Are unions really the bogeyman?

by desertjim

I have been fascinated by the attacks directed at the auto industry over their request for government backed loans. Bankers and mortgage houses, with little Congressional debate, were awarded up to $700 billion to repair the credit industry they had destroyed. The auto industry has been lambasted in Congress and in the press since they asked for loans amounting to $25 billion. The difference seems to be that the auto industry is unionized. According to their critics, the awful union workers with their demands for health insurance, pension plans and decent wages (averaging around $28/hour - not the $70 touted by the news media) will soon drive Ford, Chrysler and GM to the brink of bankruptcy. In fact, base pay for a UAW worker is $24/hour and base pay at nonunion US Nissan is $21/hour. If the Big Three auto makers go under, the union isn’t likely to be the cause.

I bring this up on an educational website, because the attacks on the auto industry are part of a recent ratcheting up of anti-union rhetoric across the board.  The rhetoric includes several recent attacks agains teachers unions. Columnist David Brooks, in a discussion about President-elect Obama’s choice of a secretary of education says he needs to pick a reformer not someone who will support, “...the teacher’s unions and the members of the Ed School establishment, who emphasize greater funding, smaller class sizes and superficial reforms.” According to Brooks, union lobbying efforts against a real reformer are relentless.

A recent editorial in the Washington Post called for the selection of an education secretary who would encourage the kind of innovation and entrepreneurship typified by Teach for America’s Wendy Kopp. The Post is against someone who is, “[one of the] ‘incrementalists’ who are allied with teachers unions.” Interestingly enough, the Post puts reformer Linda-Darling Hammond in that group of incrementalists because she, like the teachers unions, has been more critical than supportive of No Child Left Behind.

I am not convinced that the unions are the bogeyman, either in the auto industry, or in public education. Of course, I am biased. I was an active teachers’ union member my whole career. As a result, I find myself in agreement with the organization of Teacher Activist Groups (TAG) that says, “Over the last 20 years in the US, education is becoming the business of education and we emphatically reject that model. We call upon the President-elect to choose someone who will embrace the ideas of civic involvement and public participation.” TAG specifically does not want a corporate executive with a vision of privatized, corporatized, and anti-democratic schools. Neither do I.

I think it would be useful to have discussions about ways to fix public education and help ailing auto companies that aren’t based entirely on the concept that unions are bad for America.

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