The recent strike by unionized public school teachers in the Sheridan School District finally ended after 28 days, Colorado’s longest teacher strike in 45 years. Private sector unionized employees have a legal right to strike, but government employees have more restrictions.
Members of our armed forces are forbidden to unionize, collectively bargain, or strike for obvious national security reasons. In 1981, President Reagan declared a strike of unionized air traffic controllers illegal, gave them 48 hours to return to work, fired 11,000 who didn’t, and decertified the union. In 1937, President Roosevelt informed the president of the National Federation of Federal Employees that strikes by government workers are unacceptable because their employer is “the whole people” and “a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent to prevent or obstruct the operations of government until their demands are met.”
Holding students hostage
The Sheridan teachers did have a legal right to strike, but not a morally justifiable one. They seriously disrupted the lives of innocent schoolchildren and their parents, holding them hostage to the union’s demands. When a grocery union strikes, customers can do business elsewhere. However, teachers are government employees within a school district that has a monopoly on publicly-funded education. And unlike private sector employers, Colorado school boards can refuse to allow a union. In 2012, a new Republican majority on the Douglas County School Board decertified its teacher union when the collective-bargaining agreement expired. (A new Democrat majority on the DougCo school board will likely welcome the union back with open arms.)
That’s too bad. The general quality of public education in the U.S., frankly, stinks. The proficiency of K-12 students in reading, writing, math, and basic academics is at disgracefully low levels. Instruction in history and social studies is overwhelmed by leftist indoctrination. Grade inflation deceives parents into imagining their underperforming kids are doing fine. The biggest obstacles to education reform are the National Education Association (NEA), the nation’s largest and most powerful labor union, and its lesser cousin, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), both joined at the hip with the Democrat party. The unions shower Democrats with campaign contributions and deliver the votes of their members to elect school boards and Democrat politicians at every level of government, all of whom return the favor by doing the bidding of the unions. This politically corrupt partnership assures us “it’s all for the kids.” Sure, it is.
By their official names, the NEA masquerades as an “association” and the AFT as a “federation.” That’s semantical BS. They’re both ruthless labor unions with militant leadership, and their local affiliates, the Colorado Education Association (CEA) and AFT Colorado, are just as bad. Their overriding interest is the welfare of their members; students, parents, and taxpayers be damned. Unions hate competition, especially within their membership. Which is why union collective bargaining agreements insist that all teachers be paid the same based on their years of service rather than individual merit. Consequently, the best teachers are underpaid and the worst ones overpaid. This treats teachers like unskilled workers on an assembly line, rather than professionals.
Competition needed
Teacher unions abhor competition from private schools. That’s why they adamantly oppose school choice that lets parents transfer the funds allocated for their kids in public schools to the private school of their choice. The school choice movement is spreading like wildfire across the country. But in the face of teacher union opposition, it’s going nowhere in Colorado’s Democrat-controlled legislature.
Claims that teachers are impoverished are exaggerated and misleading. Aspiring teachers know this field isn’t the highest paying, but many have a calling for the profession, nonetheless. 75% of teachers are women, most get married and will likely live well on two incomes along with a bunch of non-monetary benefits: The school work-year is only 186 days compared to the typical private-sector work-year of 260 days with only two weeks of vacation and 10 days off for holidays. Teachers get the summer off plus spring break, winter break, fall break, mental health days, planning days, and more. Leisure has great value, as does job security; firing a teacher for poor performance is almost impossible.
Starting salary in Denver Public Schools is $57,666; the maximum salary is $102,340 (with a master’s degree bonus), and these levels rise with each new union contract. Individual pay increases automatically on a 20-step schedule over one’s career and is supplemented with an annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA). Instead of Social Security, teachers are on the government-worker PERA retirement system which is far better. A teacher retiring after 40 years gets about a $100,000 annual pension, also supplemented with a yearly COLA. Not too bad, huh?
Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for Complete Colorado.
