Unions Matter
“I consider it important, indeed urgently necessary, for intellectual workers to get together, both to protect their own economic status and also, generally speaking, to secure their influence in the political field.”
Once upon a time a person who LOVED school, had a way with children, sought out ways to help kids understand stuff, tirelessly “looked things up” pondered “what mattered” in books and courses, would become a teacher. A good one.
Nobody was doing it for the money, but over time teacher salaries, benefits, and working conditions became reasonable. That happened with a lot of help from joining and supporting a union.
States with professional teacher’s unions have better teacher qualifications, higher pay, improved facilities, and higher student test scores than those that do not. (
https://edsource.org/2014/why-public-education-needs-teachers-unions/65723) Union representation not only improved salaries and benefits. Unions protected teachers from bias, from unreasonable requirements, and from school boards giving one’s job to somebody’s nephew. Union members got salary and benefit bargaining by teams that knew how to do it well. Union members could ask special experts for help when our jobs or working conditions were threatened. Unions worked continuously to improve teaching methods, qualifications, facilities and opportunities for growth, both professionally and financially.
Did teachers ever have to strike? Yes. Did their communities really love that? No. But unfortunately, sometimes the only way to focus public attention on the needs of schools was to walk out. We all got to see that happening recently in two non-union states where teachers and students had been ignored to the point where they had to provide their own pencils and paper.
Teachers of all political persuasions are employed to achieve a common goal: to help children grow and learn in an appropriate environment. Teachers that didn’t want to pay their fair share for union benefits could have worked where a union wasn’t a factor. But in June, 2018, the Supreme Court has ruled that they don’t have to pay union dues. The Court found that some teachers “might not agree with union principles and activity”. Sure. Philosophical, financial, perhaps even religious ideas, must have directed those teachers who did not want to pay dues. But teachers demanding “Right to work” law have killed the messenger. Without required funding support there will be no union benefits for anybody.
Of course unions are political. Belonging to a huge well-funded group enabled teachers to to have a political voice. Teachers could support candidates who cared about education, who were solidly behind funding education, and who were paying attention to what was going on in schools in terms of facilities, equity, safety, and curricula. Union activities on behalf of our children and our schools mattered as much or more as salary and benefits for teachers.
Remember the advice above that was “urgently necessary” for professionals in education? The speaker was Albert Einstein, a faculty member at Princeton University and a charter member of the American Federation of Teachers. I think we can assume that he knew what he was talking about. Unions matter. And the teacher’s unions mattered a lot.
Ann Melby Shenkle
Doylestown, PA