Comment Rescue

Pierre Corneille in reply to Kazzy says:

Not much for me to disagree with here. One advantage of micromanaging, if it’s documented, is that it can provide a putatively objective basis to discipline someone who can be fired only for cause. Not that it’s a bad thing to have “for cause” as a reason to fire people, but in the spirit of Hanley’s second law, it creates the incentive for bosses (perhaps in this case in collaboration with the unions themselves) to create potentially arbitrary standards for what constitutes cause.

I’m very ambivalent about teachers unions themselves. However, I agree with you that they’re pretty much just doing what they’re supposed to do, that is, represent their members’ interests. What I dislike is their (sometimes) practice of stating that a refusal to grant them their demanded pay raises is equivalent to taking money “from the children.”

I’m thinking of the recent unpleasantness in the Chicago Public Schools. Other things were at issue, of course, and pay in some ways was a proxy for those other things, but we still had the union president state the “you’re stealing from the children” argument. That, however, is just a rhetorical tactic and not necessarily the pith and substance of what teachers unions are about, and I suppose the school boards use the “for the children” argument in ways that are just as unpalatable.

Now, the faculty at a local public university are trying to organize with the same teachers union. If things come to a head with a strike, it will be interesting to see the type of rhetoric it uses. By “interesting,” I suppose I mean both “something that’d be informative to watch play out” and the more snarky “something I’d be apt to criticize but will just call ‘interesting.'”Report

Pierre Corneille in reply to Kazzy says:

@kazzy

Thanks for your comments (I’ve been gone all day so I haven’t been able to respond ’til now). I agree with much of what you say, but there is a counterpoint to this:

It is always about greedy teachers who are robbing from children.

My counterpoint is that in my circle of friends/acquaintances/colleagues, even to say, “well, maybe the city doesn’t have enough money to pay the raises the union demands, so maybe the teachers shouldn’t have a raise or should have a much lower one,” elicits a very stern response on the order of “why do you hate teachers.” They don’t seem to acknowledge that collective bargaining is bargaining and that sometimes means that you don’t get what you want.

It’s not always about greedy administrators who should have their salaries reduced, although maybe they don’t necessarily deserve as much as they’re getting, and their refusal to lower their salaries or accept pay freezes suggests a certain tone deafness.

Of course, this is *my* circle of friends, and given the large number of school teachers in that circle, they’re obviously biased and probably not very representative of the wider discourse. And I say this all here in part because I feel that I cannot say it to them. But that’s a counterpoint in my (admittedly narrowed) circumstances I hear quite a lot.Report

Pierre Corneille in reply to Kazzy says:

@kazzy

To be fair, the “why do you hate teachers?” is more of an attitude I infer than a phrase I hear from my friends. When the CPS strike happened c. 1 year ago, I made sure not to opine to them about what I thought. This wasn’t solely from fear for their reaction, but also a recognition that it’s their livelihood and interests on the line and not mine, except as a taxpayer.

I didn’t realize that most districts forbid strikes. In Chicago, apparently, strikes aren’t outlawed.

As for the point about coercion, I agree with you mostly that simply calling it coercion is probably a bridge too far, at least if one doesn’t follow with an explanation of what is meant. But perhaps, in addition to the public sector “privileges” you allude to in your comment, there’s another way in which unions, at least post-New Deal, are “coercive”: the federal and state laws as I understand it sets certain thresholds (for example, a majority vote of employees, or a majority registration with a “card check” provision in some states and some sectors), and once those thresholds are met, the employer is required by the state to recognize and negotiate “in good faith” with the union, and in non-right to work states, one of the things unions often start negotiating for is compulsory union membership. There is, I think, some element of coercion there.

All that said, we live in a world awash with coercion, much of which redounds to my personal benefit. I know people don’t like privilege-calling, but in my case, I’ll indulge in some reverse privilege calling and suggest that I, personally, benefit from so many ensconced forms of coercion that it would probably rather rich of me to criticize others for using a standardized mechanism (labor legislation) that because it’s backed by the state is “coercive” when the cards are often stacked against those very workers in so many other ways.

The “cards stacked against” comment is a generalization, and may or may not apply to teachers in any given district. I also know of some people at the university I referenced above who have numerous advantages and are trying to preserve what they see as coming to them by their unionization drive. Having some insight into their grievances and their broader situation, I can say they have some beefs I consider legitimate, but on the whole I’m unsympathetic.Report

Pierre Corneille in reply to Kazzy says:

@kazzy

I look forward to reading your post, but it might be a while before I can comment on it because today is going to be kind of busy.Report