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1) Teachers' Unions: Back to the
Future. Back in 1998, the Illinois Education
Association commissioned the
Global Business Network to assess the union's direction for the next
10-15 years and help devise options for dealing with possible scenarios. The
result, a report titled
The Future of the Illinois Education Association, is a fascinating
read not just for its insights into the union's strategic thinking, but for
which "predictions" it got right and wrong.
I put the scare quotes around
"predictions" because GBN was explicit in stating that the possible
scenarios it outlined were not predictions, but merely various possibilities
for which the union should plan. As the authors put it, "After imaginatively
dwelling in each scenario, participants can develop strategic options that
are appropriate to managing in just that scenario."
GBN developed a matrix of four
scenarios, based on the variables of strong vs. weak political environments,
and strong vs. weak membership connection with the union. Each of the four
contains at least some relevance to current events, although other aspects
read like one of those "flying car, food pills" science fiction stories
written in the 1930s about life in the 1970s.
Scenario One: Rollin' Along
• Supportive Political Environment
• Disconnected Membership
This scenario opens with the IEA
president in 2013 reminiscing about what has occurred over the past 14
years.
Members also became less concerned with contractual issues
and protecting their own rights as a spirit of collaboration and progress
permeated their environment. As the positive results of their work were
acknowledged publicly, and respect and support of educators grew, members
became more willing to voluntarily waive their rights and take on vast new
areas of responsibility. Local association leaders found it increasingly
difficult to monitor and effectively evaluate the changes taking place
within their districts.
This is a rosy depiction, but even in
1998 it was clear that younger teachers and older teachers had different
views of traditional unionism.
She remembered how they used to shake their heads, and sigh
or mutter comments under their breath about "kids these days." They had
tended to look at the newcomers as being less than appreciative of all the
wonderful advantages that had been secured for them in hard-fought battles
over the previous three decades. They seemed so naive and so willing to
surrender not only their own rights but also those of others in the
workplace.
In this scenario, even though things are
going well for public education, the union is losing members and influence
because it is no longer relevant to a new generation of teachers. They see
political actions as "crude strong-arming that was no longer necessary or
civilized." IEA failed to reach them because "Most of the techniques and
messages employed were the same as those that had been successful in the
1970s. They did not resonate."
Scenario Two: Beat Up
• Hostile Political Environment
• Disconnected Membership
This is the worst case scenario for IEA.
Interestingly, it includes reform measures in teacher evaluation, tenure and
dismissals instituted by the mayor of Chicago.
It also envisions a Wisconsin
statehouse-style showdown - at least the way the union might perceive it.
The 23 strikes in the Fall of 2001 were difficult and led to
a call for the repeal of collective bargaining by a group of conservative
Republican state senators called "The Righteous Seven." This faction had
secretly organized to stem the drift to the middle by the Republican Party.
They voted in concert to leverage their influence and raised political funds
to finance conservative candidates in the elections of 2002 and beyond.
In keeping with this apocalyptic view,
the scenario also references "President George Bush Jr.'s demolition of the
Department of Education."
The loss of collective bargaining ends
up splitting teachers into three camps: one in the union, one in a
professional educators organization, and the rest completely independent.
Scenario Three: The Young and
Restless
• Hostile Political Environment
• Connected Membership
This scenario also proved very
interesting. It, too, foresees the rise of a professional educators
organization, representing younger teachers who are largely wired in through
the Internet.
Changes in technology had a substantial impact on the IEA.
The ability to communicate broadly and instantaneously was a boon to the
internal communications of the organization-especially for younger members
who were used to communicating online. However, the ability of external
forces to communicate with members created a real challenge. Those who
opposed public sector unions could now reach members more effectively than
through the old direct mail efforts. Technology favored a new accountability
called for by the corporate sector. Activities of the organization's
officials fell under the immediate scrutiny of members by virtue of
communications from those who saw themselves as watchdogs of the unions. In
this environment, only an organization that lived up to its members' highest
aspirations could survive.
One section seems to predict the rise of
Teach for America, and like-minded individuals:
But the whole system of careers, seniority and tenure came to
be regarded as anachronistic in a world where not even Japanese "salary men"
could count on lifetime employment. From term limits in politics, to calls
for re-credentialing in medicine and the law, to rapid turnover and
re-education in high technology professions, the new pattern of employment
featured "serial careers." Most young teachers didn't plan on teaching for
more than five or ten years, so tenure was not important to them.
Having just attend the NEA convention,
it's clear to me that many union activists still haven't come to terms with
this way of thinking.
GBN also foretells the rise of the
Kindle!
Not only was tenure an anachronism. So were textbooks.
Technology had finally produced the Dynabook that Alan Kay had foreseen way
back in the 1970s--the palm-top, lightweight, wireless unit that could
display any text or graphic its user wanted. No more out-of-date history
books. No more dog-eared hard copies. And no more isolated classrooms.
The authors were less accurate with the
direction of the national union, describing how NEA "moved forward into new
unionism with renewed emphasis on service, empowerment and commitment to
quality-a direction that played well with younger members and their
corporate sponsors. These new approaches now seem to have been perfectly in
keeping with the times."
Scenario Four: Nothing Succeeds Like
Success
• Supportive Political Environment
• Connected Membership
This is the best case scenario for IEA,
with the union celebrating membership of more than 230,000 teachers and
support workers. In it, the problem of home environment vs. school
environment is mostly solved.
Social agencies became networked with schools. This
revolutionized teaching in that it helped to overcome some of the social
problems that had plagued students and hurt their performance. Excited by
the chance to start students off on the right foot with individualized
learning plans, the IEF led a successful organizing drive in 2005-6 that
brought hundreds of day care centers and private preschools statewide into
the fold.
Even in the best of circumstances, GBN
envisaged the breakup of the AFL-CIO and significant changes to collective
bargaining, depicting a world in which "contracts evolved to allow much more
flexibility at the work site."
The report was written shortly after IEA
helped lead a successful effort to derail the proposed NEA-AFT merger. It's
therefore interesting that all four scenarios predicted some sort of teacher
union merger.
Recent union strategy discussions
contain many of these same elements - different perspectives on tenure and
performance pay, older unionists vs. younger "professionals," and the
relationship of external events to internal organizing. But despite relative
accuracy in details, future scenarios always seem to be more dramatic and
world-changing than what happens in reality.
But who would read a report that sees
little change over the next decade?
2) Last Week's Intercepts.
EIA's blog,
Intercepts, covered these topics from July 11-18:
*
Of Cognomens, Sobriquets and Epithets. Will rosy-fingered dawn rise over
the wine-dark sea for Randi the Anguished?
*
America's Most Wanted. Going after the pastry receipts to solve the debt
crisis.
* Collaboration.
Delaware employment situation improves.
*
Pa'u Hana. No aloha.
3) Battle of the Pig Proverbs.
"You can't fatten a pig by weighing it." - Warren Fletcher, president,
United Teachers Los Angeles. (July 18
Los Angeles Times)
"It is
not necessary to be a pig in order to raise one." - Colonel Robert Green
Ingersoll. (The
Complete Lectures of R.G. Ingersoll, 1900) |
