers claims the right to collectively bargain with its employers on behalf of its members. As a critical supporter of the Democratic Party, the AFT has corralled the Party’s members of the legislature into fleeing the state in order to deny a quorum in one of its houses. The AFT’s members are professionals whose union also demands post-graduate education for them at the expense of the public. Can they really have it both ways?
Labor’s right to collectively bargain has been an accepted feature of labor-management relations because it supposedly compensates for the disadvantage at which non-professional and individually non-essential employees find themselves vis-à-vis their bosses. However, in most cases teachers are more highly qualified and more highly educated than their supposed bosses—the taxpayers.
Teachers, through their union leaders, seek to portray themselves as “workers” by also advocating the rights of less qualified public employees, like fire fighters, garbage collectors, etc. Using this tactic would lead NIH researchers or judges to join their cleaning assistants or bailiffs and stenographers in wage and benefits negotiations. It is disappointing that the teachers to whom we entrust the education of our children have fallen under the influence of union leaders who have persuaded them to use their leverage over parents to demand treatment as powerless victims of public sector exploitation.
In the dispute with Wisconsin’s Governor in early 2011, Randy Weingarten’s American Federation of Teachers claims the right to collectively bargain with its employers on behalf of its members. As a critical supporter of the Democratic Party, the AFT has corralled the Party’s members of the legislature into fleeing the state in order to deny a quorum in one of its houses. The AFT’s members are professionals whose union also demands post-graduate education for them at the expense of the public. Can they really have it both ways?
Labor’s right to collectively bargain has been an accepted feature of labor-management relations because it supposedly compensates for the disadvantage at which non-professional and individually non-essential employees find themselves vis-à-vis their bosses. However, in most cases teachers are more highly qualified and more highly educated than their supposed bosses—the taxpayers.
Teachers, through their union leaders, seek to portray themselves as “workers” by also advocating the rights of less qualified public employees, like fire fighters, garbage collectors, etc. Using this tactic would lead NIH researchers or judges to join their cleaning assistants or bailiffs and stenographers in wage and benefits negotiations. It is disappointing that the teachers to whom we entrust the education of our children have fallen under the influence of union leaders who have persuaded them to use their leverage over parents to demand treatment as powerless victims of public sector exploitation.
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