Ken Berwitz
REBECCA FRIEDRICHS and nine other California teachers are not all wrong in their critique of the oversized influence and self-interest of teachers unions. The unions have helped persuade society to value the vital role teachers play. But they also have become an often-reactionary force, opposing reforms that are especially important to poor and minority children. Public education – and many teachers – have been ill served by seniority rules that force administrators to lay off promising teachers instead of ineffective tenured ones. Students suffer from workplace rules that make it nearly impossible to fire a certifiably bad teacher or experiment with new types of schooling. Taxpayers have to bear the costs of teacher pensions that may be excessive, sometimes at the expense of other community needs.
But as much as we agree about the harm that\’s been done topublic education and, in particular, to children at risk, we don\’t think theanswer is for the Supreme Court to giverelief by overturning settled law. Unions have contributedpositively in many places; their policies can be democratically influenced bytheir members; and their proper role should be decided politically, not in aSupreme Court decision that would inevitably be seen as favoring one party overthe other, since unions have been the traditional allies of Democrats.
Ms. Friedrichs, a teacher for 28 yearswho works in an elementary school near Anaheim, is lead plaintiffin a case set for oral arguments Monday. It is being closely watched because ofits potential to upend the public laborsector. Friedrichs v.California Teachers Association seeks to strike downthe requirement of California and more than 20 other states that publicemployees fund the union that bargains on their behalf even if they aren\’tmembers of the union.
The court is being asked to overrule its 1977 precedent in Aboodv. Detroit Board of Education authorizing states to require workerswho are not union members to pay so-called agency fees – the portion of uniondues that go for collective bargaining….
…But it is more of a political than aconstitutional issue, best answered on the state and local levels by voters andthe people they elect.
-Unions have contributed positively in many places? Funny, though, that although the post was perfectly able to enumerate pecific areas of damage, especially damage to children who have no defense against what the unions are doing, it does not cite one specific positive.Is that because the positives being referred to all accrue to the teachers and not the students? I\’bet body parts on it.
-It is true that if teachers get, for example, higher pay, it applies to all teachers, not just to union members. But why does that mean non-union teachers should pay up too? Non-union teachers get all the negatives of the union as well.When people criticize public schools where children do not learn, does the union make a point of distinguishing between its members and the non-union teachers who might not be blamed? When children go out into the world ill-prepared to handle even basic tasks like reading and simple math, the damage to society is suffered by both union and non-union teachers.To say that non-union teachers get union benefits ignores the fact that they suffer the consequences too. They didn\’t ask for either and shouldn\’t be made to subsidize the entity which causes both.-No matter how much harm teachers\’ unions have caused, the answer is not in the Supreme Court, it is political and should be addressed by the states.Does The Washington Post editorial board feel the same way about the Dred Scott decision? That was settled law also. How about any other “settled law” that has been changed or overturned by the Supreme Court? Or does the answer vary, by which positions the board likes and which ones it doesn\’t like?
Look, I\’m no legal scholar and I\’m no lawyer. But I do know that people should not be forced to pay for something they did not ask for and do not want. I also know that, when there is a situation which results in children being uneducated, the most important thing to do is fix the quality of education. Not to perpetuate a major cause of why it needs fixing.
