Intercepts
A listening post monitoring public education and teachers’ unions.

Last week, the editors of the Washington Post had this to say about the DC teachers’ contract negotiations:

Maybe it’s time for parents to get a look what’s going on in these closed-door talks. More than pay scales are at stake. Every aspect of classroom life — from the size of bulletin boards to teacher planning times to when principals can ask to look at lesson plans — is being decided. Given that secrecy hasn’t helped Ms. Rhee and Ms. Weingarten work out their differences, why not give the public more than a glimpse and some sound bites about the competing proposals? Each side claims to have a plan that will further the interests of students. Let them prove it.

To which Andrew Rotherham added:

And why not?  This is a step that Jane Hannaway and I called for a few years ago as a general reform to today’s bargaining process and in general more transparency around policymaking is better.  Yet while opening up negotiations more is perceived as not in interest of the teachers’ unions, I’m not sure that’s entirely true at all.   Contrary to popular belief, everything they ask for, even around key sticking points, isn’t indefensible.

Fortunately, we received some of the answer from John Scrudato, president of the Traverse City Education Association in Michigan, who had this response when the district posted its – and the union’s – contract proposals on its web site:

“I thought it was deplorable. This was done to make the teachers look like greedy, foolish people.”

Unions prefer a closed-door negotiation for a very simple reason - it neutralizes the public. It clouds the perception of who represents whom. In this model, the public plays the role of interested observers. The union and district administration hash out the details, and the results are presented to the citizenry. Sort of like the way we would watch negotiations between the Teamsters and UPS, or maintenance workers and the airlines. The public has an indirect interest in the outcome, but has no stake in the bargaining process.

Teacher union negotiators may inform their constituency – the members – about every detail of bargaining. And who are district negotiators allowed to inform? The school board and the superintendent. This maintains the facade that bargaining is strictly between “management” and labor.

If you open up negotiations, you change the dynamic entirely. The public becomes party to the bargaining. District negotiators are reminded they ostensibly represent the public, not just the administration. Unions are faced with a question they would rather not contemplate: If we are bargaining for the teachers, who are we bargaining against?

The Education Action Group has been the bane of the Michigan Education Association for the past two years, prompting the union to put together a 52-page “tool kit” of opposition research about the organization.

Not that I’m envious or anything, but I’ve been at this a lot longer and I never got my own tool kit. On the other hand, a union guy did accuse me once of running guns to the Contras, so I have that.

EAG just opened a new front in Indiana with a web site called ISTAexposed.com. You’ll find some EIA material on the site, but for the record I’m not connected to it in any way. I know that admission threatens to keep me off yet another conspiracy flow chart, but I never get invited to Checker Finn’s evil cabal cocktail parties anyway.

I tend to get along better with really staunch, paleo-unionists than those of the new unionism/professional organization variety because we agree on what unions are for. Sure, we still argue about everything else, but it saves time normally wasted on how altruistic and noble we both are.

Today’s case study concerns this United Federation of Teachers television ad and a response by blogger NYC Educator:

NYC Educator parses the tag line “We have teachers in our name, but children and their families in mind,” mentioning advice he once received that “Whenever anyone says but, you can completely disregard whatever came before it.”

He goes on to say, “We are a labor union. We should have teachers in our minds. In fact, that is our purpose. To buy into the propaganda that it’s somehow evil to act in our self-interest is to lose the war without firing a shot.”

This is great on so many levels. Of course we can debate whether UFT really has children and their families in mind, but I’d rather concentrate on this concept of self-interest.

NYC Educator is right, and it’s exactly on this point where many education reformers and union opponents go wrong. “Why do the unions protect bad teachers?” is a question I hear at least once a week. “Because all teachers – bad or good – pay them for that protection,” is how I respond. But discussing public education and The Children in terms of a commercial relationship between teachers and their agents is in poor taste. So we have ongoing discussions about teacher quality and retention without adequate acknowledgement that unions are fulfilling a paid commission (and sometimes, legal obligation) by keeping their members employed.

Teachers have their self-interest, and many times it coincides with the self-interest of students and parents. Teachers’ unions have their self-interest as well, but like to pretend they don’t, which is why the UFT ad mentions class size, supplies and quality teachers, but fails to mention bumping, release time, exclusive representation, and summary dismissal for teachers who fail to pay their union dues – all things that have nothing to do with the interests of students and parents.

A hypothetical union that advertises itself as acting in the interests of itself and its members creates an equivalency between itself and other self-interested parties. Like parents. And taxpayers. And, dare I say it, management. If it’s perfectably acceptable and natural for a union to defend its self-interest, by what standard does a union demand that employers (or charter schools) remain neutral during union organizing drives?

Although we read many stories (some on this blog) about the poor academic performance of America’s students, we can be encouraged by a May 2005 Yale University study that found they learn at an early age to factor self-interest into people’s claims. Reporting on the study, Science News concluded that ”at least by age 7, children can be cynical, recognizing that people’s statements may be influenced by their own interests.”

If you believe that the unions’ statements may be influenced by their own interests, it means you are devoted readers of this blog, which fulfills my self-interest. But, of course, I have The Children and their families in mind.

The Associated Press reports that quite a few of those 7,000 Arizona teachers who received layoff notices amid much caterwauling won’t actually be laid off after all. Teacher Beat wonders if the original notices were a scare tactic.

It’s interesting to watch how different locales and players handle budget deficits. Some fight to avoid layoffs at all costs, to the point where unions will accept furloughs, freezes and reductions in order to save jobs. In other places, it’s just the opposite. The union insists on pay raises and benefit enhancements even if means losing low seniority members to layoffs. And don’t forget the Ball of Confusion folks, who say “more taxes will solve everything.”

Now add in the situation at the Indiana State Teachers Association. Faced with a massive deficit, the union’s first instinct wasn’t to raise taxes (dues) or institute freezes or furloughs. Union managers issued layoff notices to more than one-quarter of their employees. The staff union president said “we’re trying to save the organization at this point.” It’s assured, however, that a dues increase is in the cards.

Today’s Wall Street Journal has an editorial on “Unions in Debt,” noting both the AFL-CIO and SEIU have seen large increases in their liabilities, leading to questions about their financial health.

I’ll have more on this on Monday, but NEA is unlikely to face such radical downturns because its members are better off than the average SEIU or AFL-CIO worker. A home health care worker can’t comfortably provide an additional $100 per year just to bail out her union, but an Indiana teacher can.

This financial stability, coupled with the failure to pass card check, actually strengthens NEA relative to the AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions. It’s strange that, should it so desire, NEA may soon have the opportunity to become the primary power broker in the labor movement. All the previous talk about whether NEA would ever join the AFL-CIO gets turned around. The new question becomes: Will the AFL-CIO join the NEA?

The Indiana State Teachers Association will hold a special representative assembly on June 20 to close its deficits, but staff union rules require 60 days notice before layoffs, so ISTA executives have wasted no time. More than 35 of the union’s 150 employees have received pink slips.

Though by now they must be fully aware of the financial pit ISTA is in, NEA state affiliate staff unions are not known for meekly accepting such drastic measures without a fight. We’ll keep an eye on that angle.

Click here to read:

1) Indiana State Teachers Association Summons Delegates to Deal with Financial Crisis
2) Van Roekel’s Video Vacuum
3) Things the California Teachers Association Is Working On
4) Contract Hits
5) Last Week’s Intercepts
6) Quote of the Week

About face!

The National Education Association and the Indiana State Teachers Association announced this morning they would continue long-term disability payments to teachers who were covered by the ISTA Insurance Trust, reversing their position of last week.

“As promised, we are working with our national affiliate to make good on our commitment to our members,” ISTA President Nate Schnellenberger said in a statement.

Of course, Schnellenberger doesn’t run the union anymore, but NEA Trustee Edward Sullivan told the Associated Press that ISTA and NEA will cover the claims, adding that ISTA will have to cut costs and possibly increase dues to make up its deficits.

Certainly the bad press caused some pangs of conscience at union headquarters, but the hovering presence of trial lawyers may have had some effect as well.